A reprint of Virginia Woolf’s essay in the book accompanying the exhibition Challenging Convention: Gwen John, Laura Knight, Vanessa Bell & Dod Proctor says, of the paintings by the writer’s sister, with regard to what these pictures tell you about their artist: ‘Their reticence is inviolable’. Even about the subjects she chooses to paint Woolf … More ‘Their reticence is inviolable’. ‘(W)hat has [she] got to say about it? Nothing’. [1] Does the stress on the silence of paintings matter when the painters are women rather than men? And, if so, why? Reflecting on the Newcastle-upon-Tyne Laing Gallery’s 2021 exhibition, dedicated to Amy Barker.

The University of Glasgow Task for MOOC: Write a ca. 500-word text to explore the strategies of those fighting for women’s suffrage in the US between the 1870s-1910s, reflecting specifically on the following questions: Was the case for women’s suffrage argued in terms of women’s status as a specific type of citizen (e.g., motherhood), or … More A Global History of Sex and Gender: Bodies and Power in the Modern World Assignment

A Global History of Sex and Gender: Bodies and Power in the Modern World The University of Glasgow Recovering Queer Lives – one not finished yet. My husband with his permission Who is your individual, where are they from and when were they alive? How did they understand their sexuality? What was their experience of … More FutureLearn course: Geoff Martin Born 24th April 1941

Your assignment: A surprisingly large number of poems are, in the end, about poetry. Write your own. Submitted by Steve Bamlett This is just playful. #The Lament of a Poem that won’t get written# This poem will failTo suck the marrowout of long gnaw’d bone. Yet with wagging tailMakes a helpless showof varying tone. Without a … More Assignment 1 on FutureLearn course:

‘In this darkness, words were foolish things’. [1] A novel that reflects on words unsaid and/or unsayable in some past queer lives. Jonathan Lee’s (2021) The Great Mistake London, Granta Publications. Jonathan Lee is a British writer who now lives in New York. How did we lose him and why? When he was interviewed by … More ‘In this darkness, words were foolish things’. A novel that reflects on words unsaid and/or unsayable in some past queer lives. Jonathan Lee’s (2021) ‘The Great Mistake’

TASK: Write a short promotional text about the work. You can also copy messages directly from real ads you see every day. The ‘most radical sculpture of classic modernism’ has a tendency to keep turning up as endlessly even if it isn’t literally ‘endless’. Giovanni Solari, an engineer, says it is the only example of … More Pop Art Ads: An exercise from the Centre Pompidou ‘Pop Art’ course: https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/pop-art/1/steps/894830

‘Perhaps street art is simply a more resonant form for a generation not so beguiled by Great Men: less burdened with classical allusions, less permanent, more dynamic, more democratic.’ [1] Reflecting on Alex von Tunzelmann (2021) Fallen Idols: Twelve Statues That Made History London, Headline Publishing Group Statues make history in the most active sense … More ‘Perhaps street art is simply a more resonant form for a generation not so beguiled by Great Men: less burdened with classical allusions, less permanent, more dynamic, more democratic.’ Reflecting on Alex von Tunzelmann (2021) ‘Fallen Idols: Twelve Statues That Made History’

‘It was then that Adrian [Ryan] told me of his regular, sexual trinity involving Johnny [Minton] and Lucian [Freud] in the latter’s St. John’s Wood “squalor” located in Abercorn Place, NW1.’ [1] Even if it ‘frightened the bejasus out of’ the two bisexual men,[2] Minton’s life and work momentarily triumphs over theirs in this exhibition … More ‘It was then that Adrian [Ryan] told me of his regular, sexual trinity involving Johnny [Minton] and Lucian [Freud] in the latter’s St. John’s Wood “squalor” located in Abercorn Place, NW1.’ A reflection on the Unholy Trinity: Freud, Minton, Ryan exhibition currently at Bath.

TASK for POP ART course run by Centre Pompidou in Paris with FutureLearn. Maybe it is unfair to represent cultural misogyny in Aeschylus’ Agamemnon? Or is it? It starts here.

What a wonderful opportunity. To study, if briefly and on the digital margins, with the Pompidou Centre via FutureLearn. By second lesson you access software (free) to create an Andy Warhol conversion of your own photo: from: To: This is going to be fun. Love Steve.

‘…, I must talk about my body as black, and my body as male, and my body as queer. I must talk about how our bodies can variously assume privilege or victimhood from their conflicting identities’.[1]  ‘It is 2004. Terrifying stories have been leaking out about the violent homophobia on the island. … In 2006 … More Edinburgh Book Festival reissue: ‘…, I must talk about my body as black, and my body as male, and my body as queer. I must talk about how our bodies can variously assume privilege or victimhood from their conflicting identities’.  What truths does my body withhold? Reflecting on Kei Miller’s (2021) ‘Things I Have Withheld: Essays’.

‘People don’t live like that anymore… and so the literary salon has been snuffed out, and become almost extinct like the maiden aunt and the man of letters’.[1] Should we mourn the Crichel Boys? Reflecting on Simon Fenwick’s (2021) The Crichel Boys: Scenes from England’s last literary salon, London, Constable (Little, Brown Book Group). Somehow, … More ‘People don’t live like that anymore… and so the literary salon has been snuffed out, and become almost extinct like the maiden aunt and the man of letters’. Should we mourn the Crichel Boys? Reflecting on Simon Fenwick’s (2021) ‘The Crichel Boys: Scenes from England’s last literary salon’.