Here is a two-sided drawing featuring pillow studies and a self-portrait by Albrecht Dürer. Enjoy your weekend, but don't forget to sleep!
These images come from The Metropolitan Museum of Art's collection on JSTOR, which is free and open to all!
We need a digital archive of LGBTQ+ works of art, science, and every other conceivable work we can share between each other because we are beyond the genocide warning level in most countries in the west and they're already trying to purge us from libraries.
If other people are interested I'll make this a priority
Speaking as someone with a background in archives, stuff like this does already exist. No need to reinvent the wheel. Creating an archive and making sure it's accessible and searchable and actually preserves things for the long time (especially digital things) is actually a huge undertaking. Show some love to these already existing collections and maybe even consider contributing. There's the Digital Transgender Archive off the top of my head. I know more I just have to think.
The History Project, based in Boston, is an LGBTQ+ community archive that's existed for decades. Many of their collections are digitized.
The Lesbian Herstory Archives, based in Brooklyn, is similar.
The Digital Public Library of America covers a great many topics, but they also have LGBTQ+ stuff.
I'd also recommend searching "lgbtq+" and "libguide" in your preferred search engine. Many universities list helpful resources and databases, some of which are freely accessible.
Many public and academic libraries in the US and Canada (not sure where you're writing from) subscribe to the Gale Archives of Sexuality and Gender. If you have a library card or are a student at a given library, you can access it for free.
In general, I'd really recommend searching around to see how you can support existing museums, community archives, college and university archives, etc that specialize in LGBTQ+ history and media local to you, whether that's in your same town or regionally.
You are not alone! People are working on this and some of them have institutional budgets!
But also kind of looping back to the first post: you personally might have relevant records. Photos of Pride or protests you've been to, journals, a blog full of trans headcanons even. That's all part of queer history and that's the stuff these archives and museums are made of.
Label your stuff carefully, make backup copies, and get to know your local organizations!
We're also working on building an open access archive and actively looking for content contributions! https://about.jstor.org/revealdigital/hiv-aids-the-arts/
We can't get enough of the Cleveland Museum of Art collection on JSTOR. We think it's only appropriate that after yesterday's dark post on 17th-century witches we now move to a beautifully bright 18th-century dragon, no? This is the wrapper for the tapestry scroll Mingling of Clear and Muddy Water at the Junction of the Jing and Wei Rivers. The collection is open access, and the image is Creative Commons: Free Reuse (CC0).
Here's what our friends at the Cleveland Museum of Art write about these four 17th-century paintings entitled "Scenes of Witchcraft" by Salvator Rosa:
A huge upturn in interest in witchcraft emerged during the 1500s in Europe, but by the middle of the next century - at least among the cultured elite of Florence - a backlash arose against the many accusations of sorcery. Artists and writers explored the topic more out of curiosity and amusement, chief among them the poet, painter, and satirist Salvator Rosa, who examined witchcraft with gusto in numerous poems and works of art, including these four paintings. They show a range witch types - from the beautiful enchantress to the old crone to the male sorcerer - and represent activities commonly associated with black magic - levitation, love potions, devil worship, the invocation of demons, and transformation.
If you think that's awesome, you should browse the museum's collection in JSTOR—lots of great art from a wide variety of cultures and eras, and it's open and free for everyone to view and download!
The twelve astrological signs of the zodiac, by an unidentified 19th-century Persian artist. From the Wellcome Collection on JSTOR, which never ceases to amaze us. Free and open to all! Creative Commons: Attribution
Heeeey, here's an open access book on JSTOR you might be interested in: Fighting for the Future: Essays on Star Trek: Discovery.
This volume brings together 18 essays and one interview about the series, with contributions from a variety of disciplines including cultural studies, literary studies, media studies, fandom studies, history and political science. They explore representations of gender, sexuality and race, as well as topics such as shifts in storytelling and depictions of diplomacy.
You know you're in for a serious ride when the preface is titled "Unheimlich Star Trek"!
The whole open access book Sartorial Fandom: Fashion, Beauty Culture, and Identity is chock-full of interesting essays, but we picked this one to highlight specifically because it includes a (very brief) reference to @reallyndacarter, an excellent Tumblarian.
Hard Reading: Learning from Science Fiction by Tom Shippley, an open access book on JSTOR!
The fifteen essays collected in Hard Reading argue that science fiction is a "high-information" genre that doesn't follow the Flaubertian ideal of le mot juste, "the right word," preferring le mot imprévisible, "the unpredictable word." The essays argue further that science fiction derives much of its energy from engagement with vital intellectual issues in the "soft sciences," especially history, anthropology, the study of different cultures, with a strong bearing on politics.
The autobiographical introductions in the book create between them a memoir of what it was like to be a committed fan from teenage years, and also an academic struggling to find a place at a time when a declared interest in science fiction and fantasy was the kiss of death for a career in the humanities.
You're on Tumblr right now, so it's not a big leap to assume that some of you might be, um, avoiding doing something else. Here's a legit thing to do right now—read about strategies to confront procrastination and writing blocks! Open access, so you don't have an excuse!
How stunning are these 19th-century prints from India by Shri Gobinda Chandra Roy? They're available free to everyone in The Cleveland Museum of Art collection on JSTOR, which includes more than 28,000 open access images.
More treasures from the Kentucky Folk Art Center collection on JSTOR. SNAKES! All free to browse and download.
Tim Lewis—Coral Snake Cane; Charley Kinney—"Who Look Snak Never Die"; Denzil Goodpaster—Coiled Rattlesnake; Charley Kinney—"Hean-Gok Got Radler"; Robert Morgan—"Serpent Queen of the Seas"
We just discovered the Kentucky Folk Art Center collection on JSTOR and we can't even.
Here you see: a lion by Minnie Adkins, a tiger by Noah Kinney, a man and bear by Denzil Goodpaster, a "wild booger" by Charles Kinney, and an alligator by Minnie Black.
There are 470 additional images in the collection, and they're all *chef's kiss*. Free to everyone, no login needed.
After yesterday's post, we fell into a chapbook rabbit hole! Here's one of the gems we uncovered (and yes, we realize we're mixing metaphors).
This dream book from 1859 includes interpretations such as, "To dream you see a ghost, is very unfortunate: if it is of a comely aspect, and dressed in white, it shews deceit and temptation to sin; if you are in love, it is a sign of your not being beloved in turn, and that you are in the habits of friendship with one who is your most inveterate enemy."
Needless to say this isn't one of JSTOR's peer-reviewed publications. It comes from McGill Library’s Chapbook Collection on JSTOR, which features nearly 1,000 chapbooks published in England, Scotland, Ireland, and the US in the 18th and 19th centuries. And yes, they're all free to read and download!
Lest we be accused of losing our focus on research by posting photos of (adorable!) cats, here is Dunigan's tortoise-shell cat, or, The life of Queen Tab and her kitten, a fully illustrated 8-page chapbook from McGill Library’s Chapbook Collection on JSTOR, which features nearly 1,000 chapbooks published in England, Scotland, Ireland, and the US in the 18th and 19th centuries. And yes, they're all free to read and download!
You ask the community for cats, you get cats! And a dog! In order of appearance: bookish Alley (@lifbitch), an anonymous handsome devil (@keerigen), an anonymous book-end cat (@abnormal-as-expected), Apollo eating spaghetti (@polaroidcats), not-a-cat-but-we-love-him Bloom (@scalpelfightclub), sleepy Goose (@narniaandplowmen), clean Lady Godzilla (@avengingpixie), snoozing Morgana (@the-murderlesscrow), Morticia in a box (@rainnecassidy), Mr. Kittles looking annoyed (@thetoymakers), pensive Tofu (@coldestcaress), the amazingly named Princess Chicken Nugget and Captain Coffee Bean (@thecatandthemoon), and last but not least, Siti Malfoy in a plastic bucket (@perkedelktg).
Thank you all, now everybody BACK TO WORK!
JSTOR has brought me so much joy; thank you for all you do! (Here is a picture of my cat in a tub as thanks)
MORE PICTURES OF CATS! (Bathtubs optional)
Recent Acquisition - Ephemera Collection
BROOMS. The Most Modern Broom Manufacturing Plant in the World. Capacity 6000 Daily. Hamburg Broom Works, Hamburg, Penna. Brochure, ca. 1912
Excellent names for the brooms, too!
Oh wow, these Inuit prints!!! Kenojuak Ashevak, Observant Owl; Kenojuak Ashevak, Throat Singers Gathering; Ningiukulu Teevee, Seasonal Migration; Sheelaky (artist) and Iyola Kingwatsiak (printer), Sea Spirit.
More than 100 of these beauties are available in St. Lawrence University's Canadian Inuit Prints, Drawings, and Carvings collection on JSTOR, which is free and open to all!
How cool is this? A complete Bulgarian booklet from the '80s of cutout paper parts to build a model of a spaceship. Download it, print it on good paper, and get to work! This comes from the Catherine Clark papers, an awesome open collection on JSTOR of correspondence, publications, and other material related to the world of Russian Science Fiction and Fantasy.