Big vagina energy: the return of the sheela na gig -
Not that they'd ever gone away, possibly the word there should be recuperation? recovery? re-evaluation? re-interpretation? Some say the explicit medieval carvings were fertility symbols; others that the figures were meant to ward off evil. Now a group of Irish feminists are bringing them back - ( Read more... )

As somebody who earned something between 'peanuts' and 'ooh, free copy of book' for contributions to academic tomes, I am Very Much Appreciative of the work of the Authors' Licensing and Copyright Society for gathering together micropayments in respect of copying for student packs etc on my behalf annually. While this may not exactly amount to a ( Read more... )

Augusta Fells Savage, a talented sculptor who had faced obstacles due to her sex and race at every turn: [L]ittle of Savage's work survives today. Because she couldn't afford bronze, she often had to make her sculptures out of plaster; most of these have crumbled over time. Other works, like The Harp, were destroyed because they could not be moved ( Read more... )

The V&A thing is even worse than originally reported: V&A to say goodbye to departments by material-woodwork, metalwork etc-and 20% of its curators: major and problematic upheavals with 'radical restructuring' and merging of departments, breaking with tradition: The “mother” of decorative art museums all over the world, the V&A was founded in 1852 ( Read more... )

I'm trying to think if writers ever have/had this problem: What’s in a surname? The female artists lost to history because they got married. Because in the case of writers, they just kept on publishing under the (male/gender neutral or just generally not identifiable to her daytime persona) name whatever their matrimonial or non-matrimonal ups and ( Read more... )

I keep meaning to mention this: I think I may have posted at some time about my friend who wrote a well-received book on what happened to the children of British women by black US GIs after the war (not an edifying story on the side of either government: the US Army authorities would not give per for interracial marriages to take place; British ( Read more... )

What I read
Finished Ellis, Masculinity and Science in Britain, 1831-1918, and makes a case that really, up until the Great War, when the military applications of SCIENCE proved their manly credentials, there was a constant murmur of dubiousness about the proper masculinity of nerdy scientist bods - lurking solitary and speculative, and even if ( Read more... )

This weekend is Diwali, and I find that there is an amazing installation at the Tate Britain: Chila Kumari Singh Burman transforms the front of Tate Britain into a celebration of neon light and swirling colour: Inspired by the artist’s childhood visits to the Blackpool illuminations and her family’s ice-cream van, Burman covers the façade of Tate ( Read more... )

What’s in a Name? Erasing women writers in the name of uplifting them: It is easy to get caught in the trap of historical revisionism when it comes to women writers, but this revisionism is rarely along progressive lines - despite its claims. Instead, it is a conservative reimagining of women struggling to survive in a man’s world that erases the ( Read more... )

Pet cemeteries reprised: [O]wners of all kinds of domestic animals have become more likely to believe in a pet afterlife: A new analysis published in the journal Antiquity, examining the history of pet cemeteries in Newcastle and London over 100 years from 1881, found an increase in the proportion of graves that reference the animals’ immortal ( Read more... )