Blogposts, libraries, archives, family history research, pop culture reviews, conflict in Palestine, climate change, and more
Blogposts, libraries, archives, family history research, pop culture reviews, conflict in Palestine, climate change, and more
This newsletter summarizes my recently published articles, and notes articles on various topics, including preservation, book bans, public opinion polls, and results from the recent U.S. elections
Hello all! I had originally planned to write a newsletter in September (and then in October), but other things happened, and I sadly didn’t get to it. Let me give a rundown of some posts I’ve published since my last newsletter on August 22. On Pop Culture Library Review, there have been posts about White womanhood and depictions of librarianship in fiction, examining White male fictional librarians, looking at fictional librarians and the imperative of “practicality,” illustrations of fictional librarians, racist librarians in reality and fiction, fictional librarians and the nuclear holocaust, gay librarians in fiction, six fictional LGBTQ+ librarians, examining fictional and real-life Russian and Soviet librarians, and bourgeois sensibilities of fictional librarians. On Wading Through the Cultural Stacks I wrote about Entrapta, data collection, and archives and various topics related to the recently-ended webtoon Vowrune (collections, dust, and archives), which was praised by the creator of the webcomic on social media, calling it an “interesting read.” On Issues & Advocacy I penned a post about the issues with the International Council of Archives having their Congress in Abu Dhabi. A post coming later this month will interview Eira Tansey, a researcher, archivist, feminist, Quaker, socialist, and founder of Memory Rising, who recently published a report calling for a “Green New Deal” for Archives.
On Packed with Packards!, I wrote profiles of some of my female Packard ancestors, while on Milling ‘Round Ireland I wrote about my ancestor, Mabel Hattie Packard. Finally, on Pop Culture Maniacs, I published spoiler-filled reviews of the middling Kizuna no Allele, and others like My Dad the Bounty Hunter Season 2, My Adventures with Superman, BanG Dream! It’s My GO!!!!, and Disenchantment Part 5. I also wrote reviews of Alice Gear Aegis Expansion, Adventure Time: Fionna and Cake, Futurama Season 8, Yohane the Parhelion: Sunshine in the Mirror, and Young Love. I have plans to write reviews of series such as Soaring Sky! Pretty Cure, Hailey's On It!, I’m in Love with the Villainess, Star Trek: Lower Decks Season 4, and Stardust Telepath. With that, I’m moving on with the rest of my newsletter.
This brings me to posts about archives and archives-related topics. For one, Sam Cross wrote about archives in Star Trek: Lower Decks (animated series), Sea of Stars (a video game), and Children of the Whales (anime). Secondly, I am reminded of the latest issue of The American Archivist, which has articles on graduate archival education, historical cultures of early U.S., decolonization in academic libraries, cultural humility, and many other topics. As such, it is worth recalling the Archival Workers Collective, started during the pandemic, the ongoing Black Film Archive (a “living register of Black films…[which] showcases Black films made from 1898 to 1989 currently streaming”) or how to participate in Archivists Against, which is “an informal collective of archivists and archival studies scholars seeking to enact structural change and to use traces of the past to interrupt cycles of oppression.”
In addition, there’s the May/June issue of Archival Outlook, mental health resources and issues, archival imagination, shamefully dropping charges against Mike Pence over classified documents mishandling, National Archives awarding $6.5 million in grants “for historical records projects,” modeling new ways to “approach preservation program administration,” issues before digitization, data from Archival Census and Education Needs Survey in the United States (A*Census), and a brief overview of paper conservation at the National Archives.
Additional articles focused on preserving digital memories, strategizing for digitization projects, archival imagination, managing processing projects, how rare books are cataloged, archivists making tough calls with far-reaching consequences, the business case for archival digitization, and advocating for archives, along with a blog of daily declassified documents, and newsletter posts from The Feminist Institute on digitizing photographs (and documents) and on zines.
This brings me to posts about libraries and librarians. Surely there are those in fiction, like the nice librarian in the fourth novel of the Maria-sama ga Miteru series (also known as Maria Watches Over Us), the Grand Stage drama CDs featuring a “eyepatch-wearing martial artist librarian lesbian,” a queer librarians story, or the series Bank of Bantorra which features “librarians with super powers.” When it comes to real-life, there is the reactionary backlash to the current ALA president, Emily Drabinski, calling herself a Marxist lesbian, and the supportive response she has received with such red-baiting (see my previous newsletter for that), the U.S. Copyright Office requiring libraries to lie to users about their fair use rights, what happens when libraries stop sharing wi-fi, and cultural humility in library work.
Otherwise, there are posts about the fight over book banning, the trend of controversial interiors created by literary pretenders, specifics of the Internet Archive lawsuit, a group of mothers in Connecticut demanding Pride books be burned (yikes, sounds a bit fascist), a library hosting a book club for the comic book series Lumberjanes, a Norwegian library with unreadable books, and a children’s library event for Pride Month cancelled after a disruption by the (Un)Proud Boys.
That isn’t all. There were terrifying stories about a man with a gun threatening a children’s reading book event (a drag queen storytime) and more positive ones about a Long Island library board reversing a “ban on LGBTQ-related books, displays from children's sections,” along another on board games in the library. Additional articles focused on identifying (and avoiding) study burnout, a gender and trans diverse library and information studies network, and angry patrons in Texas filing a First Amendment lawsuit against county officials for removing or restricting a range of books. There’s also a guide on disrupting Whiteness in libraries, a post by now-ALA president Emily Drabinski about the “neutrality” of libraries, and a post from the Library Freedom Project noting that libraries must divest from police.
With that, we get to genealogy. There were guides to court records, telling family stories out loud, covered bridges, and common Irish last names. Others wrote about the French republican calendar, Ireland’s Slingo County, a surprise within a grandparents marriage record, how to research Irish census of 1911 and 1901 and earlier. Some wrote on the history of how “publishing under a woman’s own name was once a radical act and it explains why women can sometimes be hard to find” and tracing a British seamen in the Royal Navy before 1853.
Others noted visualizations of the 1880 U.S. Federal census, defining what a second cousin is, asylum research and its challenges when it comes to family history, married by indenture; a case study of immigration, identity, and genealogy; everyday life, histories, and “patriarchal institutions in northwestern Kyrgyzstan”; the wonderful world of wills, and ancestral memory (and whether it is fiction and fact).
Last but not least, there were articles about revisiting the painful history of slavery, Black genealogy, whether people are townies or city dwellers, researching Chicago address changes, Afroindigenous families of Northeast Puerto Rico, how to approach ethical dilemmas, finding and navigating old Irish maps, and the continued stigma of single motherhood and its genealogical consequences. Also of note is a blog on spiffy 1920s slang words and Christine Sleeter’s definition of “critical family history.”
With that, I come to the topic of history. Surely there are publications to write for, but more pertinent are newsletters like one on the Arab-Israeli War of 1948 from Historical Snapshots, along with others about topics such as mining women, women’s history, and an interview with members of Butch Lineage. History News Network moving to a new sponsor (rather than George Washington University). HNN had articles on what can be learned from historical fiction, reactionary response to British universities researching ties to slavery, how the Tulsa Race massacre was “an attack on Black people,” the first round of Obama Administration oral histories focusing on “political fault lines and policy tradeoffs,” and Martha Hodes reconstructing her “memory of a 1970 hijacking” by Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.
Additional posts on HNN focused on how William H. Rehnquist was “pretty much OK with Plessy v. Ferguson” as late as 1993, the stereotypes of witches dating to the Renaissance while flight of witches was rare in “early medieval sources,” and the long history of attacks on gender nonconformity. Others wrote on historical responsibility to talk honestly about topics such as “slavery, racism, discrimination, and the like without sugar-coating them,” power of posters, and how research with visual materials can include looking through possibly related images and recognizing that captions and title information “may not always describe everything shown.”
Last, but not least, there were posts on the Great Hurricanes of 1780, the 1775 duel between John Faucheraud Grimke and Henry Laurens, celebrating the life and accomplishments of Mary McLeod Bethune, the first-ever excavation of King Arthur’s tomb, a well-preserved 30,000-year-old baby woolly mammoth emerging from the Yukon permafrost, history of swampland in Florida, and a woman typist (Edith Keating) who became a “pioneering aerial photographer” in 1920s New York.
With that, I’m jumping forward due to the newsworthiness of this next section, which is about the present conflict in the Holy Land, specifically in occupied Palestine (Gaza Strip and West Bank) and the rest of historical Palestine (officially called “State of Israel” since May 1948). The conflict has also spilled over into Lebanon (with Israeli airstrikes) and Syria (with U.S. airstrikes). There have been many calls for a ceasefire, whether from People’s CDC, Librarians and Archivists with Palestine, the U.N. General Assembly (121 member states), along with coverage of the conflict in various newsletters (also see here, here, and here) when it comes to global solidarity with Palestinians, how the Pentagon is risking military escalation, the intelligence failure of Israel’s intelligence apparatus, or how the Palestinian Authority is part of the Israeli occupation. Over 10,500 Palestinians have been murdered by Israeli forces during the harsh retaliatory (and vengeful) Israeli airstrikes and bombings since October 7 (which actually killed some of the hostages), and ground invasion since October 27. That is many times more than the reported 1,400 killed (as claimed by Israeli authorities) in Israel during Hamas’ invasion from Gaza into Israel.
There have been vigils, community resources, lists of which companies profit from Israeli occupation, and calls for Palestinian lives to be protected. Public opinion polls from Gallup have indicated that 84% of Palestinian respondents have “little to no trust in Biden,” 72% do not support a two-state solution (which is dead in the water at this point, as there is a defacto two-state system right now), and 81% having no hope for “permanent peace” between Palestine and Israel. There have also been slipping in Democratic Party ratings. Previously a poll indicated shifting sympathy toward Palestinians among those which identify with the Democratic Party.
Polls from Pew Research Center noted growing unfavorable feelings toward Israel among younger Americans, increased Israeli skepticism of a two-state solution, many Jewish Americans having long-standing ties to Israel (which partially explains Zionist or near-Zionist sentiments by some, with a faulty conflation of anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism, which provides fuel for those who wish to criminalize moderate criticism of Israel and those with more strident pro-Palestine views), and polarized views of Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu reflecting conflicts in Israeli society. There have been reports of a massive drop in Arab American support for Biden and the Democratic Party as a result of U.S. support of Israeli suppression of Gaza, with an unnecessary amount of financial and military support. How this impacts the 2024 presidential elections is anyone’s guess. There have been possibilities that this will become a wider war, considering the Houthi Movement declaring war on Israel and Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati stating he will work to prevent “Lebanon from being pulled into the war,” but does not rule out possible escalation of the conflict.
With that, I move to an entirely different subject: climate change and environmentalism. For one, consider the Palauan President Surangel Whipps Jr. urging a global ban on deep sea mining, writing about deep sea mining, journalism which can inspire fiction, indoor air quality as the hidden climate culprit, about the term fossil granfluencers, putting a positive spin on rising sea levels, orcas swimming towards extinction, an interview with progressive Democrat AOC (Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez), and impact of climate change on the home insurance industry, as insurers either are raising their premiums or “pulling out altogether.”
Beyond this, consider the webpages about the intersection of climate change and Palestine, Marwan Bishara explaining how and why “the struggles for Palestinian liberation and climate justice became one and the same,” how the conflict in the Holy Land is a “looming climate disaster,” the Palestinian climate change adaptation strategy, and climate crisis meeting armed conflict in Palestine, Yemen, Afghanistan, and Sudan. Some have even claimed that the current Israeli bombing of Gaza could “disrupt the Middle East’s climate progress” or were angry that Greta Thunberg took a stand for Palestine, claiming it would hurt the climate movement in the future, and hinted that she shouldn’t share so-called “controversial” political views, as people will be alienated. The latter writer, Jon McGowan in the pro-business and conservative Forbes sneered that it “only weakens her ability to advocate and harms the overall climate change movement” and even said she shouldn’t be “the face of the environmental cause,” adding “perhaps it is time to grant her wish.” Yikes!
With that, I move onto LGBTQ+ topics. This includes the recently updated Wikipedia page entitled “LGBT rights in the State of Palestine,” Ali Abunimah writing about an AP correction on a story claiming that homosexuality is illegal in occupied Palestine, a trans IDF officer helping with ethnic cleansing, LGBTQ+ filmmakers refusing to let Israel use them to pinkwash its crimes, Israeli spin doctors moving to exploit the Orlando massacre, Palestinians saluting Black solidarity and call for joint struggle, AP finding new ways to smear Palestinians over same-sex rights, and painting a rainbow flag on Israel’s apartheid wall on the West Bank.
There were strong statements by ILGA and OutRight International calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza (here and here). Both also condemn the Hamas attack, which should make the Zionists glad, but the latter would reject both, claiming that making a ceasefire is impossible, or even rejecting the weaker, and more worthless, idea of “humanitarian pause.” Otherwise, there are posts about the growing popularity of polyamory, possible increase in more asexual storylines among Gen Z creators, as a recent report says that the generation (mid/late 1990s to early 2010s), dislikes “stereotypical, heteronormative storytelling that valorizes romantic and/or sexual relationships – especially ones that are toxic – and are looking for more representations of friendship,” along with a focus on “real life issues,” original content (rather than remakes), nonbinary and LGBTQIA+ identities (among those which are part of the community). This is coupled with a preference for bingeing (boo!), using entertainment media as escapism and to entertain oneself, and claims that streaming platforms are authentic (they aren’t).
Otherwise, there were posts about LGBTQ+ Palestinians posting their last words on Queering the Map, actions taken by a purple-haired and pansexual Assemblywoman in Nevada (Sarah Peters), a review of the Japanese film I Am What I Am (centered around an asexual protagonist), Japan’s top court striking “down required sterilization surgery to officially change gender,” queering the catalog and queering the classroom, and a review of how Claire of the Moon makes lesbianism a “philosophical pursuit.”
This brings me to the topic of anime. One of the “hot” articles is by Erica Friedman, best known for her blog Okazu which focuses on lesbian / yuri themes in anime and manga, and for organizing Yuricon. In the article, she talks about the joy of “everyday emotional intimacy” between women in anime which falls into the slice-of-life genre. She specifically writes about Encouragement of Climb: Next Summit, Do It Yourself!!, Minami Kamakura High School Girls Cycling Club, A Place Further Than the Universe, Aquatope on White Sand, Laid-Back Camp, "Ippon" Again!, and Let's Make A Mug, Too. The main problem with this viewpoint is it says that relations between female characters fall more into romantic/intimate/affectionate friendships, than into romantic ones, sidestepping possible yuri themes.
Related to this is the Anime News Network press release about the license of Kiyoko Iwami’s My Girlfriend's Not Here Today, review of I Don't Need a Happy Ending manga (a collection of yuri tales), the best light novels with female protagonists, the best yuri manga recommendations, and the manga aptly entitled Breasts are My Favorite Thing in the World coming to an end. Otherwise, CBR recommended ten manga which deserve anime adaptations: Voiceful, Maka-Maka, The Conditions of Paradise; Kisses, Sighs, and Cherry Blossom Pink; Pietà, Miyuki-chan in Wonderland, 12 Days, Gunjō, Still Sick, and Shiroi Heya No Futari. There was a new visual about Whisper Me a Love Song (which is coming in April), three new cast members of the YuriYuri spinoff anime entitled Omuro-Ke revealed, and Anime Feminist gave their recommendations for Summer 2023. That included one I liked (BanG Dream! It’s MyGo!!!!!), while I hadn’t even heard of the others. There were also some relatively positive reviews of The 100 Girlfriends, Tearmoon Empire, I’m in Love with the Villainess, Shy, Power of Hope ~Precure Full Bloom~, and 16bit Sensation: Another Layer, which was good to see.
Apart from that, Anime Feminist wrote on quarter-life crisis in contemporary yuri, post-mortem of Netflix’s Cowboy Bebop, Happy Sugar Life and the comfort of bad survivor narratives, the “healthy masculinity” of My Love Story, looking at the Japanese laws relating to gender identity disorder, and battling internalized misogyny with Pokemon Diamond and Pearl. Other articles elsewhere focused on the reveal of the theme song artists of the Dropkick on my Devil TV anime spinoff, licensing of the Kimi to Shiranai Natsu ni Naru yuri manga, and licensing of another yuri manga How Do I Get Together with My Childhood Friend.
This connects to the next subject: animation. Recently, Netflix put an art book of Nimona for free online (I wish there was a print copy as well, as it could be very helpful to those who are artists or interested in art). One article noted that the “art book might only be available online for a limited time.” Otherwise, when it comes to animation, there was a 22-question gay animation quiz from Autostraddle (I got 16/22 correct), a post from Them about how Adventure Time: Fionna and Cake is a “gift for current and former moody queer teens,” reveal of the video cast of Hazbin Hotel, a profile on queer creator ND Stevenson who says he wants to continue sending messages of acceptance and love which made Nimona so impactful, a special mid-season teaser on Helluva Boss season 2, and Lion Forge inking first-look deal with the creator of Iyanu (soon to have an animated adaptation), Roye Okupe.
Otherwise there were posts on animating Gaza (focusing on the first Palestinian animated commercial film, Fatenah, in 2009), DNEG Vancouver employees unionizing, former Dreamworks Animation CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg declaring in heartless remarks that A.I. will cut production time and animation labor by 90%, Warner Bros. shelving yet another completed film (Coyote Vs. Acme) for a tax write-off, 2024 Oscars Short Film contenders including films such as Aikāne, a guide to 2024’s biggest animated films (of these, Spellbound and The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim sound the most interesting), and a list of the 10 “best animated shows” said to be “forging the way for diverse representation.” However, of those shows, most have ended (including Avatar: The Last Airbender, The Legend of Korra, Steven Universe, She-Ra and the Princesses of Power, The Owl House, and Dead End: Paranormal Park) apart from Harley Quinn and The Legend of Vox Machina, among a few others.
Apart from this, there’s a Pride.com article entitled “20 Cartoon Shows With Awesome LGBTQ+ Characters” (apart from those mentioned in the last paragraph, there’s Magical Girl Friendship Squad: Origins, Adventure Time, Danger & Eggs, Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated, and some anime series like Sailor Moon Crystal, Cardcaptor Sakura: Clear Card, and Adachi and Shimamura), the saddest episodes of The Owl House, another list of cartoons recommending series such as Amphibia, Hilda, and Castlevania, news that Arcane Season 2 will be released on November 2024, and an interview with High Guardian Spice creator Raye Rodriguez.
There’s a lot I could write about in this next-to-last section of this newsletter, whether about iconic photos of American workers, the ending of the twin Hollywood strikes by WGA (Writers Guild of America) and SAG-AFTRA, the protest by Redditors to protest the platform’s API changes, or workers training A.I. models for pennies. But I’d like to talk about the despicable censure resolutions of the sole Palestinian American in the U.S. House of Representatives, Rashida Tlaib. Reactionary flamethrower and Christian nationalist fascist Marjory Taylor Greene (MTG) proposed a resolution which sneered at Tlaib as “antisemitic,” a terrorist sympathizer, criticizing Israel, anti-American, and an insurrectionist. Not only are these charges absurd, but MTG supported the 2021 storming of the U.S. Capitol, making her an insurrectionist. However, since her resolution was deemed too extreme, it was rejected in place of Richard McCormack’s more “moderate” resolution, which condemned Tlaib for promoting “false narratives” about Hamas (and its attack on Israel), Israel, and the current conflict. While 184 Democrats and 4 Republicans (who reportedly joined for freedom of speech reasons) voted to note censure Tlaib, 212 Republicans and 22 Democrats voted in favor, allowing it to pass. The Biden administration implicitly supported the resolution, while others have rightly defended Tlaib and what she has said on social media and elsewhere.
Historically, censures have been issued against representatives who: insulted the House speaker, presented anti-slavery resolutions, assisted in physical assault of abolitionist House members Charles Sumner (in 1856) and Josiah Grinnell (in 1866) with a cane, described Reconstruction legislation as a “monstrosity,” were involved in military or corporate corruption, and engaged sexual misconduct. Most recently, Adam Schiff was censured for saying that the former president colluded with Russia. That censure was a Republican effort to support the former President. There have also been ten house members who have been reprimanded over the years, primarily for some corruption, and only five have been expelled. Three of these individuals (John B. Clark, John W. Reid, and Henry C. Burnett) were kicked out for “Disloyalty to the Union; fighting for the Confederacy” in 1861, and two others for bribery (specifically Michael J. Myers in 1980 and James A. Traficant in 2002). Also, Brigham Henry Roberts, a Mormon, was denied seat for his practice of polygamy, while Victor L. Burger, a socialist, was denied a seat in 1919 and 1920 for opposition to WWI and Espionage Act conviction (even after the conviction was overturned and he was re-elected, Congress again refused to seat Berger, leaving the seat open until 1921) and Adam Clayton Powell Jr. for “mismanaging his committee's budget in previous Congress, excessive absenteeism, misuse of public funds.”
Moving onto other topics, I am reminded of a post defending Zam Wesell (who was cited as an inspiration for the well-known shapeshifter, Nimona, by ND Stevenson, a transmasculine non-binary creator who once wrote an AU comic about Wesell), the racial satire version of “Get Back” which the Beatles never released, how the Body Mass Index grew “out of White supremacy, eugenics and anti-Blackness,” and results from the recent elections in U.S. states. This included Ohio voters enshrining the right to reproductive care in the state constitution and legalizing recreational marijuana use, Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear, a Democrat, defeating anti-abortion Republican state Attorney General Daniel Cameron, and Democrats maintaining control of Virginia’s Senate and gaining control of the Virginia House. Hilariously, Antonin Scalia's daughter Meg Bryce (who leaned toward book bans) lost her school board race in Albemarle County, Virginia by 22 points to Allison Spillman, a “LGBTQ-supportive mom” as The Advocate described her. Virginia elected its first openly transgender state senator (Danica Roem). Gabe Amo became the first Black person to Rhode Island in Congress, meaning that the GOP margin is only three votes to pass laws, even as Amo appears to be a corporate Democrat.
Unfortunately, in Mississippi, Governor Tate Reeves, a Republican who downplayed the state’s low vaccination rates and opposed expanding mail-in voting and early voting and supported the 2020 U.S. presidential election lies (that Biden didn’t win, that there was voter fraud, etc.), vetoed criminal justice reforms, has been a big backer of the former president, being anti-income tax, and fired the attorney leading the state's welfare agency lawsuit, defeated Democrat Brandon Presley. While there are some positive policies, like his signing of legislation to remove Confederate iconography in 2020, and honoring legislation on medical cannabis, the negatives clearly outweigh positives, even though Presley endorsed George W. Bush in 2004.
Beyond all of this, I’d like to talk about illustrations in The Nib and elsewhere. For one, there’s the six-part queer comic by Kristina Lưu entitled "Mean Green" where a “villainess robs a lord of his fair maiden.” Then there’s illustrations in The Nib about Black history, transphobia, Afro-Salvadoran identity, absurd anti-vegan beliefs, how food used to be a lot more dangerous and the history of the FDA’s founding, rebelling from the rebel girl trope, and the dream of a gay separatist town.
That’s all for this newsletter! As always, comments are welcome. That’s all. Until next time! - Burkely