literary research methodology

Methodologies

Barry Mauer and John Venecek

We discuss the following topics on this page:

Example [Marxist Theory Methodologies]

Example [critical race theory methodologies].

We also provide the following activity on this page:

Exercises [Discussion]

Methodologies (not to be confused with methods, which we discuss on the next page)   are linked to literary theories. Methodologies are necessary to working with theories. They serve as the interfaces between theory (purely conceptual) and praxis (practical application). Methodologies consist of tools and lines of investigation: sets of practices and propositions about texts and the world. Researchers using Marxist literary criticism adopt methodologies that seek to understand literature and its relationship to the world by looking to material forces like labor, ownership, and technology. These researchers also seek to understand authors not as inspired geniuses but as people whose lives and work are shaped by social, economic, and historical forces. Daniel Hartley, in his “Marxist Literary Criticism: An Introductory Reading Guide” (2018) describes some areas of inquiry and methodologies used by Marxist literary critics.

Areas of inquiry:

• Anthropological:  investigates the social functions of art
• Political:  investigates the link between literature and the political fortunes of classes and political systems such as capitalism and socialism
• Ideological:  investigates the link between literature and identity

Methodologies:

• Genetic Structuralism:  “Lucien Goldmann . . . examined the structure of literary texts to discover the degree to which it embodied the ‘world vision’ of the class to which the writer belonged. For Goldmann literary works are the product, not of individuals, but of the ‘transindividual mental structures’ of specific social groups. These ‘mental structures’ or ‘world visions’ are themselves understood as ideological constructions produced by specific historical conjunctures.”
• Dialectical criticism:  Emphasizes “reflexivity and totality: it stresses the way in which ‘the [critic’s] mind must deal with its own thought process just as much as with the material it works on’ (Fredric Jameson); it holds that literary works internalise social forms, situations and structures, yet simultaneously refuse them (thereby generating a critical negativity that resists vulgar economic or political reductionism); and it takes the mediated (not external or abstract) social totality as its ultimate critical purview.”

Jada, in her research about James Baldwin’s story, “Sonny’s Blues,” uses both Marxist theory and Critical Race Theory (CRT). Below are some of the methodologies that CRT researchers use.

Critical Race Theorists use a variety of methodologies, including

• Interest convergence: investigates whether marginalized groups only achieve progress when dominant groups benefit as well
• Intersectional theory: investigates how multiple factors of advantage and disadvantage around race, gender, ethnicity, religion, etc. operate together in complex ways
• Radical critique of the law: investigates how the law has historically been used to marginalize particular groups, such as black people, while recognizing that legal efforts are important to achieve emancipation and civil rights
• Social constructivism: investigates how race is socially constructed (rather than biologically grounded)
• Standpoint epistemology: investigates how knowledge relates to individual experience and social position
• Structural determinism: investigates how structures of thought and of organizations determine social outcomes

Wikipedia can help with finding methodologies. For instance, the page about Cultural Studies notes that the primary areas of study are about power , which consists of many other things (such as ideology, social relations, etc.) and discourse (the languages and world views found in and around texts). You can follow the citation links in wikipedia to research each methodology. Better still, use your library. Cultural Studies has subdivisions, which include New Historicism, Multiculturalism, and Postcolonialism. One methodology of Cultural Studies is radical contextualism, which “rejects universal accounts of cultural practices, meanings, and identities.”

Some psychological theories, such as Freudian and Lacanian, use a set of methodologies referred to as “symptomatic.” The analogy is to medicine and the ways in which doctors seek to diagnose a patient’s condition based on their presenting symptoms. Since many medical conditions can produce similar symptoms (for instance, chest congestion can be caused by a cold, the flu, COVID, and many other conditions), a doctor has to look closely at a set of symptoms, use their knowledge of various medical conditions and how they present, and reason abductively (from effects to causes) to figure out what the underlying condition is. Similarly, a Freudian or Lacanian reading of a literary text will look for clues related to the characters, narrator, author, or audience to determine what underlying conditions are present. These conditions may be cognitive (beliefs), affective (feelings), or interpersonal (relationships). They also can be a combination of these things.

Theorists don’t always label their methodologies as such. You need to look into each theory to see what positions the theorists take, what they study, and why. The “methods” part is about how they study. Not every methodology will work with every theory. You will need to do some research to discover which methodologies are most appropriate for your project.

• What methodologies will you be using for your paper? Why did you make this selection over others? If you haven’t made a selection yet, which methodologies are you considering?
• What specific concepts from the methodologies are you most interested in exploring in relation to your chosen literary work?
• What is your plan for researching your methodologies?
• When you do your assignments for this week about theory and methodology, you should refer to your earlier work – the literature you chose, the problem, etc. We are in building mode. Recall that the methodology relates directly to the theory. You may need to do some additional reading to identify methodologies and theories.
• If there are any elements of your assignment that need clarification, please list them.
• What was the most important lesson you learned from this page? What point was confusing or difficult to understand?

Methodologies Copyright © 2021 by Barry Mauer and John Venecek is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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The Handbook to Literary Research

Edited by Delia da Sousa Correa and W.R. Owens The Handbook to Literary Research is a practical guide for students embarking on postgraduate work in Literary Studies. It introduces and explains research techniques, methodologies and approaches to information resources, paying careful attention to the differences between countries and institutions, and providing a range of key examples. This fully updated second edition is divided into five sections which cover: • Tools of the trade-a brand new chapter outlining how to make the most of literary resources; • Textual scholarship and book history-explains key concepts and variations in editing, publishing and bibliography; • Issues and approaches in literary research-presents a critical overview of theoretical approaches essential to literary studies; • The dissertation-demonstrates how to approach, plan and write this important research exercise; • Glossary-provides comprehensive explanations of key terms, and a checklist of resources. Packed with useful tips and exercises and written by scholars with extensive experience as teachers and researchers in the field, this volume is the ideal handbook for those beginning postgraduate research in literature. Delia da Sousa Correa is Senior Lecturer in English at

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Research dos & don'ts.

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DON'T reinvent the wheel

Many scholars have spent their entire careers in your field, watching its developments in print and in person. Learn from them! The library is full of specialized guides, companions, encyclopedias, dictionaries, bibliographies, histories and other "reference" sources that will help orient you to a new area of research. Similarly, every works cited list can be a gold mine of useful readings.

DO get to know your field

• Know Your Field , a module from Unabridged On Demand, offers tips, thought prompts, and links to resources for quickly learning about and staying current with an area of scholarly study.
• How do I find other sources that have cited a particular article or book? (Harvard Library FAQ) - also known as cited reference searching or reverse footnote-mining, this method helps you move forward from a really great source to the most recent scholarship on that same topic.
• Find Background (from the guide to Literary Research in Harvard Libraries) - how to find scholarly companions and guides that summarize and synthesize the research literature on a topic.
• Use HOLLIS to browse the literature section of the Loker Reading Room reference collection - Loker Reading Room, on the second floor of Widener, holds the most frequently consulted volumes of Widener's print reference collection. Use this browse to get a sense of the types of reference works that exist.
• James Harner's Literary Research Guide: an Annotated Listing of Reference Sources in English Literary Studies - a discontinued classic whose 2014 edition is now freely available on GitHub. For many topics, a decades-old reference source may still be the standard. This is especially true for the types of reference sources that are less likely to be published today, such as directories, inventories, and guides to collections.

DON'T treat every search box like Google or ChatGPT

Break free of the search habits that Google and generative AI have taught you! Learn to pay attention to how a search system operates and what is in it, and to adjust your search inputs accordingly.

Google and generative AI interfaces train you to type in your question as you would say it to another person. They give you the illusion of a search box that can read your thoughts and that access the entire internet. That's not what's actually happening, of course! Google is giving you the results others have clicked on most while generative AI is giving you the output that is most probable based on your input. Other search systems, like the library catalog, might be matching your search inputs to highly structured, human-curated data. They give the best results when you select specific keywords and make use of the database's specialized search tools.

DO adjust your language

Searching often means thinking in someone else's language, whether it's the librarians who created HOLLIS's subject vocabularies, or the scholars whose works you want to find in JSTOR, or the people of another era whose ideas you're trying to find in historical newspapers. The Search Vocabulary page on the general topic guide for literary studies is a great place to start for subject vocabularies.

Learn more about searching:

• Database Search Tips from MIT: a great, concise introduction to Booleans, keywords v. subjects, and search fields
• Improve Your Search , a module from our library research intensive, Unabridged On Demand

Search technique handouts

• "Search Smarter" Bookmark Simple steps to improve your searching, plus a quick guide to the search commands HOLLIS uses
• Decoding a database A two-page guide to the most effective ways to quickly familiarize yourself with a new system.
• Optimize Your Search A 3-column review of the basic search-strategy differences between Google and systems like JSTOR or HOLLIS.

DON'T search in just one place

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DO SEARCH A VARIETY OF RESOURCES

There's always one more site you could  search, but eventually you will experience diminishing returns. For most research projects, I recommend searching at least 4 types of systems:

• Your library catalog ,  HOLLIS
• A subject-specific scholarly index , such as the MLA International Bibliography , LION (Literature Online) , or the IMB (International Medieval Bibliography)
• A full-text collection of scholarship,  such as JSTOR or ProjectMuse
• One of Google's full-text searches,   Google Scholar or Google Books

DO look beyond the library's collections

The library purchases and licenses materials for your use. Harvard's collections are some of the best in the world. And yet: there is a lot more to discover beyond Harvard, from open-access projects on the open web to other institutions' archives and special collections. Schedule a conversation with a librarian to discover the best resources for your specific project.

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