Laura Vivanco

US professors facing threats, firings and harassment over Charlie Kirk posts As many as 40 academics have been dismissed in aftermath of shooting, allegedly without due process

I'm 😡 and 😱 and sending 🫂 to my US colleagues. [Words are failing me somewhat, hence the emojis.]

What Are Little Boys Made Of? - Wikipedia

This sounds like a version of en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_Ar... and I hate it!

I think that, as she identifies with a hero, a woman can become what she takes joy in, can realize the maleness in herself, can experience the sensation of living inside a body suffused with masculine power and grace (adjectives very commonly applied to heroes, including my own), can explore anger and ruthlessness and passion and pride and honor and gentleness and vulnerability: yes, ma'am, all those old romantic cliches. In short, she can *be* a man.

And

Feminists need not tremble for the reader - she does not identify with, admire, or internalize the characteristics of either a stupidly submissive or an irksomely independent heroine. The reader thinks about what she would have done in the heroine's place. The reader measures the heroine by a tough yardstick, asking the character to live up to the reader's standards, not vice versa. Placeholding and reader identification should not be confused. Placeholding is an objective involvement; the reader rides along with the character, having the same experiences but accepting or rejecting the character's actions, words, and emotions on the basis of her personal yardstick. Reader identification is subjective: the reader *becomes* the character, feeling what she or he feels, experiencing the sensation of being *under control* of the character's awareness. Even the most well-conceived and fascinating of romance heroines embodies an element of placeholding. However, it is myopic to believe that just because the reader is female she is confined to the heroine's character as the target of authentic reader identification. In romance it is the hero who carries the book. Within the dynamics of reading a romance, the female reader *is* the hero, and also is the heroine-as-object-of-the-hero's interest (the placeholder heroine). The reader very seldom *is* the heroine in the sense meant by the term "reader identification." There is always an element of analytical distance.

OK, have had to go off and find the essay. Still not sure about all this, but you can read the whole essay here: books.google.co.uk/books?id=TRA... and here's a screenshot of what I think is a key part of the argument:

I think she was saying that readers would like to behave the way heroes often do, but they're not allowed to in real life due to gender roles, so that's why heroines are kind of boring and the readers love badly-behaved heroes. Something like that, anyway.

I think the self-inserting thing has more to do with the "placeholder heroine". Which is kind of the opposite of the reader identifying with the hero? But it's a while since I read that essay.

Amy Krug from the University of Dayton got in touch about their library's popular romance novel collection, which is being created by her students

To paraphrase Margery Kempe wildly: "For Thy Great Tent Have Mercy On My Little Tent"

@orkneylibrary.bsky.social I just saw this post from @metoffice.gov.uk and wondered if your photos of the dark sky would be starting soon.

Depends what it is that's being published (textbooks will earn you more, I think), but in my experience, you're lucky to earn anything at all (and I had to save one publisher about £500 over 20 years ago by getting my spouse to do the typesetting).

Scottish Greens - For People. For Planet. Scottish Greens - For People. For Planet. - For People. For Planet.

Just saw the OP because it was reposted by @zackpolanski.bsky.social , and maybe you're already a member of the Scottish Green Party, but if not, since your profile says Dundee (Scotland) I was wondering if maybe you should join the @scottishgreens.org as well?

YouTube video by Netflix A Message From Dr. Jane Goodall | Famous Last Words | Netflix

The full thing's here:

This is for the UK Government, but also I thought it was worth sharing the photo of the extremely cute hedgehog (since there's no alt-text, the hedgehog is partially curled up, but facing the camera with a speech bubble saying "Can you help" as it looks out with bright black eyes + shiny nose)

This chapter explores the uses of history and the challenge to historiography latent in a particular bodice ripper: Bertrice Small's The Kadin. Among the nine Orientalist historical romances published in 1978, Bertrice Small's The Kadin stands out for its meticulous historical research into the reigns of the Ottoman sultans Bajazet II (1481-1512), Selim I (1512-20), and Suleiman I (the Magnificent, 1520-1566). The Kadin blends historical fact with invention to achieve a romance. The narrative serves as an example of a feminist revisionist historiography of the Ottoman empire (albeit one that is still essentially Orientalist) which places women's domestic, familial, romantic, and sexual experiences, actions, and relationships at the centre of historical narratives of power, statehood, and empire. As the final section of this chapter will demonstrate, such revisionist historiography was - and remains - of considerable interest to general readers, and not simply to historians.

Agreeing with you, with a quote from page 22 of Hsu-Ming Teo's ""Bertrice teaches you about history, and you don't even mind!": History and Revisionist Historiography in Bertrice Small's The Kadin" books.google.co.uk/books?id=OSA...

I really should have read the description first, since the proverb (with translation) is in the first line of it! Sorry!

I'm guessing the title (and the fact that the character is half human half raven) is a reference to the Spanish proverb (cvc.cervantes.es/lengua/refra... ) "Cría cuervos, y te sacarán los ojos" (Nurture/bring up ravens and they'll take out your eyes), warning about ingratitude.

So you could fit your clothes again if you gained weight? Sounds like it might be worth keeping them unless you need the space or wouldn't wear them anyway.

Maybe he took his shirt off once the donuts had been fried, cooled, and were ready for icing?

What about camouflage combat uniforms? I'm guessing they're less pleasing to his aesthetic senses than ceremonial dress uniform so ...

The great Victorian beard craze The rapid rise of facial hair in the last 10 years mirrors a transatlantic craze that lasted for decades in the second half of the 19th Century.

"Beards had been banned in the British army until this time [the Crimean War of 1854-56], but the freezing temperatures of Crimean winters, and the impossibility of getting shaving soap, led to a necessary change.

By the time the last troops returned home, beards were the mark of a hero. "

And I think these ones are by Wedgwood around 1760 www.nationaltrustcollections.org.uk/object/592379

Drink Your Vegetables: A Special 18th Century Wedgwood Ware Fads come and go. Such is life.  Eighteenth century colonists were not immune to flash-in-the-pan trends.  However, given that information traveled a bit slower before the digital age, in the 18th …

But now I see that the vegetable pottery might have started much earlier southernhomemagazine.com/2021/07/01/a... and livesandlegaciesblog.org/2017/02/08/d...

Bordallo Pinheiro Shop our range Bordallo Pinheiro Tableware. Handmade Portuguese Pottery and Tableware. Free Shipping on All Orders over £50 or Collect from Our Knightsbridge, London Store. Divertimenti est. 1963 Prov...

It could be by Rafael Bordalo Pinheiro en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rafael_..., or inspired by his products. He started making them in 1885 and his factory continues to sell them e.g. www.divertimenti.co.uk/collections/...

I just didn't bother verifying my age. Still seem to see almost everything, so the only thing I'm missing out on (as far as I know) is the chat feature, and as I didn't need DMs from random people, and people I know can contact me by email, that seemed more of a benefit than a loss.

The trees are losing their fight against the advancing forces of winter!

😔

That font's hard to read so I wonder if the title's Break Out Year?

Courtney's called for packing the court repeatedly, for years. See bsky.app/search?q=fro... (Apologies if this isn't what you were asking for)

FBI fires agents photographed kneeling during 2020 racial justice protest, AP sources say The FBI has fired agents who were photographed kneeling during a racial justice protest in Washington that followed the 2020 death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police officers.

"The bureau had reassigned the agents last spring but has since fired them, said the people, who insisted on anonymity to discuss personnel matters with The Associated Press.

The number of FBI employees fired was not immediately clear, but two people said it was roughly 20."

FBI fires agents photographed kneeling during 2020 racial justice protest, AP sources say The FBI has fired agents who were photographed kneeling during a racial justice protest in Washington that followed the 2020 death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police officers.

For people wanting more details: