A Guide to Religion and Philosophy Resources
Introduction:
The modern term religion is neither a native category nor a first-person term of self-characterization. Categories of religion were constructed by European colonizers in order to describe characteristics of the colonized. As an anthropological construction, religion becomes an organizational tool for anthropologists to cope with large amounts of data and phenomena of human experience and expressions. As Jonathan Z. Smith suggests in his seminal introduction to Imagining Religion, “Religion is solely the creation of the scholar’s study. It is created for the scholar’s analytic purposes by his imaginative acts of comparison and generalization.” If we imagine religion in Smith’s terms, religion can be thought of us an arbitrary designation for human experience and expressions and an investigation of religion can and should include an investigation of ritual, culture, literature, anthropology, archeology, ethnic studies, history or philology.
The first European usage of philosophy was appropriated by early Christian theologians, such as Thomas Aquinas, from the Greek philosophia in order to differentiate popular religious language from more rigorous and systematic proofs to God’s existence. Philosophical categories such as philosophy of ethics, art, and religion evolved and separated from a strict theological understanding of philosophy.
Even with a simple understanding of the terms religion and philosophy, you should realize that a scholarly or general inquiry into these fields need not be restricted to strictly theological, religion, or philosophical resources. In fact, many of the TexShare databases will index journals and sources that will encompass the many and varied categories associated with religion and philosophy. Let’s look at some of the varieties of possible religion and or philosophy questions (from the basic to complex) that a patron might ask, and how TexShare databases can help us answer them.
EXAMPLES
Question: In my San Antonio Historical Society meeting, we are trying to learn more about the history of Catholic missions in and around San Antonio. Can you help us find some resources on Missions in San Antonio?
HeritageQuest Online is an ideal electronic resource for finding information on historical aspects of a particular place or person especially if the location is a small to mid-size town. By selecting Search Persi from the HeritageQuest homepage and the Places option on the Search Persi screen, you will be presented with four search boxes that allow you to search for terms in state, county, keyword, and record fields. Select “Texas” from the pull-down menu in the state field, enter “mission” in the keyword field, and for the widest variety of records, select “all” from the pull-down menu in the record field. The results list will include several periodical articles, cemetery records and newspaper pieces pertaining to Catholic missions in San Antonio. Note: the county and keyword fields are optional.Question: In my community college course entitled, “History of Religions,” I am supposed to write a paper on the concept of “sacrifice,” from the perspective of several different religious traditions. What is the best source for full-text, scholarly articles on my topic?
Academic Search Premier is the best multi-disciplinary academic database for any topic pertaining to the humanities and social sciences. Because it indexes such journals as History of Religions, Modern Theology, and Humanist and Numen, Academic Search Premier is a good source for scholarly journal articles on theories and critical studies on religions, religious concepts or theology. By entering the keywords “sacrifice” and “religions” in the Basic Search box and refining the search by selecting full-text and scholarly journals, the database will offer about thirty relevant articles on sacrifice within the Christian, Hindu, Islamic, Aztec, and Confucius traditions.
Question: My son was born with Parkinson’s Disease, and I have heard that research using stem cells from fetuses might offer promising new treatments in the future. Can you help me find information on the ethical/philosophical implications of stem cell research?
Medline with MeSH can appear daunting to novice users, but it is a powerful database for anything related to medicine including medical ethics. Using the MeSh search option, enter “stem cell research” (keep these terms grouped by using quotes) in the browse box and Medline will prompt you to select a medical heading (MH) from a group of medical headings that best fit “stem cell research.” Click on the appropriate MH (try "fetal research") and click add. Next, browse for the term “ethics” and select the appropriate MH (try "ethics") and click add to search. Make sure you combine both medical headings with and before you click on the search button. Because you have used MeSH, your results list will be more refined and manageable.This page was written by Cheryl Beaver in Spring 2005.
This page was revised by Danielle Skaggs in Spring 2006.
INF 382S: Library Instruction and Information Literacy, taught by Dr. Loriene Roy
School of Information,
The University of Texas at Austin