I suppose it is possibly a good thing that there is a popular-type biography of Anne Lister just out: Gentleman Jack: A biography of Anne Lister, Regency Landowner, Seducer and Secret Diarist by Angela Steidele and Katy Derbyshire, though the word 'secret' there makes me cringe. Keeping a diary was, after all, in most cases a private practice (and ( Read more... )

Currently reading: Kate Zambreno, Heroines, which is both interesting, and thoroughly exasperating.
This may be about my age, or class, or something, but I am made tired by her fascination with the, if not actually mad, thus diagnosed, wives of literary men, whose own reaching towards a creative identity was cannibalised or thwarted by their ( Read more... )

It is probably no news to my dr rdrz that I am not infrequently exasperated by narratives about the history of psychiatry/madness which make it All About Teh Wymmynz, with particular ire reserved for any kneejerk association with Female Creativity.

I am also so very over the fictional trope of the woman who has gone right over the edge of nervous ( Read more... )

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I am sure Clio agrees with me that there are certain historical topics upon which it would be reasonable to declare a moratorium. Indeed, when we used to produce lists of potential student research projects that could use the archives, we also used to include 'Overdone Subjects That We Strongly Advise, Do Not Go There'.

Part of this is no doubt ( Read more... )

(Nice peeve, good peeve.)

I have oft (it seems to me) complained about the tendency to associate certain illnesses with creativity, or at least romanticise them. Particularly the idea of the syphilitic genius - these two elements are independent of one another, not connected: we might also remark the same thing about tuberculosis.

Most people with ( Read more... )

Should anyone else desire 5 words I associate with you, for discursing upon, please speak up in comments.

From
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This is fascinating (it also featured in this week's Time Out): Mary Neal: a suffragette, social reformer and morris dance revivalist who has been almost written out of history, by her niece, who has just donated Neal's papers to the English Folk Dance and Song Society at Cecil Sharp House, even though Neal and Sharp fell out bitterly over the ' ( Read more... )

Some months ago I posted about my immediate reaction to the concept of Mad, Bad and Sad: A History of Women and the Mind Doctors from 1800 by Lisa Appignanesi. A few weeks ago I dispatched an essay review of same to A Specialist Journal.

Writing that essay was the underlying reason for my solicitation of instances of Mad Male Writers & Artists - ( Read more... )

Okay, why I was asking about Louis Wain was because I am reprising a talk tomorrow at work which includes some allusion to Wain and his mad cats (does anyone else find the anthro-cats playing golf and having tea-parties etc far scarier than the psychedelia cats?) (incidentally, have heard that this claim of clear progression from sort of sanity to ( Read more... )