From Promethius to Nietzsche : A Research Bibliography for The Fountainhead

Tweethis Statement: In a world of conflicting values in the realms of expression and innovation, digital media has emerged as a powerful player in the creative process and has reignited the fires of creativity both for individuals and for the collective web-populace.

Branden, Nathaniel. My Years with Ayn Rand. Ed. Ayn Rand. 1st ed. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1999. Print.

• Biography
• HBLL Bookshelves
• The revealing story of Branden and Rand, whose relationship began as student to teacher and progressed through friendship to lovers and finally to adversaries. A very personal account of Rand's character and persona from the perspective of someone once very close to her.

Cashman, Mark. "Does Information Technology make Us Smarter?: If so, how; if Not, Why Not?" ACM SIGCHI Bulletin 1995: 52-3. Print.

• Scholarly Article
• HBLL Online Database
• http://delivery.acm.org/10.1145/580000/570125/p52-cashman.pdf?ip=128.187.73.9&acc=ACTIVE%20SERVICE&CFID=104423253&CFTOKEN=67093345&__acm__=1337606419_6e9d0f95476f635518842c599a8490b7
• Gives a psychological approach to information technology as applied to creativity, conceptualization, and consciousness. 

Fand, Roxanne J. "Reading the Fountainhead: The Missing Self in Ayn Rand's Ethical Individualism." College English 2009: 486-505. Print.

• Scholarly Article
• National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) Database and MLA Bibliography
• http://www.ncte.org.erl.lib.byu.edu/library/NCTEFiles/Resources/Journals/CE/0715-may09/VM0715Reading.pdf
• Discusses a professor's experiences in presenting The Fountainhead in her Literature and Popular Culture course and investigates the creative and controlling personality and ideology of Howard Roark.  

Heller, Anne Conover. Ayn Rand and the World She made. 1st ed. New York: Nan A. Talese, 2009. Print.

• Biography
• HBLL Bookshelves
• An overview of Rand's life, beginning with her troubled childhood in St. Petersberg and taking the reader through her emigration to the U.S. and along the path of her career in writing and philosophy. Also discusses the cult of Objectivism, particularly evident among younger generations.

Hunt, Lester H. "Thus Spake Howard Roark: Nietzschean Ideas in the Fountainhead." Philosophy and Literature 2006: 79-101. Print.

• Scholarly Article
• Project MUSE and MLA Bibliography
• http://philosophy.wisc.edu/hunt/nietzsche&fountainhead.htm
• Discusses (you guessed it!) Nietzschean ideas presented in The Fountainhead and gives some interesting commentary into academia's views of Rand.

Montmarquet, James. "Prometheus: Ayn Rand's Ethic of Creation." Journal of Ayn Rand Studies 2011: 3-18. Print.

• Scholarly Article
• Referenced on an Objectivist blog
• Obtained through HBLL's Inter-Library Loan from Baylor University
• An evaluation of the virtue of self-interest presented in The Fountainhead as contrasted with Aristotelian self-love. Explores the "ethic of creation" and discusses the death of the Promethian ideal of creation.

Peppler, Kylie A. and Solomou, Maria. "Building Creativity: Collaborative Learning and Creativity in Social Media Environments." On the Horizon 2011: 13-23. Print.

• Scholarly Article
• HBLL Online Database
• http://sfx.lib.byu.edu/sfxlcl3?ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&ctx_enc=info:ofi/enc:UTF-8&ctx_tim=2012-05-22T18%3A45%3A29IST&url_ver=Z39.88-2004&url_ctx_fmt=infofi/fmt:kev:mtx:ctx&rfr_id=info:sid/primo.exlibrisgroup.com:primo3-Article-emerald&rft_val_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:&rft.genre=article&rft.atitle=Building%20creativity:%20collaborative%20learning%20and%20creativity%20in%20social%20media%20environments&rft.jtitle=On%20the%20Horizon&rft.btitle=&rft.aulast=&rft.auinit=&rft.auinit1=&rft.auinitm=&rft.ausuffix=&rft.au=Kylie%20A.%20Peppler&rft.aucorp=&rft.date=2011&rft.volume=19&rft.issue=1&rft.part=&rft.quarter=&rft.ssn=&rft.spage=13&rft.epage=23&rft.pages=&rft.artnum=&rft.issn=1074-8121&rft.eissn=&rft.isbn=&rft.sici=&rft.coden=&rft.object_id=&rft_dat=%3Cemerald%3E10.1108/10748121111107672%3C/emerald%3E&rft.eisbn=&rft.pub=Emerald%20Group%20Publishing%20Limited&rft.place=&rft.date=2011&rft.edition=&rft_id=
• Investigates social media's place in the creative process; lays out the general idea behind Quest Atlantis, an online architectural social community based on the diametric ideologies presented in Rand's The Fountainhead. Discusses the idea of collaborative creativity as evinced in the Quest Atlantis online world. 

Powell, Robert L. "Ayn Rand's Heroes: Between and Beyond Good and Evil." 2007. Print.

• PhD Dissertation (Scholarly Article)
• HBLL Online Database
• http://search.proquest.com.erl.lib.byu.edu/docview/305328847/fulltextPDF/136D5013ADA72588498/1?accountid=4488
• Examines the romantic and existentialist aspects of Rand's works and discusses ideas of existential self-actualization and of collective information bases.

Sciabarra, Chris Matthew. Ayn Rand: Her Life and Thought. Poughkeepsie, New York: The Atlas Society. 1996. Print.

• Monograph
• Found through Wikipedia
• (Still trying to get a copy of this. I've found excerpts, but the book itself is $200 from Barnes and Noble, and I haven't been able to find it elsewhere. Maybe through ILLiad)
• A biography about Rand's upbringing and the foundations of her philosophies within a reactionary anti-Communist experience and an eventual relocation to America.

Valiunas, Algis. "Who Needs Ayn Rand?". Commentary 2005: 59-62. Print.

• Scholarly Article
• HBLL Online Database
• Recommended by Adam Sorenson
• Discusses Rand's impact on various aspects of society -- especially on pop culture -- and introduces some of Rand's foundational philosophies with regard to the self.

As for a scholarly/archived edition of The Fountainhead, neither I nor two humanities librarians have been able to find anything. I'll keep looking, but for now I am focusing on a companion text that should provide comparable scholarly commentary on the work:


Gladstein, Mim Reisel. The New Ayn Rand Companion, Revised and Expanded Edition. Greenwood Press. Westport, Connecticuit. 1999. Print.

• Companion reference
• HBLL Bookshelves
• Scholarly commentary on a number of Rand's novels, including character analysis, theme evaluation, analysis of historical and fictional elements within the novels, and criticism for each of the novels.

Bibliography and Sound Recordings. Ayn Rand Institute. Online.

• Bibliography
• Found using "Special Collections" tag in a Google search.
• http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename=about_ayn_rand_archives_biblio
• A list of primary and secondary resources as to Ayn Rand's writing and philosophy.

In general, this process of compiling sources has been a good one for me. It's been a bit of a stress trying to find specific types of resources, and I honestly feel that it's dampened my excitement for the subject, but in other regards, I've really come to life. I've stumbled upon a lot of psychology and philosophy as I've been reading, and it's been fun to revisit some old friends in that regard. Getting some of my sources together has really helped me to see that I want to focus more so on the psychological aspect of my research, so I've been looking for literature that corresponds to that.