Primary Sources in Religion
The key primary sources for most religions are the religious texts themselves, but primary sources in religion can also include: books, works of art, pamphlets, sermons, government documents, and other contemporary writing by religious officials or members of a particular organization. Try searching for the names of people, legislation, or religious organizations.
Subject Terms for Primary Sources
Subject terms can be used to search JumboSearch for primary sources. Below is a list of subject terms that describe primary sources. You can pair these subject terms with key words related to your topic to find relevant primary sources. For example, you can search JumboSearch for "sermons" as a subject term and "slavery" as a keyword. This will return collections of sermons that address slavery.
Select Primary Source Collections from Tisch
Primary sources--such as original documents, essays, letters, diaries, interviews, works of art, and oral histories, can often be found collected in print volumes. Tisch Library has a wide array of print primary sources in its collection. Below is a sample of some of the resources that you can find but remember, this is only a sample, so use JumboSearch to find more or Ask a Librarian for help!
American Religion, American PoliticsCall Number: Book Stacks BL65.P7 .A44 2017Essential primary sources reveal the central tensions between American politics and religion throughout the nation's history. Despite the centrality of separation of church and state in American government, religion has played an important role in the nation's politics from colonial times through the present day. This essential anthology provides a fascinating history of religion in American politics and public life through a wide range of primary documents.
The Columbia Documentary History of Religion in America since 1945Call Number: Book Stacks BL2525 .C643 2005This collection of manifestos, Supreme Court decisions, congressional testimonies, speeches, articles, book excerpts, pastoral letters, interviews, song lyrics, memoirs, and poems reflects the vitality, diversity, and changing nature of religious belief and practice in American public and private life over the last half century. Also available as an e-book.
The Essential Debate on the Constitution - Federalist and Antifederalist Speeches and WritingsCall Number: Book Stacks KF5402 .E87 2018Return to the nation's founding to rediscover the dramatic original debates--on presidential power, religious liberty, foreign corruption, and more--that still shape our world today. Here, in chronological order, are more than sixty newspaper articles, pamphlets, speeches, and private letters written or delivered during the debate surrounding the ratification of the Constitution.
Not Your Usual Founding Father by Call Number: Book Stacks E302 .F82 2006Historian Edmund S. Morgan invites us to meet the man himself, a sociable, good-natured, and extraordinary human being with boundless curiosity about the natural world and a vision of what America could be. Also available as an e-book.
The Selected Papers of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. AnthonyCall Number: Book Stacks HQ1410 .A2525 1997Readers will enjoy an extraordinary collection of letters, speeches, articles, and diaries that tells a story-both personal and public-about abolition, temperance, and woman suffrage.
The Souls of Black Folk: Essays and Sketches by Call Number: Book Stacks E185.5 .D81 1904A seminal work in the history of sociology, and a cornerstone of African-American literature, Du Bois had transdisciplinary training and provided a historical context for black religion and culture. Also available as an e-book.
The Speeches of Frederick DouglassCall Number: Book Stacks E449 .D68 2018This volume brings together twenty of Frederick Douglass's most historically significant speeches on a range of issues, including slavery, abolitionism, civil rights, sectionalism, temperance, women's rights, economic development, and immigration. Also available as an e-book.
William Lloyd Garrison and the Fight Against SlaveryCall Number: Book Stacks E449 .G2477 1995Provides a substantial and wide-ranging selection of writings from The Liberator, the antislavery newspaper founded in 1831 by the preeminent abolitionist of his day, William Lloyd Garrison. The 41 selections offer the opportunity to read and analyze, firsthand, a broad spectrum of Garrison's writings on issues related to slavery.
American Literature in Tisch Library
Literature contemporary to the time period you are studying can help you to understand the cultural context of religion and politics in America. Remember, this is only a sample, so use JumboSearch to find more or Ask a Librarian for help!
All the King's Men by Call Number: Book Stacks PS3545.A748 A7 2001All the King's Men portrays the dramatic and theatrical political rise and governorship of Willie Stark, a cynical populist in the American South during the 1930s. The novel explores conceptions of Calvinist theology, such as original sin and total depravity.
The Crucible by Call Number: Book Stacks PS3525.I5156 C7Based on real events during the Salem Witch Trials in Puritan New England, Arthur Miller's play uses the destructive power of socially sanctioned violence unleashed by the rumors of witchcraft as a powerful parable about McCarthyism.
Go Tell It on the Mountain by Call Number: Book Stacks PS3552.A45 G62 1995James Baldwin's classic first novel captures a vivid and provocative portrait of the African-American religious and social experience.The Handmaid's Tale by
Call Number: Book Stacks PR9199.3.A8 H3 1986Set in a near-future New England, in a totalitarian state resembling a theonomy that has overthrown the United States government, the novel focuses on the journey of the handmaid Offred. Her name derives from the possessive form "of Fred"; handmaids are forbidden to use their birth names and must echo the male, or master, whom they serve.It Can't Happen Here by
Call Number: Book Stacks PS3523.E94 I8The novel juxtaposes sharp political satire with the chillingly realistic rise of a president who becomes a dictator to save the nation from welfare cheats, sex, crime, and a liberal press.
A Prayer for Owen Meany by Call Number: Book Stacks PS3559.R8 P7 1989John Wheelwright is an Anglican, and although he feels a strong sense of religious faith, he also experiences doubts about Christianity. John is fixated on his past life and the political conditions in the United States, in particular, the Reagan administration.
The Scarlet Letter by Call Number: Book Stacks PS1868 .B66 2011Nathaniel Hawthorne's classic tale of the social consequences of adultery and the subversive force of personal desire in a strict religious community.
Uncle Tom's Cabin by Call Number: Book Stacks PS2954 .U5 2011When Uncle Tom's Cabin was published in 1852 it caused a sensation. Its antislavery position proved to be one the most powerful cultural influences behind the Civil War. By emphasizing the moral failure inherent in slavery, it helped intensify the conflict between north and south.Wise Blood by
Call Number: PS3565.C57 W5 1975This tale of redemption, retribution, false prophets, blindness, blindings, and wisdoms gives us one of the most riveting characters in twentieth-century American fiction.
