#jstor access in prison

[jstor]

We are pleased to share a significant milestone: JSTOR is now available free of charge in 1,000 correctional facilities worldwide, benefiting more than 500,000 incarcerated individuals. This accomplishment, made achievable through the generous backing of the Mellon Foundation, highlights JSTOR's steadfast dedication to promoting inclusive education.

Learn more about the JSTOR Access in Prison program.

[dionysus-complex]

you mentioned you specialize in roman violence. can you rec any good works on the subject, especially during the late antique period? how much (or little) time/writing did latin authors spend on the question of the necessity/morality/glory of violence, especially when bound up with empire and borders? did rhetoric around domestic violence evolve?

It's obviously a massive topic, so it's difficult to know where to begin! For looking at violence in Late Antiquity, I highly recommend the work of Maijastina Kahlos as a starting point - most of her scholarship deals with tensions between religious communities in the Roman Empire in Late Antiquity, and I've found it extremely clear and illuminating. For Late Antique slavery, I'd look at Jennifer Trimble's work, especially "The Zoninus Collar and the Archaeology of Roman Slavery" (2016, JSTOR link here). On the intersections of violence and the legal system, I'd recommend Sarah Bond's 2014 article "Altering Infamy: Status, Violence, and Civic Exclusion in Late Antiquity" (JSTOR link here) as well as Julia Hillner's 2015 book Prison, Punishment and Penance in Late Antiquity. Amy Richlin is essential reading on Roman violence in general, and I'd highly highly recommend her piece "Cicero's Head" in Constructions of the Classical Body (ed. James Porter, 1999) if you have access to an academic library and can get a hold of it; it's explicitly framed as a Jewish, post-Holocaust reflection on the violence of the Roman proscriptions and civil wars and has been profoundly influential on my own thinking.

In general, Imperial-era Latin authors spend a lot of time thinking about the necessity/morality/glory of violence, to the point that I'd say violence is the key theme in Imperial Latin literature. It's often bound up with Stoic philosophy (in the 1st-2nd c. CE; Seneca's De Ira is a key text - you might take a look at sections 3.18-19 on torture under Caligula), and given the bias of our sources which skew toward the elite/senatorial-class perspective, it can be harder to track down texts that explicitly make the link between violence and Roman imperium. One famous example is the speech of Calgacus in Tacitus' Agricola 29-32 (link to a translation here), which purports to be the speech of a Celtic general in Britain rousing his troops to battle against the Romans in the 80s CE. Given that speeches in Roman historiography are generally regarded as being compositions by the historian, it's important to ask why exactly Tacitus of all people gives a prominent place to a scathing critique of Roman imperium - there are lots of ideas on this and few definitive answers, but it's a startling passage to say the least.

Imperial Latin epic poetry (e.g. Lucan's Bellum Civile; Statius' Thebaid) is well known for being graphically violent in the extreme (as in brutal torture, dismemberment, and one infamous instance of brain-eating in Thebaid 8), and there's a lot of work on how and why violence becomes highly aestheticized for Imperial Latin poets. There's also the genre of Roman declamation (difficult to explain, but essentially something like mock trial cases that were used for rhetorical education and showmanship), which frequently explores extremely violent scenarios involving torture, kin-killing, etc. Most scholars these days tend to read declamation as a space where (elite, male) Romans worked out and interrogated various cultural anxieties and taboos. Because of this, you get some of the strongest condemnations of violence found anywhere in Latin literature in the declamatory corpus, but it's difficult to extrapolate from that because again it's something like mock trial and rhetorical showmanship that does not necessarily map on to real-life Roman attitudes.

I've barely scratched the surface and there's a lot more I could say but I'll cut myself off here - I might be able to offer more specific recs if you're interested in e.g. violence as spectacle, aesthetics and artistic representations of violence, etc.

[thatfrenchacademic]

Oh JSTOR... You didn't think this one through.... did you...

Purposefully NOT tagging the Tumblr JSTOR account because they gotta do what they gotta do and a job is a job and I am not here to bring them misery.

But. Jstor community manager person. If you end up seeing this. You really might to pass every communication through the "would this make people remember that time where we supported the prosecution to hell and back of a guy who had the audacity make academic articles accessible and was facing decades of prison and millions of dollars in fine and ended up killing himself" filter.

Just. you know. if you don't, we'll keep bringing it up. And tbf if you do we'll also keep bringing it up, but you might at least avoid that kind of twitter oopsie.

[bellshazes]

my first two jobs ever, in order, were "board game teacher" and "university library assistant," so tho I've never formally studied games (I have been dropping out of college on and off since 2015, and was a freshman in 2012 lmao) I've been casually exposed to games and the people who make and play them in a professional context, as well as having the research skills to help close the gaps. i actually kind of hate playing board games but i loved GM-ing the coop arkham horror and watching my players, which i did for seven years straight.

my current fixation is the result of several years' fucking around on YT watching all kinds of game content, from LPs to specific game dissection to video essayists. jacob geller and folding ideas are kind of gold standards, but this week I've been really enjoying errant signals in particular. Sometimes I'm introduced to concepts this way - ludonarrative dissonance, ergodic literature, the magic circle, etc. that, and getting recommendations from friends or accidentally stumbling into game studies via other research (such as the paper i wrote a few years ago on theater-as-games in prison contexts). most of it though is having thoughts and opinions on things and letting it percolate until i am dangerous enough to find someone who's already explained a concept better than I could, and then running with that. find something that cites its sources, and then chase the ones that seem interesting.

my syllabus post is very much not a reclist, though i do in varying ways recommend everything on that list and it might be of use. here's some stuff I think would be great starting points:

Rules of Play - Game Design Fundamentals, Salen and Zimmerman. This book is an excellent resource, as it introduces a wide variety of scholars who you can dive into as it is relevant to your interests as well as providing tons of useful frameworks and vocabulary to go hunting. It's an easy read with concise bullet-point summaries after each chapter, and the PDF is hyperlinked for easy navigation. I might have found this via Wikipedia, honestly.

A Play of Bodies: A Phenomenology of Video Game Experience, Keogh. What I'm currently liveblogging - it is firmly a literary/philosophical work, rather than by/for designers, and correspondingly it's a little more difficult without at least passing familiarity with cyborg theory or any brand or offshoot of post-modernism, but still fairly digestible and a great read so far.

My Life as a Night Elf Priest: An Anthropological Account of World of Warcraft, Nardi. Found this during my theater-and-games paper, and MMO anthropology is not really my thing, but it's a nice complement to the other books as an explicitly player-theorist perspective. Also provides a more approachable introduction to a variety of theorists and sources. (Open access on JSTOR!)

Draw Your Weapons, Sarah Sentilles. I'm biased because I discovered this book by accidentally attending an author event at my local museum, and the games portion is incidental, but if you can find it I think this analysis of the relationship between depictions of violence and violence itself is worth your time. Memorable re: games for its discussion of Press F To Pay Respects.

here are some videos which I offer as examples of channels you might enjoy diving into, looking for additional jumping-off points:

Playing as Anyone in Watch Dogs Legion, Errant Signal. I really appreciate Errant Signal's thoughtful, personal approach to analysis and especially his highlighting of buried gems in his Blips series as well as his non-self-deprecating reevaluation of some of his older analyses over his decade plus career making videos.

Controllers Control Everything, Game Makers Toolkit. Discovered via the Boss Keys series highlighting the souls games, and although I think his channel is (increasingly) geared toward devs, these are well-constructed, thoughtful videos about many aspects of game design. Even when I don't personally get what makes him enjoy Zelda dungeons in that specific way (I'm an outlier), I appreciate his analysis.

Mega Microvideos 2, Matthewmatosis. Perhaps better known for his extremely long-form essays, I love Matthewmatosis' series of microessays framed like Wario Ware minigames. They are brief but don't pull punches, and the format is uniquely delightful. (See also this microessay mixtape.)

Making Sense of Catherine Full Body, SuperButterBuns. She doesn't do much essay content, I guess, but I she loves Catherine and the Persona series, and this dissection of Catherine Full Body is an absolute treat.

Jon Bois. Okay, mostly not about games, but like - come on. 17776 and Breaking Madden, alongside everything else he's ever done, fit because I feel like they do. If nothing else, I think Pretty Good and his general use of Google Earth as a medium for storytelling have a lot of utility in talking about digital media. He's good for the soul.

The Future of Writing About Games, Jacob Geller. One of the gold standards for a reason - and especially if you're looking for further solid recommendations for other writing/creating about games. This video in particular discusses & links to some really great pieces, but his Big List of Other People's Video Essays is also a great way to spend the next month of your life. (You might notice some crossover between this list and his, only some of which is coincidental.)

if i have any conclusion, it's that my current fixation on digital literalism is me finally finding an outlet/academic match-up with a fascination i developed in 2015 when studying gonzo lit. i think the utility of academia and the long history of scholarship on a given topic, as a non-academic, is to help you express ideas or reinterpret beliefs or experiences you've had to others without having to reinvent the wheel. i always become most energized when i stop worrying about knowing all the bg and chase whatever is useful and affirming or enlightening to me. and you can get pretty far if you think about why you like what you do, and just - enthusiastically also consume non-academic stuff. maybe this is a note more for myself! but thank you for the opportunity to monologue.

[anissapierce]

Finding out from my professor tht jstor convinced many institutions to throw out their old periodicals.....to then lock those same institutions to buying access from them .... Like the dude who made is from stanford or sth. Neway thought id share tht not to discount the part Abt sharing to prison but its kinda wild how the tactics of venture capitol (make sth cheap drive out competition then rake it in by being a monopoly ppl need) existed Early

[mhouellebecq]

I think you’re lying. I think you do know it’s a website you can visit (try typing chatgpt.com into your search bar). A girl from my high school reposted an infographic that was in a similar vein to the post above (“Ermmm, AI? What’s that? I don’t need that because I’m not dumb”), but the truth is she is very dumb and she is perennially falling victim to Cashapp pyramid schemes.

ChatGPT is great and can be used for school in a totally legitimate manner. You can ask it “how come dSt is always nonnegative even when dWt is negative (geometric Brownian motion)” and it will know exactly what you’re talking about and find the answer. “Ermm, it only knows that because the model is trained on plagariaized material.” The same libtards saying that creamed their pants when Aaron Swartz did the same thing, except he didn’t do anything cool with all the textbooks he stole from JSTOR, he just uploaded them to LibGen and roped himself when he realized he was going to do maybe 3 months in prison. It’s all about “Open access to educational materials sweaty 💅💅” until someone achieves something amazing and then all of a sudden people care deeply about the poor little authors of pirated textbooks.

LLMs and other AI are amazing technologies. The guys who pioneered them have already won a well deserved Nobel Prize. Anyone who poo poos their achievements is a seething little Ayn Rand villain.

it really is crazy how quickly people were willing to just let chatgpt do everything for them. i have never even tried it. brother i don't even know if it's just a website you go to or what. i do not know where chatgpt actually lives, because i can decide my own grocery list.

[capodieci-blog]

TL;DR version: It just came out that Meta downloaded via Torrent over 80 terabytes of books taken from LibGen, Anna's Archive, and Z-Library to train their AI models, and nobody is guilty. In contrast, in 2010, Aaron Swartz downloaded just 70 GB of academic articles from JSTOR (only 0.0854% of what Meta took) and faced $1 million in fines and 35 years in prison. Unable to bear the situation, he took his own life in 2013.

Full version: Aaron Swartz (November 8, 1986 – January 11, 2013) was a brilliant IT mind. He contributed to the development of RSS, the architecture of Creative Commons, the web.py framework, and even helped define the Markdown syntax. He was also a co-owner of Reddit.

His "crime"? Downloading academic papers to make knowledge freely accessible. The punishment? Potential life in prison.

Now Meta has been reported to have downloaded via Torrent over 80 terabytes of books to train their AI. Seems that not a single executive is facing prison time.

IMO knowledge should be open, free, and accessible to all. Authors should be fairly compensated by governments, ensuring their work remains available to everyone without barriers. This way, authors earn a stable income, and humanity benefits from unrestricted knowledge.

We can't bring back Aaron Swartz, but we can fight for a future where knowledge is truly free.

What do you think?

[campbellschunkybear]

Being an US historian who's interested in Golden Kamuy is suffering bc WHYYYYY I'm trying to read more about Japanese prisons/Abashiri specifically, the treatment of prisoners, the Russo-Japanese war, etc. But when I look shit up at my library its only WWII stuff/about AMERICAN POWs like. I miss having access to JSTOR and my university's libraryyyy

[jstor]

April is Second Chance Month, a month dedicated to celebrating fresh starts and the breaking of barriers for incarcerated and formerly incarcerated individuals.

All month long, JSTOR Access in Prison has been sharing a compelling series of essays, reflections, and creative work from incarcerated writers, educators, and advocates. The series explores how access to knowledge nurtures growth and community—even in the most restrictive environments.

Read the full series on the JSTOR Blog.

Image: "The Truth Is Prisons Are..." 2016. Courtesy of the Richard F. Brush Art Gallery.

[ariverablog]

Color of Change

According to their website, “Color of Change is the nation’s largest online racial justice organization.” The non-profit organization is dedicated to shedding light on injustices and racial aggressions against Black people around the world. The organization effectively responds to those injustices by influencing those in power to make changes, such as those in government and large corporations. Color of Change is just one of many organizations working across the world to take down the powers that keep racism and injustice in place.

Although Color of Change was only founded in 2005, its mission and activism can be felt throughout history within so many others that fought for Black justice. During the Great depression, as unemployment rates grew and money grew scarce, African Americans were at the bottom of the totem pole when it came to jobs. Forced to choose between starvation and survival, many African Americans were forced to turn to public relief during the economic crisis. When the National Recovery Administration failed to eliminate discrimination in the workplace for Black workers, activists fought for justice. John L. Lewis fought for Black workers to be included in unions and demanded equal pay. Another group similar to Color of Change, called the Committee for Industrial Organization, organized massive campaigns across the country urging “racial equality in Union membership.” (Takaki, 1993, p. 334) The United Auto Workers union was finally recognized and won wage increases in 1941. Takaki states, “While these achievements  did not mean the end of racism among white workers, they demonstrated that interracial labor solidarity was essential.” (Takaki, 1993, p. 335) These same sentiments can be seen through the activism Color of Change brings forth with every new movement.

(Image Source: https://todayinlaborhistory.wordpress.com/tag/cio/)

As time continued to move forward, so did the fight for equality for Black Americans. Closer to home, in Milwaukee, during the Civil Rights Movement, the March on Milwaukee took place. On August 28th, 1967, “over one hundred members of the Milwaukee Youth Council of the NAACP” marched from their headquarters on north 15th Street, across the 16th Street Viaduct, south to Kosciuszko Park on Lincoln Ave in the fight for fair and open housing, regardless of race (Rozga, 2007, p. 29). Rioters in opposition of open housing harassed the marches on the southside of the viaduct, the bridge connecting the predominantly African American northside to the White southside. Color of Change organizes similar movements and protests for modern issues such as ending prison profiteering, hair policies for Black employees in corporations, reliable access to clean water in predominantly Black communities, ending anti-Black narratives in the media, etc.

(Image Source: https://milwaukeenns.org/open-housing/open-housing-marches-placed-spotlight-on-racial-discrimination-segregation.php)

In her article White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack, Peggy McIntosh stated, “simply disapproving of the systems that hold systemic racism in power won’t be enough to change them.” (McIntosh, 2010). Color of Change has initiated reformations across many entities including local criminal justice systems, tech corporations, media, and even Fortune 500 companies. The platform Color of Change has now, in modern times, is larger than many had in the past. Color of Change arms the most vulnerable groups with the means and voice to make significant strides forward in the name of equality.

(Image Source: https://airlift.fund/news/2018/3/19/color-of-change-named-2-on-fast-companys-most-innovative-non-profits)

References

“About Color of Change.” Color of Change, colorofchange.org/about/. Accessed 2 May 2024.

Margaret Rozga. “March on Milwaukee.” The Wisconsin Magazine of History, vol. 90, no. 4, 2007, pp. 28–39. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/4637228. Accessed 2 May 2024.

McIntosh, Peggy. “‘White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack’ and ‘Some Notes for Facilitators.’” National SEED Project, 2010, www.nationalseedproject.org/key-seed-texts/white-privilege-unpacking-the-invisible-knapsack.

Takaki, Ronald. “To ‘the Land of Hope’: Blacks in the Urban North.” A Different Mirror: A History of Multicultural America, Little, Brown and Company, 1993, pp. 311–335.

[surfixx]

Exploring the Dark Side of the Internet

Cybercrime, the term for computer-based crimes, is a vast category of offenses that includes hacking and related activities. Many criminals commit cybercrime for monetary gain, such as through wire transfer scams or by stealing account information, personal data and intellectual property. Others may be looking for recognition, status or fame. Still others are motivated by political or social perspectives, such as hacktivists who work to bypass government censorship or help citizens organize and protest.

Cybercriminals also target high-net-worth individuals for their assets and financial information, including access to bank accounts, credit cards and online brokerage accounts. To accomplish this, the thief often hacks into the victim's device or network, then uses a malicious software attack called malware to infect the system. Once the criminal has the malware on a system, they can steal money and other assets from the victim's accounts by accessing the information that was downloaded.

Another form of hacktivism involves releasing information that can be used to expose bad behavior by a company or organization. Hacktivists can make this information public through a website, such as Wikileaks or by making it available to the media. An example of a hacktivist action that can result in exposure is geo-bombing, when hackers alter the techogle.co code of a website or program to display its location on Google Earth and Google Maps. For instance, in an attempt to demonstrate anti-nuclear sentiment, two Melbourne-based hackers hacked into the DECnet computer network and released a virus known as W.A.N.K and OILZ.

During the Arab Spring, hacktivists helped people communicate and organize through the use of social media. Hacktivists also played a role in the rioting and demonstrations by helping citizens bypass government firewalls and using the Internet to promote human rights. One of the most notable examples of hacktivism was a series of attacks carried out by the hacker group Anonymous against companies that withdrew support from Wikileaks. The attackers called their campaign Operation Payback, and the group was also responsible for launching virtual sit-ins that mimicked Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks.

Hacktivism can also be seen in a website that provides information on the current location of a human rights activist being held captive by the government. In this case, the hacktivist is attempting to highlight the captive's position to the public and pressure authorities to release the individual.

Other forms of tech website hacktivism include defacing websites, causing a website to be unavailable through a Distributed Denial of Service attack or taking over a social media site to express a particular point of view. Some hacktivists are seeking respect from other hackers, or recognition, while others may be motivated by political, religious or social views. One famous hacktivist was Aaron Schwartz, who received a long prison sentence for crashing the JSTOR database by making hundreds of PDF download requests per minute. Another well-known hacktivist was Jeremy Hammond, who was imprisoned after he hacked into the Protest Warrior website and accessed members' credit card information to donate to left-wing groups.

[qu-film-history-to-1968]

RKO Pictures’ Influence on Horror as Seen in Bedlam and Cat People

By: Julia Kusmenko

The horror genre has undergone development over the past few decades. In particular, from watching the 1946 film Bedlam, this horror film evokes the style of the horror created by RKO Pictures in the 1940s. In the plot of the film, a character named Nell Bowen is sympathetic to the people kept in the St. Mary of Bethlehem Asylum. After being antagonized by a wealthy man named Lord Mortimer, Nell Bowen is deemed insane, thrown into the asylum, and must help the patients of St. Mary’s from inside Bedlam’s walls. In addition, the style of horror present in this film was influenced by the studio talent Val Lewton who was contractually tied to RKO Pictures since Lewton wrote the screenplay for Bedlam. From this, one could compare the films produced by RKO Pictures such as Bedlam and Cat People since the studio influenced the storytelling of and aspects of horror present in these films. 

This film is different from the horror movies created by other popular studios of the 1940s since the scenes in Bedlam does not explicitly show the source of the terror and instead lets fear fester in the mind of the viewer. For example, this is exemplified when the yells of people being punished in the cells of St. Mary’s can be heard off screen. Another aspect of the horror in Bedlam comes from the character George Sims who runs the St. Mary of Bethlehem Asylum. In this film, George Sims punishes the patients of St. Mary’s behind closed doors; Sims also speaks of harming the patients when talking to Nell and other members of high society. In this way, the audience must visualize the terrors that happen in the asylum when hearing George Sims’ depictions since the audience is not able to see the harm first hand. 

This technique of fostering horror compares to the techniques used in the 1942 film Cat People since the camera angles and use of framing used in this production limit the audience’s view to terrorize the audience. This style of storytelling is indicative of Val Lewton’s since he also produced Cat People for RKO Pictures. Another aspect of Bedlam that relates to Cat People is that both films incorporate a strong female lead. In the words of Mark Jancovich, Val Lewton's horror films typically include a “female-centered narrative” that impacts how the viewer experiences the film. For example, the leads in these two films are Irena and Nell are strong women who dominate the screen and the story. From this, Val Lewton’s influence on the films Bedlam and Cat People ultimately impacted the style of horror created by RKO Pictures. 

As recounted in the Journal of Film and Video, Val Lewton believed that horror is more successful when “things are left to the imagination” (Jancovich 22). An example of this can be seen in an image from Bedlam when the character known as The Stonemason walks through a hallway lined with cells in St. Mary’s. In this scene, the prisoners of the asylum reach their hands out to grab The Stonemason and call to him. While the viewer cannot see the faces of the prisoners, their presence in the shadows generates tension within the scene.This scene from Bedlam relates to the shots presented in Cat People because dark shadows and framing are used in both films to create drama. In this way, Cat People utilizes the same techniques as Bedlam to evoke themes of horror. Overall, RKO Pictures produced films in the 1940s that stood out from other studios’ horror films at the time in the techniques it utilized and its style of storytelling. 

Image from Bedlam:

Works Cited

Jancovich, Mark. “Relocating Lewton: Cultural Distinctions, Critical Reception, and the Val Lewton Horror Films.” Journal of Film and Video, vol. 64, no. 3, 2012, pp. 21–37. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.5406/jfilmvideo.64.3.0021. Accessed 15 Oct. 2023.

[puutterings]

bent over his notebooks, the lamplight glowing softly

  ...As Jim Hoberman wrote in The Village Voice, “a goodly portion of JLG/JLG is charged with death, absence, silence. . . . [H]oled up in his tidy house in Rolle, Switzerland, Godard himself is his own elder, puttering with tapes, bent over his notebooks” (“His Life to Live,” 58); Godard’s home has become a fortress of books and videotapes, “a prison in which the caged artist feels at liberty” (Krauss, 160).

ex Wheeler W. Dixon, The Films of Jean-Luc Godard (1997) : 200 : link

—

the first quote — actually two, cobbled together — is not from Hoberman but rather Georgia Brown, “His Life to Live” in The Village Voice (May 10, 1994) : 58 accessible at the PFA CineFiles : link (free, but need to sign up) where the passage (untruncated) is : “Now in JLG, holed up in his tidy house in Rolle, Switzerland, Godard himself is his own elder, puttering with tapes, bent over his notebooks, the lamplight glowing as softly as any diva could desire.”

The Krauss passage is from Rosalind Krauss, The Originality of the Avant-Garde and Other Modernist Myths (1986) : 160 : link the chapter originally appeared as “The Originality of the Avant-Garde” A Postmodernist Repetition,” in October 18 (Autumn 1981) : 47-66 (56) : link (jstor)

—

on “cobbling together” — essentially what my putterings (and other) derivations are — a difference being, here not knowing what is to be said (or hummed), until it is uttered, whereas scholarship is intentional, has an outline/plan... takes pains to communicate... rationality.  

[obsessioncollector]

jstor daily recently published this guide to their collection of U.S. women’s prison newspapers, with links to a lot of open access resources. i haven’t read all the articles linked yet, but this special issue, “honoring our mother,” by women incarcerated in the minnesota correctional facility is extremely powerful--i cried reading each of the pieces. just wanted to share for anyone who’s interested

[gatheringbones]

You're always such a wealth of good complex queer lit so: d'you have any writing or writers you'd recommend on masculinity & being masc? Queer, male, female, lesbian, gay, trans, cis, nonbinary, butch, femme, GNC, any/all perspectives. Not vapid positivity or performative condemnation, but actual nuanced reflection. Looking for material on this is just an endless parade of "toxic masculinity is toxic" with a side dish of "You're Valid!!!" without any further critical thought; such writers must exist, in memoir if nothing else, but they are damn hard to find.

Oh I love this, thank you for this opportunity to share what I’ve found!

They’re not hard to find, is the thing! These are topics that have been written about in nuanced, generous, joyful ways since we first began telling each other how we felt about them. Try S Bear Bergman, Ivan Coyote, Barbara Smith and Laiwan. If you want butch masculinity appreciation from the femme side, try Minnie Bruce Pratt, Sonya Bolus and Carol A. Queen. Read Judy Grahn’s and Tanya Olson’s poems, read this jstor article on butch invisibility and lesbian erasure. Read Elizabeth Lapovsky Kennedy and Madeline Davis and Joan Nestle. Read this short piece from Barb Greve. Read this interview from Dagger. Listen to this interview with Kelli Dunham.

That sense that you have of a scarcity of materials is false; they're not hard to find and they're not hard to look for. They're everywhere, it just takes a second. Most of these authors have cheap secondhand print materials for sale online, or you can search the tags on my blog to find detailed snippets of their work. You can use just one of those authors to find a whole spiderweb of other names and titles to add to your collection, you just have to put the time, effort, and maybe five or six bucks with a little extra for shipping into it. A ton of stuff is available for free, like the New York trans oral history archive, or the entirety of the Lesbian Herstory Archive newsletter. There's so much.

Don't accept the loneliness and helplessness of that feeling that no good conversations are taking place or if they are, you don't have access to them. You do. It's out there waiting for you, and waiting for you to pay it forward by expanding access for the people around you. Boost the signal. You'll be reaching someone else with that same false, stunted sense that there must not be very much language or culture surrounding queer masculinity and you get to sledgehammer through that prison wall to rescue them. There's no better feeling in the world.