Lesley A Hall
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erinacean.bsky.social
Lesley A Hall
@erinacean.bsky.social

Archivist, historian, reader, Londoner, feminist
@erinacean
@erinacean@h-net.social
www.lesleyahall.net
https://lesleyahall.blogspot.com/

History 49%
Political science 20%

I think it's Eric who is studying it as part of his efforts of 'self-improvement'.

That's right, now I hear it - about remembering where cards previously turned up were in order to make a pair?

As far as C18th goes, I am Team Condorcet all the way: www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/3... bless his powdered wig
The first essay on the political rights of women
www.gutenberg.org

Do you have/want literary refs? Just off top of my head, seem to recollect a character in Angus Wilson's Hemlock and After doing Pelmanism.
Also, there was a card-game in my youth called 'Pelmanism' - I am now trying to remember the rules.

No immediate thoughts, but have recirculated and there may be someone in my network who can answer this.

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And people wonder why this Government and Prime Minister are so unpopular? The outrageous, draconian, Fascist and clearly illegal decision to ban Palestine Action has been one reason (alongside Labour's support for the genocide in Gaza and the attack on right to protest in general).
UK ban on Palestine Action unlawful, high court judges rule
Protest group’s co-founder wins legal challenge against decision to proscribe it under anti-terrorism laws
www.theguardian.com

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If more people studied history, they'd know that the things present-day rightwing arseholes say about women are just the things the Nazis said about women, which are just the things that a bunch of 18th-century pricks said about women, as soon as modernity started to give them opportunities.

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Fantastic funded PhD opportunity here in the School of Humanities at Reading - please share widely! www.findaphd.com/phds/project...
Young Refugees to Britain in the early Twentieth Century at University of Reading on FindAPhD.com
PhD Project - Young Refugees to Britain in the early Twentieth Century at University of Reading, listed on FindAPhD.com
www.findaphd.com

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CFP for 5-minute lightening talk proposals (due 13 March) for the IHR's British History in the Long 18th Century seminar is now live. Come introduce your PhD project to an enthusiastic group of fellow historians. Contact Brendan Tam (brendan.tam@warwick.ac.uk ) for more details. #Skystorians
18TH CENTURY BRITISH HISTORY PHD LIGHTNING TALKS CFP

Are you at the start of your PhD? Want to tell an eager and engaged audience about it in 5 mins? We want to hear the best PGR research about 18th Britain at our #LightningTalks event 29 April 2026.

Please see the poster for further information!

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Working in a hospital you can get a sense of what a patient needs (within their wider life context), but know there isn't a service to meet the needs. So much about poverty, & basic foundations of a decent life, just missing. Also *relational* poverty.

Healthcare so often happens in this context.
The fact Wes Streeting was warned by his own officials that the toxicity of Palantir made the contract less likely to succeed raises, yet again, the question why Government granted it the contract in the first place?
NHS deal with AI firm Palantir called into question after officials’ concerns revealed
Exclusive: in 2025 briefing to Wes Streeting, officials warned reputation of tech firm behind US ICE operations would hinder rollout of data system in UK
www.theguardian.com
In terms of what cures are being lost:

- Epstein-Barr virus is perhaps the major trigger for multiple sclerosis
- herpes simplex virus causes cold sores, genital herpes, infections in babies, deadly meningitis
- shingles virus causes an intensely painful disease

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Call for papers - growing up in the early modern world!
Fellowship Opportunity!

Jenny Wormald Junior Research Fellow in Women’s History
University of Oxford - St Hilda’s College

www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DQL341/j...
Jenny Wormald Junior Research Fellow in Women’s History at University of Oxford
Discover an exciting academic career path as a Jenny Wormald Junior Research Fellow in Women’s History at jobs.ac.uk. Don't miss out on this job opportunity - apply today!
www.jobs.ac.uk

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I tried to dig up their account on here and couldn't, but it's a bunch of medievalists who are doing a wide array of medieval-related crafting. I don't know how much analysis they're doing yet but iirc there was some planned, for those who were interested. I'll try to tag it here when they post next

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Can any labor historians out there give me an example of a union that dramatically expanded its platform because of a shift in demographics of its constituents? E.g., newly taking a stand on racial injustice or civil rights because those issues became key to its new membership 🙏

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Do you have a maritime themed conference, CFP or event?

Please send us the CFP and we'd love to help spread the word

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I've just signed "Back the National Commission Amendment" - Will you support the campaign too? actionstorm.org/petitions/ncer @OpenBritainHQ
actionstorm.org

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Do I know anyone in London or surrounds who is an EA Leader in Running Fitness or Coach in Running Fitness who could witness my LiRF practical videoing?

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Help! Can anybody more skilled than I in reading crabbing Tudor hands help me read what it is that the 100 oaks were cut down to make (the last word underlined)? [TNA, C 154/1 no. 3] #palaeography #skystorians

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This is the first time I've talked properly about my new book The Self-Improvers: The restless people who remade themselves and made the Pelman Age.

Here's a sneak preview of my slides - a whistle-stop tour from suburban Birmingham to Alprior, Ontario via a cave in Queensland's central highlands.

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Keen to share your thoughts on our 3-year digital capacity building strategy?

We’ve commissioned consultant Simon Wilson to run an independent series of focus group discussions on Our Digital Century and Novice to Know-How!

Find out more and sign up for a session: simonpwilson.com/client-area/...

Back in the distant past I catalogued this item: wellcomecollection.org/works/c5vny6us which includes among the phenomena discussed 'Lactation in virgins and old women and males'.
Galactorrhoea, persistent lactation, etc, and various disorders (including the Chiari-Frommel disease) in the secretion of milk--Reflex mammary disorders
Emotional effects on the secretion of milk. Bloody and other mammary discharges, and the subject of cystic disease of the breast. Mastitis in males and females--rare causes of etc. Question of possibl...
wellcomecollection.org

I once saw him on telly programme (okay, bit bitter they hadn't asked me!) and he was flagrantly ignorant of fact familiar to my elderly father about influence of Hollywood on rise of single beds in domestic furnishing in 1950s. (Okay, Dad a bit of a film buff.)

Not sure whether this is a case for the Dr Johnson strategy: 'He talked to me at club one day... concerning Catiline's conspiracy—so I withdrew my attention, and thought about Tom Thumb' or being Elinor Dashwood 'did not think he deserved the compliment of rational opposition'.

But honestly, the idea that reading books by WOMEN is getting dangerously outside his comfort zone (the poor mommet, let's send him a copy of Stella Gibbons' Cold Comfort Farm, for surely he is an heir of Mr Mybug).

He so needs to get stuck into A Room of One's Own. And let's face it, Virginia Woolf would have - perhaps not hated, disdained? - him. Doesn't he, or earlier version, feature when she is looking up works on women in the BM Reading Room, all by men?
Successful man discovers women novelists exists

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*a* string of prose. Where is that edit button when you need it.

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Successful man discovers women novelists exists