'I do like a contest with the bigwigs': How Mary Anning Struck Scientific Gold
By Jack Coombs
Palaeontologist Mary Anning's discoveries 'hinted at Darwinism before Darwin', changing the way we understood the history of the world. Her gender and status left her widely unrecognised; Jack Coombs rediscovers this solitary woman and the impact her work had on 19th Century scientific study.
'A Shadow Figure of the Bauhaus': Anni Albers and Textile Art
By Maria Paz Mendes Hodes
The Bauhaus art movement built the aesthetic zeitgeist of the 20th century. Its foremost female figure Anni Albers was part of this process. Maria Paz Mendes Hodes reveals the importance of Albers' weaving and design.
Julian of Norwich
By Nimneh Hyde
Julian of Norwich is only known to us through her writings but her work is 'both challenging and fascinating'. Nimneh Hyde questions the assertion made by this Mystic of the Middle Ages that she was just 'a woman: leued [uneducated], febille and freyll'.
Marriage and widowhood in later medieval England
By Victor Khadem
History has concluded that medieval marriage was an institution that left women wholly subservient. Victor Khadem explains how some could still become 'competent administrators and fiery defenders', asserting the independence of widows and wives.
Appraising and Reappraising the Aviator Hanna Reitsch
By James Maclaine
In the last plane to leave the defeated Berlin of 1945, the pioneering pilot Hanna Reitsch has eventually flown into obscurity. James Maclaine examines the balance between the controversial biography and extraordinary achievements of this fascinating aviatrix.
Where Loss Resides: The Relationship Between Space and Loneliness in the Poetry of Christina Rosetti
By Mona Sakr and Ali Nihat
Universally known for her religious poetry, Christina Rossetti can also teach us of the 'ultimate loneliness of human existence'. Three poems prove enlightening to Mona Sakr and Ali Nihat's consideration of her work, providing clues to the innermost spaces of Rossetti's mind.
Germaine Greer - Feminist Icon of the Twentieth Century?
By Mathura Umachandran
Academic, social commentator and figure of popular culture, Germaine Greer has never avoided controversy. In light of Greer's recent opinion piece on Michelle Obama, Mathura Umachandran gives some opinions of her own, as she begins to lose faith in the remarkable Marxist Feminist who brought us The Female Eunuch.
Intensity of vision: A.S. Byatt's The Shadow of the Sun
By Victoria Elliott
The award of the Booker Prize in 1990 confirmed A.S. Byatt as one of Britain's most accomplished contemporary writers. Victoria Elliot looks back on Byatt's first foray into the literary world.
Evidence and Reason: My Heroes and Guides: Naomi Weisstein
By Caroline Buckee
Neuroscientist, author and comedian, Naomi Weisstein is both an accomplished academic and outspoken feminist, who once claimed she had encountered sexism at every turn. Dr. Caroline Buckee praises the challenges that Weisstein has made to 'the fantasy life of the male psychologist'.