Hi and welcome to ‘a handful of history’, my fortnightly sharing of real-life stories from around the world. All the narratives I pick are rooted in history one way or another, yet I feel that most of them carry themes and happenings that seem very present day-like. I create this blog out of love and curiosity for the field of human history and culture, and I’m happy that you find it interesting too. My blog and newsletters are free; if you want to help me keep it going, please join my newsletter. THANK YOU. Thanks for being here - let's dive in. Enjoy! Majken xx
Why Are We Fascinated by 'Evil Women'?
“When women do ‘evil things’, they are not only seen as bad, they are also seen as someone who violates the ruling moral and social boundaries.”
In the podcast “Why are we fascinated by ‘evil women’?” Professor of history, Joanna Bourke, explains evil and femininity - and what these phenomenons can tell us about changing societal values over time.
One of the most evil things women can do throughout history is to break the rules of femininity, Bourke explains. I.e. when they refuse to do what they are supposed to do as women, servants, housemaids, and nurturers…as inferior individuals to men.
When the women break these rules, they take away some of the power that men are supposed to be the exclusive owners of. And by that, they are seen as a threat to the social structures of society.
“So what happens is”, Bourke continues, “that we label the women who break these rules as ‘evil’, and thereby we set them outside the feminine and outside the human. And this enables us to look at other women and say: ‘just you be careful because you could be next’”.
According to Bourke, the foundational evil woman - especially in the Western world - is Eve.
“Right from the beginning to the present, she is the typical evil woman”, Bourke says, “she is everything that a woman shouldn’t be. She not only brings sin into the world, but she also corrupts man. She corrupts all of humanity.”
The story of Eve has been used to oppress women throughout the centuries. “You just have to think about the church fathers who use the image of her to show, that women can not - or shall not - have positions of power,” Bourke says, “that women can not speak in church, that women should not be educated, that women have to be under the thumb of the head of the household, the male.”
The “Why are we fascinated by ‘evil women’?” podcast is a warm-up to the “Evil Women” series - six online lectures (videos) that Joanna Bourke has made for Gresham College. In the series, you can learn more about “Eve’s Evil Legacies”. Also, there’s an episode on Snow White (and not least the evil queen), the baby killer of Victorian Britain: Amelia Dyer, the femme fatale Mata Hari, evil nurses exemplified by Nurse “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” Rached and an episode on the rape-murdering woman Myra Hindley.
'Evil Women' online video course , Gresham College.
Halloween History Quiz
Pumpkin carving has its origins in Celtic tradition, but which vegetable was originally used? Marrow, squash or turnip? What are soul cakes, (traditionally made and eaten at Halloween)? Cakes given to clergy in return for a prayer or blessing? Pastries given out to beggars on All Souls’ Day? Or edible offerings placed into a coffin to help a departed soul journey to heaven?
Here’s a Halloween Quiz for you….Mwahahahaaaaaa.
Studies of Pillows
Have you ever had this thing you like to do that is so weird you’d think it “can only be you in the whole universe” who are practising it?
Then - to your relief - you discover that another person is doing the exact same activity. And even though that person lived many years ago, you suddenly don’t feel so weird and alone anymore.
One afternoon, the artist Jonny Sun became interested in drawing pillows, and he started painting studies of them. All through the day and late into the night, he was busy doing just that. Painting pillows, folding pillows, rearranging them, and then painting them again and again. He was pleased to spend this time with his studies.
Afterwards, though, he started wondering: why did he care so much about pillows? How could he allow these cushions to be the thing that felt urgent to him? Suddenly his mood changed, now he felt a bit strange about it. Also, he felt utterly alone since there was no one he could talk to about his desire to paint pillows.
But then the German Renaissance painter Albrecht Dürer came to his rescue.
In 1493 Dürer had, it turned out, sketched six studies of a pillow - their shape, the folds of the fabric - on the back of a self-portrait study. (The self-portrait Dürer later painted (based on this study) was considered one of the earliest independent self-portraits in the history of Western painting, by the way.)
Suddenly, Sun didn’t felt so strange and alone anymore. He writes:
“There is a comfort in this, in realizing that someone else at some point in time had really cared about the same thing that you do right now, even if that someone was a German Renaissance painter who died five hundred years ago [..]”
“Suddenly, I feel like I am in conversation with someone else over this very specific topic of interest, only this conversation doesn’t happen with a rapid and ongoing exchange of words. It happens with one statement, and then half a millennia later, another one.”
Essay: ‘Staying In’ IN ‘Goodbye, again - essays, reflections, and illustrations' by Jonny Sun + Six studies of pillows by Albrecht Dürer.
How Philosophy Can Save Your Life
According to the Greek philosophers, what often causes suffering is our own beliefs, the practical philosopher Jules Evans explains in his TED talk: How philosophy can save your life. We are our own imprisoners, our own torturers, he says, we cling to our own negative beliefs, even when they hurt us or kill us.
So how do we free ourselves from our self-made prisons? According to Socrates, the father of Greek philosophy, what we need to do is learn to ask ourselves questions. Not just assume that our inner voice is telling us the truth, Evans says,
“When Jules Evans was in his late teens, he started to be plagued by panic attacks, mood swings and other emotional problems. He eventually found help in the form of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT). He went to interview the inventors of CBT and discovered they were directly inspired by ancient Greek philosophy. This started him on a five-year journey of discovery, in which he found out how life-transforming the ideas of ancient Greek philosophy can be. He met and interviewed people from many walks of life who claimed to have been greatly helped by ancient philosophy, including gangsters, astronauts, soldiers and politicians. Now, he passionately believes that the therapeutic ideas of ancient philosophy need to be rescued from the dusty museum cabinets of academia and brought to as many people as possible to help them improve their lives.”
Jules Evans also wrote “Philosophy for Life and Other Dangerous Situations - Ancient Philosophy for Modern Problems”. It’s one of those rare books with an engaging, straightforward writing style and serious content of some depth. It’s philosophy made understandable - and it’s entertaining as well. I highly recommend it.
More on Jules Evans here.
Things Come Apart
A few years back, when the world wasn’t as digital as it is today, you could disassemble just about any object and perhaps even put it back together again (if you had the skills).
The photographer Todd McLellan is doing just that: taking (old) objects apart. A coffee grinder here, a walkman there. An old Macintosh, a bicycle, a typewriter, a piano, a cassette tape.
Then he arranges all the different bits and pieces in a neat pattern and brings them back to life again by taking their photo. All photographs are part of his ongoing series “Things Come Apart”.
Cassette tape by Todd McLellan.
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