biography

Elizabeth Packard: A Noble Fight

andrea — Tue, 26 Apr 2011 08:00:00 +0000

In 1860, it was legal for a man to send his wife to an insane asylum against her will, based on his word and that of one or two witnesses. The asylum could deny patients the right to legal representation as well as visits and uncensored correspondence with friends. And a man could sell his property and take his children across the country without consulting his wife, because the property and children were considered his, even if her inheritance and income had contributed to that property. This was the world in which Elizabeth Parsons Packard lived.

Born in 1816 in Dare, Massachusetts, she lived a fairly conventional life her first forty-four years, marrying Calvinist minister Theophilus Packard, bearing him six children, and moving from town to town and state to state as he sought ministry opportunities. But during the family's residence in Manteno, Illinois in the 1850s she began to exhibit greater independence from her husband, dabbling in Spiritualism, espousing unorthodox (some would say heretical) religious opinions and confessing to romantic (although unconsummated) feelings for another man. Prompted by this “abnormal behavior,” in 1860 Theophilus had his wife committed to the insane asylum in Jacksonville, Illinois.

Packard was released after three years and declared sane in the jury trial she was denied when forced into the asylum. While her release may have been partially due to efforts of friends on her behalf, it was also because Andrew McFarland, the superintendent of the Jacksonville asylum and a leading figure in the psychiatric community, had become exasperated with her demands and complaints, terming her “an unendurable annoyance.” The antagonism between Packard and McFarland, which continued after her release through both of their writings, is painted in detail in this book, as are the evolving psychiatric standards and practices of the time.

Packard was not reunited with her children upon her release, as her husband had taken her younger children back to Massachusetts with him. (Her oldest sons were living on their own by that point.) A woman of tremendous resources, she began writing pamphlets and lobbying state legislatures for changes that would give both the mentally ill and married women greater rights.

Elizabeth Packard: A Noble Fight is an engaging portrait of Packard's life and crusade. She emerges as a shrewd campaigner who took advantage of stereotypes of weak females who needed the protection of strong men (legislators) because of their powerlessness; her personal charisma went a long way in lobbying efforts. Modern readers may be disappointed that she did not broaden her efforts to include greater rights for all women or claim full equality with men. Nor did she divorce her husband (although they never lived together after her time at the asylum) since she viewed divorce as scandalous. However, such statements and actions might have turned society against her and hurt her cause.

Kudos to Linda Carlisle for bringing to light the forgotten story of a woman who challenged prevailing ideas about the treatment of the mentally ill and the rights of women. Academic biographies of this sort are often quite dry, but Packard crafts an engaging narrative. Her passion for this cause shines through and creates a compelling read.

Written by: Karen Duda, April 26th 2011

Sexual Outlaw, Erotic Mystic: The Essential Ida Craddock

tina — Sun, 06 Mar 2011 20:00:00 +0000

By Vere Chappell

Red Wheel/Weiser

One of the best things about reviewing books is the exposure I get to the fabulous females in feminist history who would otherwise be consigned to the cobwebby corners of academic obscurity had some enterprising writer not plucked them from the depths and held them up for the delight of feminist history nerds. This was what I experienced with Sexual Outlaw, Erotic Mystic, which is part biography and part collected works of Ida Craddock. The editor and biographer intersperses five (long) chapters of Craddock's own writings with well-written biographical detail explaining Craddock's often puzzling rhetoric.

Ida C. Craddock was a writer and teacher and at the age of twenty-five, she challenged the status quo by being the first woman to apply for admission to the University of Pennsylvania. She passed the entrance exam and was recommended for admission, but the board of trustees quickly passed a resolution barring women from attending the school. Her career as a teacher would be limited as a result of this setback. She spent the next several years traveling, teaching stenography, and studying spirituality, until 1893 when the Chicago World's Fair opened. The belly dancers imported from the Middle East scandalized America—and Anthony Comstock in particular. Comstock was a powerful proponent of “blue laws” (laws created to enforce strict moral and religious standards of behavior) and the self-appointed postal inspector. Craddock took advantage of the scandal by writing an editorial in the New York World defending the dancers and poking gentle fun at Comstock. It's what she said at the end of the piece; however, that caught the attention of the world: Craddock claimed she had a “spirit husband” named Soph, with whom she had sex nightly.

Craddock’s editorial and claims of spirit-world sexual relations aside, she made a powerful enemy of Comstock by publishing and distributing “sex manuals.” Craddock, though an ardent freethinker, was not a proponent of sex outside of marriage and her sex manuals were intended for married couples only, but this was not good enough for Comstock (or Ida's mother). Both sought to have her institutionalized and jailed. Avoiding the asylum but not an arrest, Craddock refused to plead insanity and was sentenced to five years in prison for distribution of obscene material. Viewing this as a life sentence (she was forty-five years old then), Craddock penned a lengthy suicide note condemning Comstock and the society that judged her and then killed herself. Comstock, for his part, merely added Ida's name to the list of fifteen persons whom he proudly claimed he had driven to suicide.

Craddock's personal writings read as completely lucid, intelligent, and intense; they are not the scribblings of a deranged mind. Whether her “spirit husband” was a hallucination, a tale to prod her enemies, or (who knows?) a real experience, is anyone's guess. Her work was important to feminism, spiritualism, religion, history, philosophy, freethinking, and social reform, and her name deserves to be better known. I'm personally not a religious/spiritual person, but I loved Ida's utter outrageousness in her public claims of “spirit sex” and her audacity in flouting convention in her writings and speech. Her pieces are long-winded and full of references to obscure academia, but they are entirely absorbing. Craddock was clearly a learned woman with plenty to say. I think her suicide note, the last piece of writing she left the world, is my favorite. It's a nice “you can't fire me—I quit” and a scathing indictment of Comstock as well. Read Sexual Outlaw, Erotic Mystic so more people will know of Ida Craddock, and not just the warped ideas of Anthony Comstock.

Written by: Natalie Ballard, March 6th 2011

Isabella Blow: A Life in Fashion

brittany — Fri, 11 Feb 2011 08:00:00 +0000

By Lauren Goldstein Crowe

Thomas Dunne Books

Before Lady Gaga adorned her poker face with a diamond-encrusted lobster, there was the original eccentric fashionista Isabella Blow, the flamboyant muse to couture designers who, despite being the toast of London’s glitterati, would die at age forty-eight by her own hand. As a fashion director, she survived as one of Anna Wintour’s assistants to later become champion of the avant garde. From hot pink cobwebs to towering peacock feathers, there was nothing that Blow wouldn’t dare crown herself with. While she discovered both fame milliner Philip Treacy and designer Alexander McQueen, none of her accomplishments could prevent her suicide by swallowing poison in May 2007.

Even in death, Blow continues to make headlines and is now the leading lady of two books based on her extravagant life. One was written by her husband Detmar Hamilton Blow and the other by journalist Lauren Goldstein Crowe. Although she never knew Blow personally, Crowe was compelled to investigate the addict of lavish hats. Isabella Blow: A Life in Fashion is more than just a biography. Rather, it’s a love letter that faithfully depicts who the icon really was. From a tumultuous family history to the final moments of an even more tragic life, Crowe expertly crafts a tale that’s more awe-inspiring and heartbreaking than anything ever written about Blow.

While Blow’s husband claims that Crowe’s biography is riding on the “Issie bandwagon,” she took on an even greater challenge than rehashing old diary entries. Crowe proves to be a masterful reporter in her investigation of Blow’s 600-year-old legacy and gives readers clues why the successful editor chose death over further redefining a world in which she ruled supreme. The dark cloud that shadowed Blow wasn’t unknown to her family. According to Crowe, her grandfather Jock Delves Broughton “injected himself fourteen times with Medinal, a barbiturate.” Then there’s her brother John Delves Broughton who, at age two, choked to death. It comes as no surprise that, after interviewing countless friends and relatives, Crowe would find out that Blow once told a nurse:

So many people kill themselves, it’s not unusual. It’s just unusual to have someone who wants to die so much to have been left here... I had eight suicides in my family. It comes like that to us. It’s like bacon and eggs. It’s like cheese and toast. I just have to make sure it happens the next time.

Crowe successfully questions what others haven’t dared asked: why is it that the elite were surprised that the patron of the obscure wouldn’t want to live? And more importantly, why didn’t her closest friends, including the husband that continues to mourn her, further attempt to give her the treatment she so desperately needed? Crowe exposes what many of us refuse to accept: that when someone is suffering from a serious depression, they will show anyone who’ll listen that they need help, whether they ultimately want it or not.

It’s difficult to overlook the glitz and glam shielding Blow’s mysterious life, yet Crowe never stops at digging for the truth behind the editor’s fears. From having an Italian lover named Casanova, to spending the last of her money on a luxurious picnic basket to share with her non-existent beau, the author implies that, despite how she felt about her looks, Blow could have been anxiously searching for the one person who could make her feel as beautiful as she so greatly desired. Instead of romances, she sought salvation with crowns of monarch wings, veils of delicate petals, and glorious sun bonnets, ensuring that not even statuesque sirens of the runways could attempt to steal the spotlight from the “ugly’ star. Sadly, her light would quickly dim before audiences throughout the world could fully appreciate a style she created.

Would Crowe have written Isabella Blow: A Life in Fashion if it’s main character wasn’t famous and fatally flawed? Probably not, but does it matter? The point of Crowe’s book is to introduce readers to a real-life woman, one who didn’t shy away from exposing the wounds she attempted to shield. And while Blow didn’t live long enough to obtain the aid that could have encouraged her to live, we can now be assured that her legacy in fashion will continue to shock and inspire artists forever.

Written by: Stephanie Nolasco, February 11th 2011

Firebrands: Portraits from the Americas

priyanka — Fri, 28 Jan 2011 20:00:00 +0000

By Justseeds Artists' Cooperative

Microcosm Publishing

I was initially unimpressed by Firebrands, but that was because I approached it wrong. I tried to sit down in my living room and read it cover-to-cover, and that's not what this book is for. It's a pocket-sized compendium of amazing people—people "left out of the schoolbooks because they were too brown, too female, too poor, too queer, too uneducated, too disabled, or because they daydreamed too much." Each firebrand gets a page-long description, a lovely illustration, and a number of suggestions for further reading.

Firebrands reads somewhat like a reference book, and it could function that way—one could keep it on the shelf in case one heard the name of a lesser-known abolitionist, revolutionary, or what-have-you; then one could simply look that person up. As a blogger, though, I see it as much like a themed blog. It's best opened at random pages, read in fits and starts. It might have been interesting to include some kind of decentralized theme-organization within the book—something along the lines of a blog's tags. A few blog-inspired books have done things like that in recent years, such as the sex-positive anthology Yes Means Yes, which attaches a number of tags at the end of each essay, then lists all tags and their associated entries at the beginning of the book. (Firebrands does have a very nice index, however, so it's possible to navigate the book by themes in that way.)

Once I started reading the book at random and in small chunks, I started liking it a lot. The authors have done a great job of digging up pithy quotations and interesting anecdotes. A few entries lack vividness (it's hard to be enthralled by vague sentences like "She did a lot of community organizing"), but for the most part, these firebrands really sound inspiring. One of my favorite quotations came from the description of Latino baseball player Roberto Clemente: "Clemente's motto was, 'If you have the chance to help others and fail to do so, you are wasting your time on this earth.'" And I was charmed by an anecdote about the singer Nina Simone: "During a recital when she was twelve years old, Nina's parents were asked to relinquish their front row seats to a white family, and Simone refused to perform until her parents were returned to their original seats."

I was also impressed by the book's genuine inclusiveness—it covered a wide array of warriors, artists, leaders, and it did so while pushing beyond the typical "inclusive" boundaries. For example, as a sex-positive activist I was thrilled to note that the painter Frida Kahlo was acknowledged to be both bisexual and polyamorous.

The illustrations add a lot to Firebrands. I particularly love the images by Roger Peet. It goes with the last biography in the book, Zumbi dos Palmares, a Portuguese slave in Brazil who led an insurrection in the 1600s. Firebrands was produced by an artists' cooperative called Justseeds, and it's clear that the whole group pitched in for this book and thought carefully about each element. So you could benefit a bunch of artists by giving this charming collection as a gift! What’s not to love?

Written by: Clarisse Thorn, January 28th 2011

Mary Tudor: Princess, Bastard, Queen

alicia — Thu, 09 Dec 2010 12:00:00 +0000

By Anna Whitelock

Random House

Pay cable offers us a whole new realm of addictions and one of the most recent was Showtime's production of The Tudors. The program, now ended with the inevitable death of King Henry (no spoilers in history), portrayed the complicated realm of the Tudor Dynasty, which included two notable queens—sisters Mary and Elizabeth. This historic era, because of Queen Elizabeth, offers us a space to enter and critique how women were used for political gain, often not their own.

Anna Whitelock offers a similar proposition when she explores the life of Mary Tudor—a life often derided in British history. Daughter of Katherine of Aragon and King Henry, Mary later becomes known as Bloody Mary and as an overzealous threat to her own country.

Though historians have depicted the facts of the dynasty and the royal successions, Whitelock's argument is that historical texts have typically overlooked the fact that the value and vision of Mary and her contributions to history are greater than simply a slaughter of the non-Catholic community.

What makes Whitelock's book powerful is both its impeccable timing (the Tudors are the new pink) and its nuanced look at how women were political tools and machines simultaneously. The complicated graces involved in diplomacy, governed by the social mores of the time, lent to women having more space to enact persuasive maneuvers and machinations. This look at power in an era where even royal women seemed quite powerless (and were publicly thought of as weaker and merely vessels) is refreshing.

The truth of the matter, is, however, that Mary's story is also a sad one. Tossed about from prince to prince even as young as two and a half as a political token, a seal of trust and betrothal between men's nations, Mary's life is much more than the violent persecution of non-Catholics under her reign.  Whitelock frames the well-known history with a lens that offers just what she promises—a new look at Mary with perhaps the sympathy or value she's often been denied. Further, the story becomes timeless as Whitelock profiles just how close Mary and her indomitable mother, Catherine of Aragon, were. The strength of relationships between women is perhaps even more valuable in an era where there was little power to be held elsewhere.

The book is a generous read, even for those not familiar with Tudor history. As you read, you will recognize the political trumps and trollops that are not unfamiliar to us today. Described with the flourish they deserve, yet written clearly and in such a manner that all characters and dates can be digested, Whitelock's biography is an excellent lesson in the lives of powerful women, fortune and politics.

Written by: Dr. Julie E. Ferris, December 9th 2010

Untold: A History of the Wives of Prophet Muhammad

mandy — Thu, 25 Nov 2010 16:00:00 +0000

By Tamam Kahn

Monkfish Book Publishing

Although the wives of the Prophet are held up as examples for Muslim women to follow, little is told about the human beings behind the women on pedestals. We all get told the same stuff—how Khadija supported her husband, Aisha’s work as a jurist and teacher—but the discourse focuses on their actions, not their persons.

Tamam Kahn’s Untold aims to tell the human stories of the Prophet’s wives—and succeeds. In the preface of the book, Kahn touches on her intentions: upon meeting strong Muslim women in Morocco, she wanted to tell the stories of strong women, including the back story. Indeed, what makes for a strong woman isn’t just her praiseworthy behavior, but also her imperfections, her humanity.

The format of the book is not like traditional biographies; it mixes original poetry and prose interlaced with history, a style which makes for an easier read than a straight-up biographical narrative. Unlike other works on the subject of the Prophet’s wives, the way Kahn tells the story, at the crossroads between history and fantasy, social science and fiction, Untold can appeal to more than “just Muslims.” It is a wonderfully uplifting, spiritual read.

Untold invites us to contemplate the context of the Prophet’s marriages without falling into the trap of apologist discourse. When discussing the Prophet’s marriage to Zaynab bint Jahsh, Kahn discusses the politics surrounding her divorce from Zayd and subsequent marriage with Muhammad, outlines possible motives, and concludes that “what might have happened between Zaynab and Muhammad is forbidden love, the onset of impulsive feeling, deep connection and pain.”

Aisha, far from the platitudes of your Dar-ul-Big-Beard textbook, is described as a “both naive and wise,” and a “formidable foe” due to her “vigilance” and her “uneasiness at sharing her husband.” Khadija’s story is also reframed: instead of “just” being the woman who dropped everything to support Muhammad, she is painted as the cornerstone of his work. "…She is part of all that is vivid in that landscape of dusty earth…the sustaining date fruit…She is the underground river beneath desert palm trees and gardens.” The stories of the Prophet’s wives aren’t the only ones in Untold. Sections are dedicated to the humanity and strength of his daughters, as well.

Untold’s framing of the stories of the Prophet’s wives cast them in a new light. Instead of being untouchable examples for humankind, they become women we mere Muslims can relate to and emulate in all their humanity. The place of women in Islam is often talked about, but the stories of Muslim women themselves, less so. Untold fills a void in popular culture and helps to re-frame the role of Muslim women in narratives about them.

Cross-posted at Muslimah Media Watch

Written by: Nicole @ MMW, November 25th 2010

Secret Historian: The Life and Times of Samuel Steward, Professor, Tattoo Artist, and Sexual Renegade

gwen — Thu, 18 Nov 2010 00:00:00 +0000

By Justin Spring

Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Who was Sam Steward? Influential professor, ballet enthusiast, S/M practitioner, author of paperback pornos and serious novels, and tattoo artist are just a few of the roles he played in his life. Among his friends were many important cultural and literary figures of the time including Gertrude Stein, Alice B. Toklas, Thorton Wilder, Ed Hardy, and Alfred Kinsey, yet he remains virtually unknown today. Justin Spring brings to light Steward’s story for the first time, drawing on his many letters and obsessively detailed records of his sexual encounters kept on index cards known as the “Stud File.” Steward dabbled in many professions and lifestyles, managing to be very talented at many things but never exceptional at anything.

The great tragedy of Steward’s life is that he could almost taste the fame and fortune in front of him, but could never quite reach out and grasp them. Most of his big plans fall through—he is rejected by the Navy and loses his dream of becoming a sailor, he is forced to give up his teaching position when his tattoo parlor and homosexual activities are discovered, and his memoirs remained unpublished at the time of his death.

Yet despite his failures, Spring makes a strong case for Steward’s significance in early American homosexual history. Steward was decades ahead of most in his views on pride in gay identity. He was not ashamed of his sexuality, and had a great disdain for those that insisted homosexuality was a disease. He displayed male pornography in his apartments and held “daisy chain” parties where many men would have sex together at a time when discovery of these activities would have resulted in imprisonment. A combination of self-destructive tendencies, sexual desire, and earnest rebellion fueled his search for sex in dangerous places with dangerous men. He nearly avoids death multiple times, and is repeatedly raped, robbed, and beaten up by men he seeks sexual encounters with. He has many pleasurable sexual encounters, however, including a memorable elevator experience with movie star Rock Hudson before he was famous.

Outside of sex, his life was mainly devoted to writing and teaching. He had numerous letter correspondences, the most moving of which was with Gertrude Stein. Steward was one of the first to have frank discussions with her about her lesbianism, and she doted on him like a son. Steward is forced to watch Stein and most of his friends die throughout his lifetime. In late life, he becomes very depressed and addicted to barbiturates. He dies almost all alone in the world, his life mostly a side note in the biographies of his celebrity friends.

Spring does a good job of chronicling Steward’s life, making him seem both interesting and endearing. The thoroughness of his biography is at once the book’s greatest asset and its greatest fault. While Spring is clearly passionate and dedicated to his subject matter, his work could have benefited from a lot of editing. For instance, it is not essential to know every time Steward gets diarrhea, or every brief love affair he has, but Spring includes everything. Nearly every page has a footnote, or several, with information that is not particularly vital to the story.

Overall, though, Secret Historian is a compelling homage to a man history has unjustly ignored. Steward may have not become famous in his lifetime but his writing, teaching, and friendships brought comfort to many other struggling writers and homosexuals in America and helped them to survive, and it is for this that Spring takes the time to give him the recognition he deserves.

Written by: Arielle Burgdorf, November 17th 2010

Elizabeth's Women: Friends, Rivals, and Foes who Shaped the Virgin Queen

barbara — Sun, 07 Nov 2010 16:00:00 +0000

By Tracy Borman

Bantam

Tracy Borman’s book, Elizabeth’s Women: The Hidden Story of the Virgin Queen, is an account of the women in the court of Queen Elizabeth I, and her relationship with them. As an avid reader of historical accounts of royals, I found this particular book to be notable for a number of reasons. It was well written, honest, and reflected Borman’s passion for the life of Queen Elizabeth I. It also draws upon issues in female leadership that are still relevant today.

First and foremost, what makes this a powerful read is Bowman’s ability to convey her passion for Elizabeth’s life, without painting a romanticized account of her leadership style and relationship with the women around her. She paints her not as a sanctified royal, but rather in a very human light. However, this humanization is not meant to make the reader pity or love Elizabeth more. For example, I remember reading Lady Antoina Fraser’s biographical work, Marie Antoinette: The Journey . Despite being an interesting and historical read, the sympathetic tone interfered with the authenticity of the book. In contrast, Borman does not try to apologise for any of the inequalities that Elizabeth perpetuated. Instead, she tries to show the roles played by the various female courtiers and relatives around her, and ultimately, Elizabeth’s role as a woman in a man’s world, and how the other women around her played into that. Rather than showing her as a revolutionary feminist figure, as others may try to paint her, Bowman’s account is very sober. It was refreshing to read about women I had not heard about before. Through the discussion of women in Elizabeth’s court, Borman also explores the influence of the private sphere on Elizabeth’s public life, and it was very interesting to learn about.

While many accounts have romanticized Elizabeth’s life in the bedroom, Borman steers clear of the topic. What was most profound for me was learning about the influence of women on Elizabeth’s leadership style. I have read a number of articles and accounts commenting on the relationship of Elizabeth with the men in court, but only vague references to her relationship to the women around her. Rather than holding her on a pedestal, Borman is able to convey the conflicts Elizabeth had with her own sex. I was reminded of debates surrounding more contemporary female leaders, and their relationships to “femininity.”

Elizabeth’s Women is rich in historical accounts, easy to read and enthralling. Beautifully written and thought-provoking, Elizabeth’s Women is one of the most impressive books I have read this year.

Written by: Sara Yasin, November 7th 2010

No Silent Witness: The Eliot Parsonage Women and their Unitarian World

mandy — Sat, 23 Oct 2010 16:00:00 +0000

By Cynthia Grant Tucker

Oxford University Press

Group biography is notoriously difficult, for all the reasons that biography itself is hazardous, compounded by the number of people brought to center stage, and, in this case, the geographical and temporal sweep of the subject matter. To make a single life a coherent narrative with episodes that build systematically and climax, with a psychologically complex yet recognizably unified character, and with a sense of thematic consistency is to fashion something that life is not.

For projects such as Tucker’s to succeed, the author must create at least the illusion of a shared experience among a group of women traversing the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and the American landscape from Boston to St. Louis to Portland. They are connected genealogically—Abigail Adams Cranch (1817-1908) and William Greenleaf Eliot (1811-1887) and their descendants—and they are bound by their often contentious, often radical, and often underestimated participation in the history of Unitarianism in the United States.

In portraying the “full-throated wives and daughters” of the men who were most prominent in the Unitarian Church in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the author offers some sharply focused details about the challenges women faced and the different types and degrees of oppression they suffered as they struggled to be heard as members of their religious communities. As almost all nineteenth century memoirs and documentary accounts reveal, women’s lives were inevitably consumed by disease, the death of children, and the constraints placed upon them by marriage. That some of these women could become religious leaders, advocate for women’s suffrage, and defy even the expectations of their own congregations is a remarkable testament to their courage and resilience.

No Silent Witness is a valuable resource for anyone interested in the development of American liberal theology in its opposition to Calvinist Protestantism. But the author’s resistance to chronology and the multiplicity of characters that appear in this panorama mitigate against the reader’s strong desire to spend time with some of these women, to get to know them as they negotiated roles for themselves as ministers’ wives, and even, in a couple of instances, as preachers themselves.

One of the troubling through-lines in the narrative is Unitarian resistance to women’s influence in the church. Instead of celebrating the remarkable creativity and energy of the women who were such a central part of the early success of the Unitarian movement, leaders of the movement self-consciously sought to “masculinize” it by purging women preachers, downplaying women’s contributions, and appropriating rhetoric from the cult of masculinity that has loomed so large in the American lexicon. The result of this strategy was a near-catastrophic decimation in the church’s numbers by the turn of the century, with a large number of women permanently alienated and finding new homes in other emerging religious traditions or in a more liberalized “mainstream” Protestantism.

In the twenty-first century Unitarian Universalism (the name reflecting the merger in 1961 of two liberal theological traditions) is a relatively small liberal religious organization proud of its historical commitment to social justice and its rejection of doctrinal dogmatism. It is now, as in its formative days, a spiritual home for powerful and unorthodox women committed to social justice and to breaking taboos against women’s religious leadership. No Silent Witness is a helpful corrective to the tendency to romanticize Unitarian history and to offer hagiographic accounts of the early Unitarian leadership. Although this book is ostensibly about the contributions women made, it is also about the resistance they faced from their preacher-husbands and fathers and from their own congregations. Not surprisingly, the narrative is replete with the sort of fractious theological and denominational disputes, rivalries, and even scandals that seem inevitably a part of human experience and which we erase from our historical memories at our peril.

One editorial correction must be made for any subsequent printing of this book: the author writes about ministers’ wives complaining about being “gypped by their husbands’ low pay.” This is a stunning racist slur in an otherwise thoughtful and erudite book.

Written by: Rick Taylor, October 23rd 2010

When Marina Abramović Dies

admin — Sat, 31 Jul 2010 16:01:00 +0000

By James Westcott

MIT Press

As someone with only one semester of art history under my belt, I find myself both interested and intimidated by the politics and practice of performance art. After reading this exhaustive biography of performing art legend Marina Abramović (who just wrapped up a stunning retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art in New York), my intimidation has been replaced by a strong desire to see Abramović’s work.

When reading about an iconic figure such as Abramović, the private aspects of her otherwise very public life are the most interesting artifacts to glean. Through complete cooperation from Abramović and many of her friends and family members, James Westcott produces a marvelously comprehensive history of the artist's childhood in Yugoslavia and the beginning of the career that would revolutionize the use of the body as an artistic vehicle in the 1970s. The downside of writing about such an icon is that, while there is no shortage of fascinating material, one must organize it in such a way as to not overwhelm the reader. Westcott does just that, dividing Abramović’s life into three distinct parts: her early years, her work with fellow performance artist and former romantic partner Ulay, and her recent foray into solo performances.

For readers familiar with Abramović’s body of work, the book will most likely open your eyes to some of her earliest projects, and will offer interesting insight into her more famous pieces. One such example is her 1975 performance of Rhythm 0, where she laid out seventy-two items for museum patrons to use on her however they wished. These items included a loaded gun, which a man put in her hand and pointed at her neck. The author seamlessly weaves together interviews, archival photo footage, and factual information to make Abramović’s life as vibrant on the page as it is in reality.

Above all, Westcott proves to be an incredibly detailed biographer. Near the end of the book, readers understand where some of this attention to detail stems from; he recently served as a transcriptionist for some of Abramović’s marathon performances, writing hundreds of pages at her insistence to describe her hours of sitting or standing during certain pieces. The result of Westcott’s well-researched writing style and Abramović’s openness and commitment to storytelling and making art, When Marina Abramović Dies becomes an enthralling look at the world of performance art, a strong-willed and endlessly creative woman, and what happens when those two things collide for over forty years.

Written by: Alyssa Vincent, July 31st 2010

The Diary of Elizabeth Drinker: The Life Cycle of an Eighteenth-Century Woman (Abridged Version)

admin — Mon, 05 Jul 2010 08:01:00 +0000

Edited by Elaine Forman Crane

University of Pennsylvania Press

The preface to this newly issued, abridged version of Elizabeth Drinker's diary, published originally in three volumes in 1991, reveals the sort of personal relationship the editor has formed with her subject over the past decades, an intimacy that forms often in historical scholarship, especially in single-author studies and even more so when the genre of focus is so inherently intimate, as the diary form certainly is. In this case, the diary is a record of fifty years in the life of an eighteenth-century Quaker Philadelphian.

The abridgement focuses on four phases of Drinker’s life: her youth and courtship (1758-61), which coincides with the Seven Years’ War (often referred to as the French and Indian War); her experience as a young wife and mother in the years leading up to the Revolution; her years of “crisis,” as Crane describes them, from 1776-93; and her final years as “Grandmother and Grand Mother” leading to her death in 1807.

Unlike narrative history or biography, the diary offers the reader a limited and often cryptic view of this woman’s experience. Few of the entries are longer than a typical Facebook update, and in many respects, they are of a similar quality: a quick memorandum selecting the day’s highlight (or, just as often, lowlight). Yet there is an enormous amount to be gleaned from the diary about the gender roles that dictated much of a woman’s experience, as defined also by class and profession of faith.

Seen as a kind of pointillism rather than as a realist painting, the work provides extraordinary access to life in the Philadelphia area, especially during the Revolution: to the experience of being Quaker during a time of war and social upheaval, of being a slave-owner who all too belatedly experiences a crisis of conscience (after she had already irretrievably sold the person whom she “possessed” via inheritance), to the grim facts of life and mortality in eighteenth-century motherhood, and to the tedium and suffering that provided the texture of most of her days.

The fact that this is the third form in which the diary has been published (a longer condensed version was published in 1994) provides evidence of its usefulness to historians, citing the diary in a wide variety of contexts. For example, it is an essential tool for those working on the history of American religion. The phrase “went to meeting” is probably the most often repeated in the diary, and readers get a sense of how prominent a role her participation in the Society of Friends played in her life. Concurrently, readers get a shocking sense of the thuggishness of the colonial revolutionaries, who exiled her husband for his refusal to enlist and support the war and who perpetrated all manner of cruelties on Drinker, her family, her neighbors, and her fellow Quakers. The conduct of the British occupiers was not much better. The City of Brotherly Love—Quaker City—treated members of the Society of Friends as if they were all treasonous, and many lost life, liberty, and property as a result.

Those interested in medical history will also find this work a treasure trove, albeit a gruesome one. There are accounts of yellow fever, of the mysterious illnesses that struck down child after child, of blood-letting and experiments with inoculation, and of Drinker’s persistent ill health that, because she was financially secure, gave her access to the “best” health care available, a decidedly dubious benefit.

One narrative thread resonates with a particularly visceral force: her record of dental problems. Toothache is a lifelong preoccupation, and each extraction or loss is recorded, as well as accounts of medical remediation. For example, we learn about attempts to “restore” extracted teeth to their original position in hopes that they will re-root themselves! The theme extends to her children—cutting the first tooth somehow symbolizes a child’s survival—and it’s a source of particular grief when one of her sons dies almost immediately after cutting his first tooth. At this level of human experience, along with all the meetings, all the teas with friends, all the gut-wrenchingly terse accounts of illness and death, the diary takes us deeply into a woman’s life and fleshes out a period too often obscured in patriotic and patriarchal myth-making.

Written by: Rick Taylor, July 5th 2010

Princess Noire: The Tumultuous Reign of Nina Simone

admin — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 00:00:00 +0000

By Nadine Cohodas

Pantheon Books

Lately, I’ve been reading about artists, creativity, and the psychological eccentricities that draw the two together and force them into a lifelong bond. It is typical for artistic greats to be different from the mainstream, for they tend to be blessed with innovation, perseverance, and, well, a great deal of futuristic talent. If it were to have been different with Nina Simone, I would have been immensely disappointed. Needless to say, I was not.

Although I'm not impressed with the title of this book, Princess Noire: The Tumultuous Reign of Nina Simone, because it gives the impression that Simone's life had been little more than bipolar, after reading its contents, I could understand why that title was chosen. Even still, Nina Simone’s work and talent demands great respect, as she was an instrumental figure in shifting both political consciousness and an innovative marriage of two strange bedfellows (classical music components and rhythm and blues).

As Nadine Cohodas writes, Nina Simone was definitely no angel, and she didn’t always make sound business or personal decisions. She was an extremely temperamental, moody, and complicated soul. She demanded the best from herself, her musicians, and even her audience. Simone recreated the past when recounting her upbringing—sometimes more positively, other times more negatively, and many times leaving much out altogether. She had a version of multiple personality disorder, two unhappy marriages, and many blowups.

Several notable artists were, and are, great because of the personal turmoil they endured. I am fully aware that there are artists who are great despite not having gone through traumatic tribulations, and I don't think one need go through such turmoil in order to produce great works; however, it seems to be a common theme in the creative world.

Nina was a child prodigy. Beginning at the age of two and a half, she demonstrated the musical abilities that would manifest into remarkable piano virtuosity. With her family's cultivation of her talent, and the generosity of people with foresight that extended beyond the color of her skin, Nina was able to hone the talent inside her that would eventually touch the world. Her initial goal of becoming a prominent Black female classical pianist got transformed into a recipe of jazz, rhythm and blues, originality, political consciousness, and an activism that left its mark on time immemorial.

Simone's self-proclaimed inability to fit in with most people has, ironically, united people everywhere. Her musical bravado infused with social consciousness paved the way for everyone from jazz great Ron Carter to hip-hop artist Talib Kweli. She helped get rid of the racially biased cabaret card and ways of conducting business in music. If this is how being different from the mainstream manifests, I’ll take it.

Written by: Olupero R. Aiyenimelo, April 22nd 2010

When You're Strange: A Film About The Doors

admin — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 08:01:00 +0000

Directed by Tom DiCillo

Wolf Films, Strange Pictures

When You’re Strange is director Tom DiCillo’s loving yet flawed homage to The Doors. The film is comprised almost entirely of original footage of the band, shot between 1966 and 1971. It follows members John Densmore, Robby Krieger, Ray Manzarek, and Jim Morrison from their first performance to heated recording sessions, and ultimately, to Morrison’s tragic death at the age of twenty-seven. When You’re Strange survives on the momentum of the bands’ energetic presence and explosive sound. Footage of live performances prove entrancing, with Morrison’s unpredictable behavior and chaotic energy filling the stage.

The film portrays the band as the voice of a generation—musical innovators voicing the anxiety and hope of the 1960s youth movement. DiCillo places the personal narrative of The Doors against the national narrative of the United States, illustrating how The Doors’ music fed off of the violence of Vietnam, the hope of the Civil Rights movement, and the anxiety of a nation at war. DiCillo is perhaps too enamored with the idea of Morrison as a tragic hero, as the narration refers to Morrison as a “shaman” with a poet’s soul “trapped between heaven and hell.”

Unfortunately, the frenetic pace of the original footage is undercut by the stilted narration, provided by Johnny Depp. Even Depp’s thoughtful reading cannot surmount the series of bland factual statements and flowery metaphors that comprise the script. Throughout the film, the band (particularly Morrison himself) is visually and aurally described in relation to fire and flames—an obvious and groan-inducing reference to The Doors hit “Light My Fire.” These aural metaphors are reinforced by the image of an extinguishing flame.

Ultimately, When You’re Strange is an enjoyable and reverential examination of The Doors that accurately presents the zeitgeist of the time. The film sustains itself on the vibrancy and charisma of the original footage, which keeps the film from sinking under the weight of its fragmented narration. Doors fans will enjoy it for its rare glimpses into the band’s history, but the film itself lacks the verve of its subject.

Written by: Joanna Chlebus, April 9th 2010

Cleopatra: A Biography

admin — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 17:01:00 +0000

By Duane W. Roller

Oxford University Press

Cleopatra is a cipher, an enigmatic and historically remote figure reimagined until she has become, for much of the world and for much of modern history, the apotheosis of desire, representative of the potency of feminine allure. As with the search for the historical Jesus, separating the real figure from the myth is complicated not only by our fascination with all the artistic interventions and the millennia of (mis)representation but also by the paucity of hard evidence. The slender record that remains is complicated by the bias of her contemporary observers (mostly suspicious and resentful Romans) and the tangle of political agendas that surrounded her reign.

Distinguishing reality from the myth is Duane Roller’s project in his new biography of Cleopatra. He marshals the modest amount of fairly reliable biographical information, supplemented by a helpful sketch of the political and social world of Ptolemaic Egypt in the first century BCE. But was Cleopatra, well, Cleopatra?

Sources disagree about her physical attractiveness, although it seems likely that she was relatively short. The book offers an array of physical images from statuary and contemporary coinage, but there is little commonality among the images, so her actual appearance remains mysterious. The record of her ascent to the throne and involvement in Roman politics would seem to confirm her reputation as ruthless and Machiavellian, although her supposed suicide by snakebite is almost certainly fictional, as Joyce Tyldesley, who covers much of the same ground in her new book Cleopatra: Last Queen of Egypt, has convincingly demonstrated.

Readers hoping to find some account of the controversy over Cleopatra’s racial identity, that has been such an exciting and often public part of contemporary academic discussion, will be disappointed. Further, Roller’s diction seems dated (“the marriage produced no issue” and his use of B.C., for example). What would solidly justify this project is a “new” Cleopatra, one firmly rooted in newly discovered or reinterpreted documentary evidence and grounded in the historical context in which she moved. The same constraint that excludes the mythic elements from this study also seems to prevent a newly and sharply imagined Cleopatra from emerging here.

The closest the author comes to a revisionary portrait is in his account of Cleopatra’s public oratory, and particularly in her apparent authorship of treatises on stunningly banal subjects such as treating dandruff or curing baldness. In 'The Cosmetics,' a collection of writing attributed to her, we see a leader not exclusively concerned with war and geopolitics, but also with the everyday welfare of her people.

Roller’s approach can tell us the types of boats that sailed on the Kydnos River and the apparel Egyptian queens would have worn. But it misses the spiritual force of that figure still resplendent and still threatening two millennia later.

Written by: Rick Taylor, March 4th 2010

Dr. Mary Walker: An American Radical, 1832-1919

admin — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 17:01:00 +0000

By Sharon M. Harris

Rutgers University Press

Dr. Mary Walker: An American Radical, 1832-1919 is a plethora of facts, evidence, and tightly woven themes that are well-researched by Harris, yet the book isn’t boring or dry. I found it inspirational and enraging at the same time. Women of the past made it easier for women today by tirelessly battling for women’s rights (and for men who were not white property owners). Walker was a dutiful and energetic soldier. She served in the Union army during the civil war as a commissioned medical officer although she had to fight to get that official position.

Harris’ work reveals that Walker spent every waking moment living the fight for equality and justice for all. When other physicians slammed her for treating the working class (that were considered beneath male doctors), she kept on. Men and women alike ridiculed her for even believing she had the brains to be a registered physician, but she persevered.

Being a female activist back then was quite difficult. The suffragists, including Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, were adept at bickering and jockeying for centre stage, and Walker was no exception. Gaining the right to vote in the U.S. (eighteen months after Walker’s death) has not erased these divisions among activists today. From personal experience, I can attest to being treated as invisible by many middle class activists because I’m a sole-supporting parent and working class.

As a radical, Walker could not walk down the street without being physically assaulted for not wearing feminine clothes. Bricks, food, and yells often greeted her as she carried on her way. Today, nobody throws bricks at me while walking out in public, but men still stop their cars to yell at me if they don’t like what I wear. After reading about Walker’s experiences, I took some comfort in knowing that while we have made progress since Walker’s time, we still have a long way to go before all men, women, and children are treated with the respect they are due.

Walker is an example of how we need to continue to fight to be given the same rights as the more privileged members of society. Harris presents Walker in a balanced light that made me want to keep reading until the final page. Maybe in a hundred years, women will not only be able to vote, but also get paid on par with men and walk down the street knowing they are safe.

Written by: Nicolette Westfall, March 1st 2010