This guide offers some useful starting places for your research on food and culture. Please feel free to contact me for help navigating these resources or finding sources for your individual research topics. I'm happy to work with you on any aspect of the research process.
SuperSearch can be a great place to get a panoramic view of a topic from a wide variety of sources. Some tips:
Specialized encyclopedias, handbooks, companions, and other reference sources can be great places to explore a topic. They can summarize knowledge around a topic, synthesize scholarly discussions, and define key concepts. They often include bibliographies as well, making them a good resource for identifying key books and articles on a topic. Try searching for a topic in one of the following databases to search multiple reference sources at once.
Current, peer-reviewed research, across 25 encyclopedias, including the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Food Studies!
Trial access through December 20, 2024. Please send your feedback to Laura O'Brien at lobrien@wellesley.edu
Search across full-text encyclopedias, dictionaries, and other reference books in a variety of subject areas.
Annotated bibliographies for a variety of subject areas.
Over 400 full-text academic encyclopedias, language dictionaries, books of quotations, and other sources. Includes subject-specific titles from art, classics, history, law, linguistics, literature, media studies, medicine, performing arts, philosophy, religion, science and technology, politics, and more.
You can also search or browse individual encyclopedias. Here are some selected titles related to food studies.
The Oxford Companion to Food (e-book)
Encyclopedia of Agriculture and Food Systems (e-book)]
Encyclopedia of Food and Culture (e-book)
The Cambridge World History of Food (e-book)
The Oxford Handbook of Food EthicsWatch this 3-minute video about how choosing and adjusting your topic is an integral part of the research process! (from North Carolina State University Libraries)