The Voice of Shuttle's Resources for an English Major

There are lots of resources available on English literature on the Web site The Voice of Shuttle at http://vos.ucsb.edu/. There were many divisions of English literature that were divided into further sub-categories. There were a few that I thought could be interesting upon closer evaluation. Those included “Contemporary (Brit. & Amer.),” “Creative Writing,” and “American Literature.”

Within the division of “Contemporary (Brit. & Amer.),” there are subdivisions with lists of links. One of the divisions deals with the Beats, a favorite topic of mine. However, I think it’s time I delve into something new. In the British category, there’s a subdivision called “Bohemian Ink: Guide to Writers of Coffee, Angst, & Experimentation” that seems particularly interesting. The link “Modern Boheme” did not originally work, but after finding the correct URL, it is a very cool Web site (http://www.levity.com/corduroy/). Called “Bohemian Ink: literary underground review,” it contains links for different magazines and zines, Spoken Word resources, performance art, and alternative publishing. They have different categories such as “Subterraneans” which offers different pages for “writers of the underground who have surfaced in certain circles and cliques, but have yet to break the major league skin.” They have another category with pages for the Beat writers. Apparently I am just attracted to this kind of writing.

In “Creative Writing,” there are lots of links to various works by authors of fiction and poetry. There are links for various publications. AHA! Poetry (http://www.ahapoetry.com/homepage.htm) offers even more links for writers including resources to find a publisher and reading an issue of a magazine. The Web site however, does appear to be outdated.

In “American Literature,” there are resources pertaining to various eras of American literary history. As I have recently taken a class on Early American Literature, the link for “American Literature on the Web: 1620-1820” was of particular interest to me. It was a simple Webs site with brief timelines and summaries (http://www.nagasaki-gaigo.ac.jp/ishikawa/amlit/17_8/overview17_8.htm). It would be helpful if a quick idea was needed of a particular time or event in American history. It had standard authors from that time period with a biography and list of works with links to those pieces. It would be helpful in the event of searching for the right author for a particular research project.

Overall, I believe that The Voice of Shuttle is a great resource to find even more resources for an English major. My main critique would be that a lot of the links have not been updated for a while so searching for recently updated sites might be tricky.