PREVIOUS RANDOM SITES OF THE WEEK

The links below all open in the same window or tab as this page by default. Clicking the star (★) at the end of the entry will open the headline link in a new window or tab instead. This seems to me to be the best way to make it a bit more convenient to visit random sites without closing or losing this page while not making it a surprising or annoying default. Based on my tests so far, the new tab should pop up to the right of the parent tab, and the new window on top of the parent window.

Another thing to draw attention to is that this feature began in 2018, and so some sites have changed a great deal over the past several years. If you want to be sure to get a sense of the version of the site that originally featured on The Moonspeaker, it is worth looking the link up on the wayback machine and dialling back to at least the year of the random site date. This is especially important for multi-author, political projects and their associated blogs, which will inevitably reflect changes in personnel and other outside pressures. With politics also come accusations of various types of malfeasance, which may or may not be well-grounded when made or at the time the site was encountered, so it is all the more important to check the source.

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• Four Directions Teachings (2019-12-25) : Looking for a solid, respectful, properly researched and laid out study of Indigenous teachings shared in an appropriate way, designed with the full participation of Elders from representatives of five Indigenous nations spanning northern Turtle Island? Well, this is just the site you're looking for. Alas the videos are only available in flash format, but the html, pdfs, and mp3s are all there. ★
• Melissa Derby (2019-12-24) : An impressive scholar already making important contributions on the question of free speech, and notions that have become common sense but lack an actual basis in research like inherited Indigenous trauma. She publishes primarily in open access journals and engages in rigorous debate on and off social media. ★
• bibliomania.com (2019-12-17) : It is only fair to give a shout out for this site, which the former employees of the currently dormant company are keeping alive in hopes of renewing their funding. Their whole collection is still available, and it appears that their bulletin boards and related apparatus are still working as well, which is remarkable. The only trick is to delete "frameset.html" from the web address of any page you visit, which will drop you onto the actual page listing the links to the books. ★
• Oxford Text Archive (2019-12-17) : Further to the previous entry, this archive is indeed excellent, with great formatting, unambiguous marking of whether a file is available for public or scholarly use, and no demands to create a profile and submit personal information just to download publicly accessible files. Some of their starting texts are from bibliomania.com, which still includes its own selection of unique items. ★
• Eighteenth Century Collections Online (2019-12-17) : For anyone hunting for public domain texts to load up their e-readers or accessible copies of eighteenth century texts, this project of the Text Creation Partnership is a major resource. The works available in html right on this site, with reasonable formatting. For ebook versions, this site recommends the oxford text archive. ★
• (Canadian) Oral History Forum (2019-12-14) : Unfortunately this journal is no longer accepting new articles, but its archives remain available for reading and citation, all under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. As an exemplar article to start with, try out Oral History Research across Cultures and Languages: Reflections from the Study of 'Japanese Orphans' in China and Japan. ★
• eBooksAdelaide (2019-12-05) : UPDATE: Defunct as of 2020-01-07, though still accessible in the internet archive. Alas this is now an archive rather than a growing repository of ebooks, it is a wonderful monument founded and built up by Steve Thomas with the generous technical assistance and ongoing hosting support of the university of adelaide library in australia. Thomas' simple and practical purpose was to provide public domain ebooks in a properly formatted and legible form to eager readers, and the collection includes his own short ebook summarizing what he learned. ★
• Virginia Woolf Blog (2019-12-02) : Founded sometime in 2016 by its primary contributor, Rebecca Beatrice Brooks, writing periodic posts on Woolf's life, books, and sometimes political views. The result is an anodyne introduction that avoids most controversial topics, except those that are arguably titillating to a heterosexual audience, and therefore sharable without necessarily causing unplanned political rows. ★
• Caitlin Johnstone (2019-11-28) : It took me awhile to find this journalist online, in part because I needed to look at her work, observe where she was coming from and the way she supports her arguments, a practice we all need to apply, though yes, I agree, it is work and it is too bad we need to do it. Johnstone is an excellent reporter who shows her sources and doesn't let herself off the hook. Start with her excellent post explaining ad hominem attacks in respectful plain language. ★
• ArchivesCanada (2019-11-25) : This portal website, established by the canadian council of archives, the provincial and territorial archival networks, and library and archives canada is intended to support primarily amateur researchers engaged in archival research. Apart from its bombastic claims that anyone engaged in such research is looking for "evidence on what it means to be a canadian," it is well worth a look in order to learn more about archiving as a process. ★
• Hilary McCollum, Writer, Activist, Playwright (2019-10-30) : McCollum is building a unique body of work exploring lesbian history and experience, including a memoir, two novels, and several plays. She is currently pursuing graduate research work on the recreation and documentation of lesbian history by means of novel writing. ★
• Storm Force Feminists (2019-10-18) : An irish Radical Feminist site with a growing number of articles, including wonderful historical pieces and trenchant political critique. For the moment they are hosted on wordpress.com, so it is likely that they will switch to new hosting soon in light of the growing censorship of Feminists generally online. ★
• New Zealand Texts Collection (2019-10-16) : The texts are all associated with new zealand in some way, and include works by Maori-Pakeha anthropologist Te Rangi Hiroa. It's a remarkable collection, well formatted for online reading, creative commons licensed, with additional formats available for download, including epub and TEI standard mark up files. ★
• Métis Nation Constitutional Reform Portal (2019-10-16) : One of the subportals of the previously featured Métis Nation Gateway, given a specific bump here because it is something quite unique in this day and age. Métis scholars and political thinkers are explicitly documenting the development of a constitution in real time. ★
• Urbane Adventurer - Amiskwacî (2019-10-09) : One of the best blendings of Indigenous knowledge, art, and truth to power in one place you will ever read, listen to, and look at on the web. This site is the indomitable Zoe Todd's ongoing creation, urban Métis scholar who has survived graduate school in anthropology in england itself and is kicking butt as we read. ★
• Erica Michelle Lagalisse (2019-10-06) : If you would like to read Lagalisse's research on "anarchoindigenism" then this is your place to start. More importantly, Lagalisse is now working on a respectful consideration and reconstruction of the history and present use of what are called "conspiracy theories." See both her PhD dissertation and her recently published essay, "Occult Features of Anarchism." ★
• Richard Stallman's Personal Site (2019-10-02) : Felled from leading the Free Software Foundation by the backlash to his comments on details of a growing sex scandal implicating mit funders and faculty, then reinstated, Stallman has long been a controversial figure for founding the Free Software movement and his penchant for highly inappropriate jokes. I include his site here because again, it is important to read the original when we are being told we should banish someone from speaking in public or expressing a divergent opinion. ★
• Cygnus-x1.net (2019-09-27) : An impressive Star Trek tribute site full of blueprints, screen grabs, and references and such. A great complement to memory alpha and memory beta for anyone looking to spend some time happily geeking out on the various television series, movies, and a range of tie-ins. ★
• Ladyslipper Music (2019-09-24) : The premiere catalogue of women's music, crossing genres and including some international material, plus an online music store with both physical media and downloadable tracks. The organization is a non-profit intended to raise the profile of women's music via promotion and contributions to archiving at various libraries in part by means of their remarkable and growing annotated catalogue. ★
• Alix Dobkin (2019-09-24) : If you haven't had an opportunity to hear Dobkin's music and you enjoy folk music, then you are in for a treat. Her recording career began in 1973, and she continued recording and touring alongside a rigorous schedule of activist and music business development work, until her passing a few years ago. She also has a new memoir coming out soon. ★
• LilyMaynard.com (2019-09-21) : Undaunted by the ongoing campaign of censorship of Feminists and gender critical women on wordpress.com that led to the deletion of her website without warning, Maynard has moved to her own domain name and besides setting up her site again continues to write excellent long form posts. If you are looking for respectful, compassionate, non-technical, no bullshit discussions of "gender identity" and its ancillaries, her site is a wonderful place to start. ★
• BC Open Education (2019-09-05) : A broad consensus is growing among instructors that "open textbooks" and ancillary materials are key to post-secondary education. First and second year university texts are expensive and change quickly, making them a barrier to both instructors and students with tight budgets. These Creative Commons licensed materials are meant to provide a reasonable work around for both issues. They provide a ready access to the text collection, although unfortunately it needs javascript enabled to view items beyond the firts six or so. ★
• Legit Indigenous Lit (2019-09-05) : Founded by two instructors at the university of saskatchewan, the site identifies works by actual Indigenous authors that may be taught and referenced in english and history classes. This means that most of the books were published post 1990 or reprinted post 1990, so many older gems are not featured yet. ★
• N.K. Jemisin (2019-06-12) : I am ever so slowly catching up with SF/F writing and writers again, and so am of course hilariously late to the ranks of fans and followers of N.K. Jemisin. Not for lack of effort by the wonderful editors of Octavia's Brood to be sure. If you want to see cutting edge SF/F, Jemisin is one of the first authors to check. ★
• Women's International News Gathering Service (2019-05-31) : A remarkable project that has been going for twenty five years strong, put together by women building a regular news program made available online and broadcast on a range of radio stations throughout the world. Led by Frieda Werden, the collective produces six newscasts a year and maintains important physical and online archives. It can seem a bit of a puzzle to listen to the programs online, but luckily WINGS is also a member of archive.org, where so far the completed programs back to 2008 are posted. ★
• Gift Economy (2019-05-28) : The current capitalist economy is dying one way or the other, and if we want something different and better, preferably before industrialization destroys the conditions the majority of beings on Earth need to live, people need to have new practical ideas in progress yesterday. Many contributors to Genevieve Vaughan's site are busy with just that, building on a whole range of earlier material from numerous "non-western" sources. ★
• Sekhmet Temple (2019-05-28) : It can be tricky to find serious work on developing alternate approaches to spirituality rather than the unending pile of new age nonsense and theft that is so rampant in much of the world, especially the united states. Nevertheless, there are people hard at work out there, including the priestesses of the Sekhmet temple in nevada, who continue the work in a foundation made by Feminist economist Genevieve Vaughan. ★
• Emily Dickinson Archive (2019-05-27) : One among a whole range of websites designed to provide access to high quality scans of original manuscripts by authors considered more or less enigmatic. The stories swirling around Dickinson, portrayed by turns as a recluse unable to cope with the world and as a poet incapable of coping with publication have pretty much nothing to do with her or her poetry. This site is an intriguing companion to Cristanne Miller's Emily Dickinson's Poems: As She Preserved Them. ★
• Jake Thomas Learning Centre (2019-05-24) : Jake Thomas was a major Haudenosaunee historian, whose document and book collection is still undergoing digitization. Before his passing he oversaw the creation and printing of an ongoing series of books, pamphlets, and videos. Yvonne Thomas, his partner, continues to run the centre including overseeing its offerings of workshops on beading and weaving. ★
• Sister Outrider (2019-05-24) : Claire Heuchan's blog, currently precariously hosted by wordpress.com. As her site's subtitle notes, it is all about "A Black Radical Feminism." Heuchan has bounced back after a writing hiatus enforced by depression and a need for a digital detox, which she discusses frankly in one of her most searing posts. She also contributes to AfterEllen, and is not to be missed. ★
• Colossus, The Secrets of Bletchley Park's Codebreaking Computers (2019-05-24) : This site has been around for awhile, and is an excellent introduction to the book. It provides a range of additional resources, including audio and an extended description of the original Colossus with welcome signal boosting of its primary engineer Thomas Flowers, who all too often gets left out and never did get adequate recognition for his role in the creation of Colossus in his lifetime. ★
• MeetingGround Online (2019-05-21) : A remarkable and gently growing site working through the interconnections between capitalism, identity, politics, labour, racism, theory, Feminism, women's liberation, and work, to quote their own byline. Writers have been contributing excellent posts since early 2014, with a strong tie to practical organizing via its origin as a paper magazine in 1977. So far it looks like they are independently hosted, so don't let the references to wordpress.org alarm you. ★
• TimMurphy.org (2019-05-21) : An excellent place to look for LaTeX tips with alternative and sometimes much clearer explanations than standard package documentation. Murphy also writes extensively on a range of computer languages, several different flavours of gnu/linux, and a few other topics. Based on the "most popular" posts list though, it is his LaTeX documentation and examples that are most used. ★
• Frode Weierud's CryptoCellar - Cryptology and Its History (2019-05-20) : A solid website established approximately twenty years ago. It is full of useful links and copies of declassified documents, as well as reports of new projects to rebuild older versions of coding machines. Quick eyed readers will recognize the basic principles at issue today, including concerns about privacy, adequacy of random number generators, and the application of prime and relatively prime numbers. ★
• Sally Roesch Wagner (2019-04-02) : A key builder and restorer of women's history, from challenging attempts to erase the brilliant Radical Feminist activist and scholar Matilda Joslyn Gage to honouring the Haudenosaunee women's influence on the early Feminist movement in the united states. Arguably Roesch Wagner has taken Gage as a role model, considering she is an activist, historian, and leading scholar herself. ★
• Institute of Feminist Thought, The (2019-03-24) : A new project from Jane Clare Jones, in which she is providing online courses, including readings and discussions. The first offering is scheduled for april, and it sounds like interested women are already asking for additional courses such as one on the vexed subject of "french feminism" – a label which does not necessarily correspond to people from france engaged in Feminism, astonishingly enough. ★
• Rise Up! A Digital Archive of Feminist Activism (2019-03-02) : An ongoing project focussing on canadian Feminist activist materials dating from the 1970s to the 1990s. It is another key part of the effort to document the range of documents and items produced and used during these critical decades, from newsletters and buttons to t-shirts and flyers, and includes an option to contribute by scanning and uploading documents. ★
• south africa truth and reconciliation website (2019-02-11) : For awhile this site was in frames, so older links to transcripts, the overall report, articles and so on generated and put online by the south african truth and reconciliation commission are now broken. This link looks to be stable and all resources remain available. ★
• South African History Online (2019-02-04) : One of the premiere sources for researchers brand new to learning about south africa in general, as well as about apartheid specifically. Besides excellent general articles suitable for older highschool and undergraduate students, it links to numerous primary documents and the major cousin project Digital Innovation South Africa. This specific link is to a page with the search box for the overall archive, which can sometimes be tricky to find. ★
• South African Democracy Education Trust (2019-02-04) : This trust works on writing and making available historical materials describing the process of change from apartheid south africa to the increasingly democratic and multi-racial country today. Besides sample chapters of the 7 volume and still growing history, the site indexes interviews, letters, and links. ★
• "I Saw a Nightmare..." Doing Violence to Memory (2019-02-04) : The online version of Helena Pohlandt-McCormick's book on the 1976 Soweto Uprising in south africa. It is a gripping work including multiple lines of narrative in an effort to give the reader a chance to think through the varying stories of the uprising, and which accounts they find plausible. It is part of columbia university press' gutenberg-e site, which is now open-access. If you are experiencing difficulties with the home page, the best place to start reading from instead is the site map. ★
• medievalbooks (2019-07-11) : With regular posts on medieval books, their construction, how they were written, and cutting edge research, Erik Kwakkel's lavishly illustrated blog is well worth a visit. Note especially his articles on page structure, bookmarks, and how people added notes to their books, all relevant today and a welcome perspective on how people use the affordances of physical books. ★
• Reading Marx's Capital With David Harvey (2019-07-04) : So, you've decided that you're going to read Marx's Capital for yourself and make up your own mind about what he sets out and argues. There's no need to do this alone, because you can take advantage of David Harvey's lectures that move along with you all the way into volume 3, without any need to go through itunes or google unless you really want to. Harvey is of course a well-known expert on the text, which he has been teaching for over forty years. The videos of the lectures are hosted on this site, youtube, and the internet archive. ★
• jofreeman.com (2019-06-27) : Radical Feminist political scientist Jo Freeman is the author of many germinal works, including the BITCH manifesto and the still standard starter textbook in many women's studies departments that have survived, Women: A Feminist Perspective. She is also well worth reading on the realities of "meritocracy" and academic precarity. Her site is apparently now offline, but can still be viewed at the internet archive. ★
• Convict Voyages (2019-06-20) : Drawing together numerous essays, maps, blog posts, and analyses of the use of "transportation" of convicts as a means of at minimum "removing excess population" and at maximum exploiting convicts for their labour overseas. In other words, a growing study of the results on one hand of criminalizing poverty, and on the other treating other peoples' homes and lands as dumps for people deemed "surplus." ★
• Dibaajimowin (2019-06-13) : An amazing storytelling project involving mainly Métis and Anishinaabeg participants at the moment. Their purpose is to provide yet another means to record and share the stories that have and will continue to help Indigenous nations and communities survive into the future. ★
• Standing For Women (2019-06-06) : Pushback is growing against the latest misogynistic backlash technique, which involves pretending that forcing people to embody sex-based stereotypes is somehow liberatory. This site and organization was founded by Posie Parker, famed and brilliant "accidental activist" to contribute to that important pushback and generally stand up for women's rights. ★
• Websters' First New INTERGALACTIC Wickedary of the English Language, Conjured by Mary Daly in Cahoots with Jane Caputi, hacked by Madrid Tenant (2019-05-30) : An intriguing early hypertext project now held in the internet archive, produced as a chapter in a master's thesis project by Madrid Tenant. Besides the intriguing radical lesbian Feminist aspects, the way this site applies a database and script access approach to the manipulation of hypertext data is prescient. It is in fact early enough in time that in order to create the bread crumbs for each exploration of the Wickedary scripting is required because cookies were not implemented. The starred link is to an archived version. ★
• thecorporation.com (2019-05-23) : This site is still going strong, and the relevance of the award-winning documentary and Joel Bakan's original book is greater than ever. It is possible to view and/or download both parts of the documentary from the internet archive, and most public libraries hold copies as well. Apparently a sequel is in the works that will look at the changes since 2003. ★
• Phyllis Chesler (2019-05-16) : Home on the web of brilliant, fierce, and still working everyday Feminist activist and theorist Phyllis Chesler. She has been hard at work since the 1970s, including controversial examinations of the part of the Feminist movement she is part of. Her writing and speeches include a deeply encouraging and helpful exploration of how unreasonable it is to expect to agree with one another about everything and the absolute necessity to be brave and refuse to engage in trashing. ★
• Chicago Women's Liberation Union Herstory Project (2019-05-09) : Women documenting their own movement and curating it online for themselves, now from their own domain name. Alas they are using square space and so have a temperamental menu system, but it can generally be worked around with little trouble via a search engine or simply viewing page source to pick out the links. ★
• Feminist Theory Reading Group (2019-05-02) : I will be pleasantly surprised if this site continues to survive automattic's ongoing attempts to censor Feminist and gender critical discussion wholly from its platform, which is now too big to be treated as an ordinary private business like a bookstore. Contributors read excerpts of classic Feminist works and other relevant works for themselves and comment on and discuss them. Of course this means that they don't necessarily agree with the arguments made in the excerpts or even completely among themselves, in an excellent example of civil discussion and making an effort to read the original fairly and critically. ★
• Jane Clare Jones (2019-04-26) : Blog of Feminist philosopher, teacher and activist Jane Clare Jones. Brilliantly funny and constructively thought-provoking, including wonderful footnotes and clear references. She has also done some intriguing work on Prince and how he was represented by the mainstream media versus how he represented himself. The posts categorized under Feminism are of course a great starting point. ★
• Framasoft (2019-04-19) : A nonprofit french organization working to implement non-corporate controlled web-based tools. Their projects include mirroring repositories of free software, music, and books, as well as providing alternate privacy respecting alternatives to many online collaboration and development tools. Also check out their tiny but promising publishing wing. ★
• Harriet Taylor Mill (2019-04-12) : A focussed resource bringing together a brief biography of Taylor Mill, contextualizing her philosophical brilliance and activism. Other materials include a bibliography, chronology, a separate bibliography of her writings, and related links. Unusually, but telltale because Taylor Mill was of course, a woman, there is a page of photographs as well. ★
• Musica Femina (2019-04-05) : Not the austrian museum exhibit, but the duo of Janna MacAuslan and Kristen Aspen who write classical music and recover and reperform classical music by women. They began working together in 1981 and have released at least three albums as well as pursuing an ongoing extensive tour schedule. The bibliography on their site is an important resource. ★
• Lesbian History Group (2019-03-28) : Online home of the resurgent group of organizers and researchers who helped prevent the erasure of lesbian history and lesbians from history. Today their efforts are desperately needed, especially in light of recent attempts to claim lesbians and any other women who did not perform according to sex role stereotypes were in fact men. Check out the resources page for access to pdfs of classic and controversial articles. It has also managed to survive the censorship regime at automattic to date, but don't be surprised if they end up finding a new online home soon. ★
• Women's Liberation Music Archive (2019-03-21) : An unpleasant but also unsurprising phenomenon is the widespread attempt to delete the Women's Liberation Movement right out of the history of the 1970s and 1980s, complemented by mockery of the creativity that accompanied and accompanies Feminist activism. This website counters such nonsense and provides biographies, descriptions, and access to a vast catalogue of samples. ★
• Métis Nation Gateway (2019-03-14) : A portal site designed to bring together links to historical and cultural resources and websites. Material generally dates post 2005, and so generally this a solid research starting point, and includes forms and information for visitors to contribute relevant information thet may have found in the course of their own research. ★
• Big M Musings (2019-03-07) : Momentarily quiet blog of Métis sociologist Chris Andersen due to his extensive leadership responsibilities, well worth reading older posts on matters related to his research on the settler efforts to control and manipulate the term "Métis" and the consequences of those attempts and Métis resistance to it. If the few blogposts here are not enough, your next port of call is his excellent book, titled simply Métis. ★
• json.org (2019-02-28) : There is almost an embarrassment of mark up languages for the purpose of easing data exchange where that makes sense. JSON is another one, with an acronym expanded as "javascript object notation" which apparently refers to it using an object-oriented representation style from that scripting language. This is the site to see the grammar and download the specification document for it, if desired. ★
• Joy Harjo (2019-02-21) : Poet, musician, and scholar only begin to touch on the wide range of work and practice of this Mvskoke powerhouse. Her books include the edited anthology Reinventing the Enemy's Language, featuring a wide range of Indigenous women writers and her blog is far more than a shingle to hang upcoming tour dates on. ★
• Phrasefinder, The (2019-02-14) : A long-time resource on the web, founded in 1998, this is a site full of brief articles describing the meaning and origins of idioms, expressions, and sayings in english. A go to source when an american friend stops you short with the startled question, "what does that expression you just used mean anyway?" ★
• GNU Grep 3.0 (2019-02-07) : If you use grep at all, and have made it through the first few weeks of teeth-gnashing frustration that getting used to its syntax invokes, then you have had the happy experience of discovering how much work it saves you and how many other programs you use include pattern matching facilities. It is available in many *office forks, and even micro$oft has added them to word. This manual is a short introduction and memory refresher. ★
• Grote's Notes to Wheelock's Latin (2019-01-31) : If you are preparing to take latin and have not studied ancient greek or plan to study it concurrently, and your first language is english, you may find these notes of considerable help. Dale Grote wrote these notes to fill in the overt grammar knowledge that many english-speaking students no longer bring to latin or ancient greek classes, and which therefore slows them down and makes the learning experience quite frustrating. All made available for free. ★
• Cree Literacy Network (2019-01-24) : Founded in 2010, this is the website of a determined group of Cree speakers and scholars who are bringing together a detailed index of Cree language resources and complementary blog posts. If you aren't subscribed to the most popular social media outlets, you can still see republished posts from them by network members, including Neal McLeod's 100 Days of Cree in the original. ★
• MacTutor History of Mathematics Archive (2019-01-17) : Founded and still mainatained by John O'Connor and Edmund Robertson of the school of mathematics and statistics at the university of saint andrews in scotland. "History" is in the broad sense here, including not just the development of mathematics over time and capsule biographies of thousands of mathematicians, but also curve data and cross-references into astronomy. ★
• literarydevices.net (2019-01-10) : Reasonably solid glossary of terms and techniques used in lyric poetry and rhetoric. A considerable amount of work has gone into it, including examples and related blog posts, yet it is difficult to find any sign of the people who run it even in the Nicolas Bourbaki sense. The blog posts are not overtly dated, so it is hard to say how often the site changes, but at minimum it is consistently available and can be cited. ★
• Citations féministes (2019-01-03) : A growing archive of citations of radical Feminist thinkers in both french and english, including a range of translations and excellent scanned texts and photographs. It is a project of the blog Sexisme et Sciences humaines – Féminisme, which works to reveal sexist mechanisms that maintain women's oppression so that they can be destroyed. I suspect that it will move off of wordpress.com soon, if it hasn't already. ★