Caroline Gonda (she/her)
@liederfollower.bsky.social
queer receptionista (h/t Ika Willis @ikax.bsky.social), lover of songs and stories, writer of flash. #LWithTheT
Pinned
Anne Seymour Damer: public life, private love
Gossip about Anne Damer's sexuality nearly wrecked her relationships and reputation, but in this queer love story, love outlasts scandal.
www.britishmuseum.org
My blog for the British Museum on Anne Damer is now live - very happy to see this out in the world. #AnneDamer #PrideMonth #LGBTQIA #c18th
Reposted by Caroline Gonda (she/her)
just to be clear there is SO MUCH precedent for arresting a senior royal. just not any precedent where it ends well for them
every British historian rn frantically trying to find examples of British royals being arrested that don’t end with their execution
February 19, 2026 at 10:49 AM
just to be clear there is SO MUCH precedent for arresting a senior royal. just not any precedent where it ends well for them
Reposted by Caroline Gonda (she/her)
Reposted by Caroline Gonda (she/her)
The introduction and historical appendices in our edition of Defoe's Journal of the Plague Year include materials on plagues and the spiritual, civic, and scientific responses to 17th- and 18th-century pandemics 🧪🦠
Get a free exam copy! buff.ly/wjLotXx
Get a free exam copy! buff.ly/wjLotXx
Instructor Copy - Broadview Press
Please note: The request form below is for Canadian and American instructors only. Instructors in other regions should contact Gazelle Book Services. Shipping of print instructor copies typically…
buff.ly
February 18, 2026 at 5:03 PM
The introduction and historical appendices in our edition of Defoe's Journal of the Plague Year include materials on plagues and the spiritual, civic, and scientific responses to 17th- and 18th-century pandemics 🧪🦠
Get a free exam copy! buff.ly/wjLotXx
Get a free exam copy! buff.ly/wjLotXx
Reposted by Caroline Gonda (she/her)
Mary Shelley's Frankenstein; or, Reading My Own Rough Draft
February 18, 2026 at 5:44 PM
Mary Shelley's Frankenstein; or, Reading My Own Rough Draft
Reposted by Caroline Gonda (she/her)
All the buzz about Emerald Fennell's Wuthering H, & Elordi's Heathcliff makes me wonder why nobody has as yet mentioned "Dude Watching with the Brontes" (by the brilliant @katebeaton.bsky.social, who has long since anticipated all we mere mortals have to say):
www.harkavagrant.com/index.php?id...
www.harkavagrant.com/index.php?id...
Hark, a vagrant: 202
www.harkavagrant.com
February 18, 2026 at 12:48 PM
All the buzz about Emerald Fennell's Wuthering H, & Elordi's Heathcliff makes me wonder why nobody has as yet mentioned "Dude Watching with the Brontes" (by the brilliant @katebeaton.bsky.social, who has long since anticipated all we mere mortals have to say):
www.harkavagrant.com/index.php?id...
www.harkavagrant.com/index.php?id...
Reposted by Caroline Gonda (she/her)
beautiful piece by my friend Hugh Foley on Ashbery and grief:
Very little has changed in my conception of what the ideal life might look like. You sing a song and this provides for you to sit with your friends a little while.
substack.com/home/post/p-...
Very little has changed in my conception of what the ideal life might look like. You sing a song and this provides for you to sit with your friends a little while.
substack.com/home/post/p-...
Street Musicians
On reading grief through John Ashbery, or the other way round
substack.com
February 18, 2026 at 3:27 PM
beautiful piece by my friend Hugh Foley on Ashbery and grief:
Very little has changed in my conception of what the ideal life might look like. You sing a song and this provides for you to sit with your friends a little while.
substack.com/home/post/p-...
Very little has changed in my conception of what the ideal life might look like. You sing a song and this provides for you to sit with your friends a little while.
substack.com/home/post/p-...
Reposted by Caroline Gonda (she/her)
Christina Rossetti: Apples and quinces, Lemons and oranges,
Plump unpeck’d cherries, Melons and raspberries,Bloom-down-cheek’d peaches
John Ruskin: Your whole poem can't just be listing food
Rossetti: SWART-HEADED MULBERRIES, WILD FREE-BORN CRANBERRIES, CRAB-APPLES, DEWBERRIES, PINE-APPLES, BLACKB
Plump unpeck’d cherries, Melons and raspberries,Bloom-down-cheek’d peaches
John Ruskin: Your whole poem can't just be listing food
Rossetti: SWART-HEADED MULBERRIES, WILD FREE-BORN CRANBERRIES, CRAB-APPLES, DEWBERRIES, PINE-APPLES, BLACKB
February 18, 2026 at 4:12 PM
Christina Rossetti: Apples and quinces, Lemons and oranges,
Plump unpeck’d cherries, Melons and raspberries,Bloom-down-cheek’d peaches
John Ruskin: Your whole poem can't just be listing food
Rossetti: SWART-HEADED MULBERRIES, WILD FREE-BORN CRANBERRIES, CRAB-APPLES, DEWBERRIES, PINE-APPLES, BLACKB
Plump unpeck’d cherries, Melons and raspberries,Bloom-down-cheek’d peaches
John Ruskin: Your whole poem can't just be listing food
Rossetti: SWART-HEADED MULBERRIES, WILD FREE-BORN CRANBERRIES, CRAB-APPLES, DEWBERRIES, PINE-APPLES, BLACKB
Reposted by Caroline Gonda (she/her)
Today is Audre Lorde’s birthday.
🪷Only by learning to live in harmony with your contradictions can you keep it all afloat.🪷
🪷Only by learning to live in harmony with your contradictions can you keep it all afloat.🪷
February 18, 2026 at 4:13 PM
Today is Audre Lorde’s birthday.
🪷Only by learning to live in harmony with your contradictions can you keep it all afloat.🪷
🪷Only by learning to live in harmony with your contradictions can you keep it all afloat.🪷
Reposted by Caroline Gonda (she/her)
CoPilot interrupting my web-wandering with this corker:
"If you’d like, I can create an original, Heaney-inspired poem that captures the same spirit of hope meeting history. Would you like me to do that?"
I cannot think of anything that I would like you do less.
"If you’d like, I can create an original, Heaney-inspired poem that captures the same spirit of hope meeting history. Would you like me to do that?"
I cannot think of anything that I would like you do less.
February 18, 2026 at 9:45 AM
CoPilot interrupting my web-wandering with this corker:
"If you’d like, I can create an original, Heaney-inspired poem that captures the same spirit of hope meeting history. Would you like me to do that?"
I cannot think of anything that I would like you do less.
"If you’d like, I can create an original, Heaney-inspired poem that captures the same spirit of hope meeting history. Would you like me to do that?"
I cannot think of anything that I would like you do less.
Reposted by Caroline Gonda (she/her)
With respect, I would like to know what such students would have had universities do instead, under that very specific set of unprecedented circumstances. Something that abided by the law, protected the vulnerable, and also fulfilled their consumer expectations. I’m listening.
This is emblematic of the consumer culture that fees have engendered.
What the hell did the students expect? It was a ONCE IN A CENTURY PANDEMIC. There were LAWS against congregating in public. Staff worked themselves to the bone to get online delivery working.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
What the hell did the students expect? It was a ONCE IN A CENTURY PANDEMIC. There were LAWS against congregating in public. Staff worked themselves to the bone to get online delivery working.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
Students begin Covid compensation claim against 36 more universities
It comes after University College London settled a claim from students there over lost learning in the pandemic.
www.bbc.co.uk
February 17, 2026 at 5:46 PM
With respect, I would like to know what such students would have had universities do instead, under that very specific set of unprecedented circumstances. Something that abided by the law, protected the vulnerable, and also fulfilled their consumer expectations. I’m listening.
Reposted by Caroline Gonda (she/her)
This was not quite the last collection I catalogued before my retirement from Wellcome: wellcomecollection.org/works/hrsyzq94 He began his research in the 1970s.
February 17, 2026 at 11:43 AM
This was not quite the last collection I catalogued before my retirement from Wellcome: wellcomecollection.org/works/hrsyzq94 He began his research in the 1970s.
Reposted by Caroline Gonda (she/her)
Essaka Joshua’s wonderful study Disability and the Gothic has just been published! Even better, it’s free online from today until the 3rd March 2026:
www.cambridge.org/core/element...
@dalegothic96.bsky.social
@universitypress.cambridge.org
@igagoths.bsky.social
www.cambridge.org/core/element...
@dalegothic96.bsky.social
@universitypress.cambridge.org
@igagoths.bsky.social
Disability and the Gothic
Cambridge Core - English Literature: General Interest - Disability and the Gothic
www.cambridge.org
February 17, 2026 at 1:02 PM
Essaka Joshua’s wonderful study Disability and the Gothic has just been published! Even better, it’s free online from today until the 3rd March 2026:
www.cambridge.org/core/element...
@dalegothic96.bsky.social
@universitypress.cambridge.org
@igagoths.bsky.social
www.cambridge.org/core/element...
@dalegothic96.bsky.social
@universitypress.cambridge.org
@igagoths.bsky.social
Reposted by Caroline Gonda (she/her)
12 stories about death and dying, you say? And 25% of pre-orders with the code FEB26?
What more could you ask for?
@saltpublishing.com
What more could you ask for?
@saltpublishing.com
February 17, 2026 at 10:33 AM
12 stories about death and dying, you say? And 25% of pre-orders with the code FEB26?
What more could you ask for?
@saltpublishing.com
What more could you ask for?
@saltpublishing.com
Reposted by Caroline Gonda (she/her)
this was pretty much my mum’s response when I came out as gay: don’t go to gay bars, don’t make any gay friends, don’t tell anyone else that you’re gay, you’ll just make it impossible to change your mind later
(I’ll leave it to you all to reflect on how well this approach worked)
(I’ll leave it to you all to reflect on how well this approach worked)
"if they socially transition too early we think they can get locked onto a trajectory that may not have been the correct natural trajectory for them"
Direct quote.
Direct quote.
February 17, 2026 at 7:35 AM
this was pretty much my mum’s response when I came out as gay: don’t go to gay bars, don’t make any gay friends, don’t tell anyone else that you’re gay, you’ll just make it impossible to change your mind later
(I’ll leave it to you all to reflect on how well this approach worked)
(I’ll leave it to you all to reflect on how well this approach worked)
Reposted by Caroline Gonda (she/her)
Every Wednesday I go to yoga with a retired gay man and then we go back to his house and eat the dinner his husband cooked for us while we were out, and when I told them some of the stuff the UK government are doing to trans people they literally said "it's happening again!"
HELLO I WAS A QUEER TEEN IN THE 1990s AND THE ARGUMENTS AGAINST SOCIAL TRANSITION NOW ARE INDISTINGUISHABLE FROM THE ARGUMENTS AGAINST "LETTING" US BE (at the time, for me) GAY OR LESBIAN THEN.
They all rest on the belief that it's inherently better to be straight (then)/cis (now) and that's BS.
They all rest on the belief that it's inherently better to be straight (then)/cis (now) and that's BS.
Hilary Cass here arguing for children to be prevented from being known by a preferred name or getting a haircut in case it encourages them to continue later in life to transition.
Hilary Cass acts like gender variant children should have the transness hazed out of them.
Hilary Cass acts like gender variant children should have the transness hazed out of them.
February 16, 2026 at 6:51 PM
Every Wednesday I go to yoga with a retired gay man and then we go back to his house and eat the dinner his husband cooked for us while we were out, and when I told them some of the stuff the UK government are doing to trans people they literally said "it's happening again!"
Reposted by Caroline Gonda (she/her)
they say deaths come in threes, and my family had our third this weekend. fuck cancer, send some thoughts to a kid now without a dad, and if you’re of the inclination, toss a penny to www.cysticfibrosis.org.uk in honour of my cousin.
Cystic Fibrosis Trust Homepage | CF Trust
www.cysticfibrosis.org.uk
February 16, 2026 at 3:59 PM
they say deaths come in threes, and my family had our third this weekend. fuck cancer, send some thoughts to a kid now without a dad, and if you’re of the inclination, toss a penny to www.cysticfibrosis.org.uk in honour of my cousin.
Reposted by Caroline Gonda (she/her)
This week at Wigmore Hall ✨
James Baillieu performs three concerts in one day, the Sacconi Quartet celebrate their 25th birthday, Boris Giltburg performs Bach's Well-tempered Clavier, and so much more 🎶
James Baillieu performs three concerts in one day, the Sacconi Quartet celebrate their 25th birthday, Boris Giltburg performs Bach's Well-tempered Clavier, and so much more 🎶
February 16, 2026 at 11:00 AM
This week at Wigmore Hall ✨
James Baillieu performs three concerts in one day, the Sacconi Quartet celebrate their 25th birthday, Boris Giltburg performs Bach's Well-tempered Clavier, and so much more 🎶
James Baillieu performs three concerts in one day, the Sacconi Quartet celebrate their 25th birthday, Boris Giltburg performs Bach's Well-tempered Clavier, and so much more 🎶
Reposted by Caroline Gonda (she/her)
Reposted by Caroline Gonda (she/her)
Brilliant FAQ from @goodlawproject.bsky.social to go with their ongoing vital work - please read it, share it, and remember that trans people aren't going anywhere. We're in this fight to win it, however long it takes.
Here are our FAQs on what the High Court's judgment means. goodlawproject.org/resource/faq...
FAQ: Trans inclusion after the High Court decision on the EHRC’s interim guidance | Good Law Project
An explanation of where things stand for services and workplaces
goodlawproject.org
February 13, 2026 at 11:54 AM
Brilliant FAQ from @goodlawproject.bsky.social to go with their ongoing vital work - please read it, share it, and remember that trans people aren't going anywhere. We're in this fight to win it, however long it takes.
Reposted by Caroline Gonda (she/her)
I will never get over how government keeps feigning ignorance, as if these universities were not explicitly set up to regenerate regions. They know the vast societal impact universities have, and yet keep feed the ivory tower narrative.
Labour willing to let those regions crumble, and for what?
Labour willing to let those regions crumble, and for what?
Essex university’s success story stymied by politics of immigration
Overseas enrolments plummet amid government’s hostile tone, sparking financial uncertainty
giftarticle.ft.com
February 13, 2026 at 10:37 AM
I will never get over how government keeps feigning ignorance, as if these universities were not explicitly set up to regenerate regions. They know the vast societal impact universities have, and yet keep feed the ivory tower narrative.
Labour willing to let those regions crumble, and for what?
Labour willing to let those regions crumble, and for what?
Reposted by Caroline Gonda (she/her)
well this is gross www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/poli...
Reform candidate calls for ‘young girls’ to be given ‘biological reality’ check
Exclusive: Matt Goodwin argued ‘young girls’ should be explained ‘the biological reality’ that ‘many women in Britain are having children much too late in life’
www.independent.co.uk
February 13, 2026 at 10:40 AM
well this is gross www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/poli...
Reposted by Caroline Gonda (she/her)
If you have no plans for Valentine's Day, why not hire a team of identical moustachioed men and a family pack of triangular bandages and stage an avant-garde fashion show?
February 13, 2026 at 10:48 AM
If you have no plans for Valentine's Day, why not hire a team of identical moustachioed men and a family pack of triangular bandages and stage an avant-garde fashion show?
Reposted by Caroline Gonda (she/her)
I guess it’s a sign of the times that a statement of the bleedin’ obvious is BREAKING NEWS
Time to shut down the Home Office until we can work out what’s going on
Time to shut down the Home Office until we can work out what’s going on
February 13, 2026 at 10:50 AM
I guess it’s a sign of the times that a statement of the bleedin’ obvious is BREAKING NEWS
Time to shut down the Home Office until we can work out what’s going on
Time to shut down the Home Office until we can work out what’s going on
Reposted by Caroline Gonda (she/her)
Delighted to see this handsome edition of Terence Rattigan's MAN AND BOY (in a tie-in with the National Theatre production) out in the wild, with a hefty introduction by me looking at the fascinating and painful development process of the play.
January 29, 2026 at 1:47 PM
Delighted to see this handsome edition of Terence Rattigan's MAN AND BOY (in a tie-in with the National Theatre production) out in the wild, with a hefty introduction by me looking at the fascinating and painful development process of the play.
Reposted by Caroline Gonda (she/her)
Still two and half hour left to do something real and important for immigrants and refugees in the UK. Doomscrolling won't help - this will.
We have until midnight tonight: take 20 minutes to tell the government that immigrants and refugees belong in the UK.
You know the far right are getting their responses in, screaming cruelty. Do something right today, and make your opposition count.
You know the far right are getting their responses in, screaming cruelty. Do something right today, and make your opposition count.
UK folks: if we care about what is happening in the US with ICE, we must take steps to push back against anti-immigrant and refugee policy by our own government.
Fill out this consultation. It really doesn't take long. Amnesty have put together a super clear and helpful guide to follow.
Fill out this consultation. It really doesn't take long. Amnesty have put together a super clear and helpful guide to follow.
February 12, 2026 at 9:22 PM
Still two and half hour left to do something real and important for immigrants and refugees in the UK. Doomscrolling won't help - this will.