Writer Bonnie Greer has resigned as president of the Bronte Society after an internal feud over how to preserve the legacy of the Bronte sisters.
Oh the Brontes: the sturm and drang just doesn't stop, does it?
External consultants brought into to heal the rift and stop the wuthering (where, o where is Flora Poste when you need her?) "Students of ( Read more... )

No, really, it is not a defence against your group being accused of misogyny to say 'Look! WYMMYNZ among us!'.
Yeah, like women can't be misogynistic and see themselves as Different From The Rest, one of the Cool Girls/consider other women to be rivals/etc etc.
I can think of quite a lot of women to whom this applies, not to mention that ( Read more... )

Have been given to speculate, on the basis of a discussion happening in a locked post on someone else's journal, that me personally I'm pretty obtuse re social dynamics, in/out groups, etc.

At least, that is, in the present and as concerns the hedgehog, because I can so see these things in historical and archival contexts.

This may, of course, ( Read more... )

Archival geekery, with which is included some general thoughts about organisations and their ways.

During the repackageathon during Closed Week, one of my colleagues looked at my boxes and enviously remarked that the lot had fallen to me of several boxes of minute books, how much trouble could that be?

Quite a lot, it turned out, and not because ( Read more... )

Have just been cataloguing papers of a fairly distinguished biological scientist who turned out (and this is not mentioned in any entries in the standard works of reference) to have been brought up in the Exclusive Brethren: and did not leave until past the age of 50.

I'm guessing this had to do with responsibilities towards ageing parents who ( Read more... )

I am deeply reluctant to make any generalisation about a nation as huge and diverse as the US of A. I am thus bothered by an article about Americans and guns by someone who appears to be USAian himself in today's Guardian
My nephew argues that not only is it every American's right to carry a firearm, but it is also their responsibility. "Each ( Read more... )

There are so many stories about girls who leave home to pursue disapproved or unconventional careers or courses of action, that it's really lovely to read a true-life story about a man who left his 'die-hard shipbuilding family' to become a nurse (at a time when male nurses were less common). Though I'm intrigued at the throwaway comment that by ( Read more... )

Even jetlagged as I am, my palaeography skillz totally ROOOL: had reader today who wanted help in deciphering various bits of C19th scientist's correspondence, and in all but one instance (which took a bit longer) I got the words Just Like That, to reader's enormous admiration.

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What is that phenomenon whereby people think that praising one ( Read more... )

My Monday post of the Guardian article about group psychology, with particular reference to the recent BBC reality show reprising, sort-of, the famous Zimbardo Guards and Prisoners experiment at Stanford, generated a productive discussion. Some of the issues have been picked up by shadowkat67 in a typically deeply thought out and well-argued post.

I've been ( Read more... )

The ideas interview: Alex Haslam: Abu Ghraib need not have happened and the Stanford prison experiment got it wrong. By John Sutherland:
"One of the big problems in social psychology is that there have been theories - Zimbardo's is the best known - which have naturalised abuse and oppression. They have made them seem normal and the manifestation of ( Read more... )