Research Guides: FYS Secret History: Start Here

How do you “know” what you “know” and what does it mean that you do?

What if everything you “know” is wrong…your life profoundly shaped by moments that barely left a trace in History where people struggled to realize private dreams and desires in public counter-hegemonic space(s) and sought to gain control over the material and ideological conditions of their everyday lives.

So what matters are Arabian Assassins, Mediterranean pirate enclaves, the Paris Commune, Dada, tri-racial isolate drop-out communities, Situationists, and “punks”? “Real” (hi)story found in Ginsberg’s “Howl,” 16th century Anabaptists, the Velvet Underground, silent French movie serials, Delta blues singers, Chance the Rapper or Lizzo…

-- From Dr. Selbin's Syllabus

Photo: The Daily Beast

Recommended Internet Resources for A Secret History

While the library provides many reliable resources for finding information on topics discussed in this course, there are several websites your professors and librarians have determined are reliable and informative. Ask your Librarian for help finding other credible internet sources. There's WAY MORE than what I've listed below!

Bureau of Public Secrets
Situationist texts and translations
Leftist Parties of the World
"Democratic socialists and reform communists as well as social democratic and green parties, traditional communists, marxists-leninists of stalinist or maoist persuasions, the tendencies of trotskyism, left communists, guerrilla organizations, leftist movements struggling for national or ethnic liberation or for regional autonomy, the different currents of anarchism, alliances with leftist participation and parties outside of these categories."
Siege of Paris - Northwestern University Library
Searchable collection of "links to over 1200 digitized photographs and images recorded during the Siege and Commune of Paris cir. 1871."
The Rhizome Collective
A consensus-run 501c3 nonprofit organization that has operated a center for community organizing and urban sustainability in an East Austin warehouse since 2000.
Dorothy Day
Dorothy Day co-founded the Catholic Worker Movement with Peter Maurin in 1933.
The Anarchist Library
An archive focusing on anarchism, anarchist texts, and texts of interest for anarchists.
The Emma Goldman Papers at UC Berkeley Libraries
Emma Goldman (1869–1940) stands as a major figure in the history of American radicalism and feminism. An influential and well-known anarchist of her day, Goldman was an early advocate of free speech, birth control, women's equality and independence, and union organization. Her criticism of mandatory conscription of young men into the military during World War I led to a two-year imprisonment, followed by her deportation in 1919. For the rest of her life until her death in 1940, she continued to participate in the social and political movements of her age, from the Russian Revolution to the Spanish Civil War.
Genesis Breyer P-Orridge
In the 1990s, Genesis began a collaboration with the performance artist, Lady Jaye Breyer. Inspired by the language of true love and frustrated by what they felt to be imposed limits on personal and expressive identity, Genesis and Lady Jaye applied the “cut-up” to their own bodies in an effort to merge their two identities, through plastic surgery, hormone therapy, cross-dressing and altered behavior, into a single, "pandrogynous" character, "BREYER P-ORRIDGE." This project focused on one central concern—deconstructing the fiction of self.
VOX article on Burning Man and Billionaires
Can you really have a T.A.Z. with wealthy billionaires around? From the article --- "Up until last year, billionaire Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz ran a grilled cheese camp that dished out hundreds of delicious sandwiches. Mark Zuckerberg joined him in the melty give-away two years ago."