Camilla Ulleland Hoel
LightNews LightNews
banner
camillahoel.bsky.social
Camilla Ulleland Hoel
@camillahoel.bsky.social
320 followers 290 following 1.1K posts
PhD, academic (Victorian & 20th & 21st c. literature, fans: Dickens, via Sherlock Holmes, to scifi), feminist, bibliophile, geek; regularly political. She/her.
Posts Replies Media Videos
camillahoel.bsky.social
I have a new favourite piece of Sumerian art.
A sculpture of an old man and an old woman looking in different directions, but sitting close together and holding hands. Image text from Kramer’s book The Sumerians: «Seated couple. A gypsum sculpture expressive of domestic affection and married contentment. (Joint Nippur Expedition of the Oriental Institute and the American Schools for Oriental Research.)»
November 23, 2025 at 12:20 PM
camillahoel.bsky.social
Today’s office: the train. With this view and no interruptions.
Mountains in the background, with a light touch of low clouds under a blue sky. The sun hits the mountains and no other part of the landscape. A scattering of small trees in the foreground, but mostly open land. Everything is covered in snow. Somewhat blurry snowy foreground, trees and a fence with a gate in the middle distance, and a sun-kissed mountain in the background. Everything is covered in snow. The bare trees are all frosted over. Foreground of frozen grass clumps skims by in a blur; trees and then mountains in the distance. Only the mountain is touched by the Sun. The shadow of the train covers a blurry foreground, while the sin touches an equally frozen middle distance with a fence and smallish trees, all frozen over. Clouds in the background, under a blue sky.
November 20, 2025 at 10:18 AM
camillahoel.bsky.social
Saw a floating island on the way home tonight.
View of houses and a church in the foreground, with snow and lights. In the background a medieval fortified island appears to float in the sky, just above the houses.
November 19, 2025 at 9:04 PM
camillahoel.bsky.social
So I may have to learn Sumerian just so I can go around saying words like Lummagimdug and Tidnum with some regularity. I am sure it will do wonders for my mental health.
From Kramer’s The Sumerians (page 55): «It appears that a brief period of peace now followed for Sumer, and we find Eannatum taking time out to dig a new canal, which he named exultantly Lummagimdug, "Good (?)-like-Lumma," Lumma being Eannatum's Tidnum name, that is, presumably the name given him by the Semitic Martu people to the west of Sumer where Tidnum is known to have been located.»
November 15, 2025 at 7:56 PM
camillahoel.bsky.social
Not how you want to go down in history.
A section of Samuel Noah Kramer’s The Sumerians (1963) p 10. on the process of deciphering cuneiform. «In 1693, there was published a copy of a two-line inscription from Persepolis consisting of twenty characters, which had been made by Samuel Flower, an agent of the East India Company, This was taken to be a genuine inscription, although it actually consisted of twenty-three separate signs selected from various inscriptions, an error which caused no little confusion and frustration to those attempting to decipher the script.»
November 15, 2025 at 8:01 AM
camillahoel.bsky.social
Hvorfor har NRK en evig scrollesak hvor de ikke en gang klarer å fortelle meg HVORDAN jeg kan søke på å bli bokbinder? Jeg er klar!
Screen shot fra NRK. Tittel: "Faget til Georg har ingen nye søkere" Bildet viser en tilsynelatende trivelig fyr som holder en åpen håndlaget (igjen, tilsynelatende, men også presumptivt) bok, omgitt av verdens kuleste verksted med bokpresser, settekasser, en sånn seksjon med tynne skuffer, verktøy på veggen og bøker i bakgrunnen.
November 13, 2025 at 7:24 PM
camillahoel.bsky.social
In which I formulate the theory that history did end and we are stuck in some kind of groundhog day 1993.
Photo of bottom of page 42 in Edward Said’s Culture and Imperialism. «One perhaps trivial example of this atavism occurred in a column written for The Wall Street Journal on May 2, 1989, by Bernard Lewis, one of the senior Orientalists working in the United States. Lewis was entering the debate about changing the "Western canon'. To the students and professors at Stanford University who had voted to modify the curriculum to include texts by more non-Europeans, women, and so on, Lewis — speaking as…» Top of next page: «an authority on Islam-took the extreme position that 'if Western culture does indeed go a number of things would go with it and others would come in their place. No one had said anything so ludicrous as 'Western culture must go', but Lewis's argument, focused on much grander matters than strict accuracy, lumbered forward with the remarkable proposition that since modifications in the reading list would be equivalent to the demise of Western culture, such subjects (he named them specifically) as the restoration of slavery, polygamy, and child marriage would ensue. To this amazing thesis Lewis added that 'curiosity about other cultures, which he believes is unique to the West, would also come to an end.»
October 31, 2025 at 7:06 AM
camillahoel.bsky.social
Find someone who looks at you the way Bertrand Russel looks at Spinoza.
The opening of chapter X in book three of The History of Western Philosophy. "SPINOZA (1632-77) is the noblest and most lovable of the great philosophers. Intellectually, some others have surpassed him, but ethically he is supreme. As a natural consequence, he was considered, during his lifetime and for a century after his death, a man of appalling wickedness."
October 30, 2025 at 7:06 PM
camillahoel.bsky.social
The triumph continues. I may be Descartes reincarnated.
The very next page in Russell. It says "…being cold, he got into a stove' in the morning, and stayed there all day meditating; by his own account, his philosophy was half finished when he came out, but this need not be accepted too literally. Socrates used to meditate all day in the snow, but Descartes's mind only worked when he was warm."
October 28, 2025 at 7:20 PM
camillahoel.bsky.social
I have never really thought of myself as someone who has a lot in common with Descartes, but joining the Dutch army to escape socializing is a mood.
Photo of a page from Bertrand Russell’s History of Western Philosophy. "In 1612 he went to Paris, where he found social life boring, and retired to a secluded retreat in the Faubourg St Germain, in which he worked at geometry. Friends nosed him out, however, so, to secure more complete quiet, he enlisted in the Dutch army (1617). As Holland was at peace at the time, he seems to have enjoyed two years of undisturbed meditation." The next line shows an ominous mention of the Thirty Years’ War.
October 28, 2025 at 7:13 PM
camillahoel.bsky.social
Why is Sir Percy Blakeney played by Tim Curry in this book?
Engraved drawing of Chauvelin looking shifty as Sir Percy (Tim Curry in Regency get-up) is draped over a sofa. (Edition from 1971)
October 25, 2025 at 8:27 PM
camillahoel.bsky.social
Reading Angela Davis this morning and thinking about the sanitised version of history I got in school.
Picture of page : "Under the ruthless conditions of slavery, the Underground Railroad provided the framework for extra-legal anti-slavery activity pursued by vast numbers of people, both Black and white. Its functioning was in flagrant violation of the fugitive slave laws; those who were apprehended were subjected to severe penalties. Of the innumerable recorded attempts to rescue fugitive slaves from the clutches of slave-catchers, one of the most striking is the case of Anthony Burns, a slave from Virginia, captured in Boston in 1853. A team of his supporters, in attempting to rescue him by force during the course of his trial, engaged the police in a fierce courtroom battle. During the gun fight a prominent abolitionist, Thomas Wentworth Higginson, was wounded. Although the rescuers were unsuccessful in their efforts, the impact of this incident"... did more to crystallize Northern sentiment against slavery than any other except the exploit of John Brown, "and this was the last time…" Continuation from last page: "a fugitive slave was taken from Boston. It took 22 companies of state militia, four platoons of marines, a battalion of United States artillerymen, and the city's police force ... to ensure the performance of this shameful act, the cost of which, to the Federal government alone, came to forty thousand dollars.'" The header of the page shows this is page 29, and the essay is "Political prisoners, prisons and Black liberation" by Angela Davies. From They Come in the Morning … Voices of resistance (1971/2016).
October 10, 2025 at 5:33 AM
camillahoel.bsky.social
Made a dress from a blazer that was thrown out because I loved the stripes and wanted to see if I could do it.
#sewing
Me in the dress. It has a buttoned bodice and a high waist. The original blazer pockets are at the bottom of the skirt. It does something weird to the drape. Dress from the back, hands in hidden pockets in the sides, where the original front of the jacket overlaps the back at the sides. Photo showing front pockets can easily hold a pocket book.
October 5, 2025 at 1:51 PM
camillahoel.bsky.social
I made a dress for my niece, but cannot hand it over yet, so I am showing you guys. 
#sewing
Tiny but wide turquoise dress with a pattern of roundish giraffes. Hanging from a clothes hanger. The same dress lying flat to show how wide the skirt is. It is very wide. More than four times the bodice. Though the whole is cut in one front. Showing the back button on a rouleau loop.
October 4, 2025 at 7:47 PM
camillahoel.bsky.social
#thebigfatantioppressionreadingchallenge September cont: 💙📚The last book of the challenge.

Warra Warra Wai: How Indigenous Australians discovered Captain Cook & what they tell about the coming of the Ghost People by Darren Rix & Craig Cormick, as, well, the title kind of gives it away.
Cover of Warra Warra Wai, with the title in white on a blue sky, which glides into a drawing of a white ship approaching black figures.
September 30, 2025 at 6:15 AM
camillahoel.bsky.social
#thebigfatantioppressionreadingchallenge September: 💙📚

Under the Udala Trees by Chinelo Okparanta, as my non-cishet historical fiction: about lesbian love and life in Nigeria immediately post-Biafra and onwards.
Cover of Under the Udala Trees. The title is embossed in black on green leaves.
September 30, 2025 at 6:12 AM
camillahoel.bsky.social
Meanwhile, I took a picture of the cardigan I knitted in a desperate attempt to fend off my stash. The buttons are singles from the stash I inherited from my grandmother. The question of nature or nurture remains in play.
Photo pf me in a cardigan with an apparent weave. It consists of grids of squares of knit and purl with some trickery in between the cardigan is dark blue. There are a lot of buttons, none of which are alike. Some are pearl, some metal, some bakelite I think, and some plastic. In tones of brown and green to purple and red.
September 11, 2025 at 6:30 PM
camillahoel.bsky.social
Det slår meg som et hull man bør tette sporenstreks.
Screen shot: "Fra 1. juli trodde ei ny lov i kraft som forbyr norske parti à ta imot bidrag frà anonyme givarar. Lova skal sikre innsyn og «motverke korrupsjon og uonskte bindingar ved at det er openheit om finansieringa av verksemda til dei politiske partia». Lova hindrar derimot ikkje anonyme hjelparar a spreie eige valmateriell."
September 3, 2025 at 5:23 AM
camillahoel.bsky.social
#thebigfatantioppressionreadingchallenge August cont: 💙📚
My first bonus book: Sameproblemet, by Kathrine Nedrejord, on the Norwegian treatment of Sami people both historically and as a continued exclusion, the cultural amnesia both of the majority culture and that imposed on the Sami themselves.
My camera struggled with this cover, which makes it seem blurry. It shows a stylised nature scene in teal, blue, pink and red, birds flying over a body of water in front of a mountain range. The sun in rising or setting. The title, Sameproblemet is given in the blue of the mountains.
August 31, 2025 at 7:21 AM
camillahoel.bsky.social
#thebigfatantioppressionreadingchallenge August: 📚💙
Apsara Engine, by Bishakh Som, is a weird and wonderful graphic short story collection ranging from spooky to social awkwardness to an utterly amazing one of trans architecture. Finding oneself through creative cuty planning — what is not to love.
Cover of a graphic novel, in happy colours: a fantastical map that could also be a space ship around which a series of bodies with flowing red garments are dancing. The title Aapsara Engine is in white against shades of lilac sky. Also, cats.
August 31, 2025 at 7:19 AM
camillahoel.bsky.social
Did I say something about copying the work of history?
Epigraph to chapter 14: The Cover-Up: "There is no actual starvation or deaths from starvation but there is widespread mortality from diseases due to malnutrition. Walter Duranty, The New York Times, 31 March 1933." At this time the famine had claimed excess deaths equivalent to the current population on Norway, according to Anne Applebaum, from whose Red Harvest this is taken.
August 29, 2025 at 10:33 AM
camillahoel.bsky.social
This is breaking my heart.
Photo of a page of text. P 247 in my edition. "Some searched for metaphors to describe what had happened. Tetiana Pavlychka, who lived in Kyiv province, remembered that her sister Tamara 'had a large, swollen stomach, and her neck was long and thin like a bird's neck. People didn't look like people - they were more like starving ghosts.4 Another survivor remembered that his mother looked like a glass jar, filled with clear spring water. All her body that could be seen ... was see-through and filled with water, like a plastic bag?' A third remembered his brother lying down, 'alive but completely swollen, his body shining as if it were made of glass? We felt giddy', another recalled: 'everything was as if in a fog. There was a horrible pain in our legs, as if someone were pulling the tendons out of them." Yet another could not rid himself of the memory of a child sitting, rocking its body "back and forth, back and forth', reciting one endless 'song' in a half voice: 'eat, eat, eat'."
August 24, 2025 at 10:25 AM
camillahoel.bsky.social
Reading about Stalin’s man-made famine in Ukraine and thinking about Netanyahu’s in Gaza.
Photo pf page from Ann Applebaum’s Red Harvest. Opening pf chapter 11: Starvation: Spring and Summer, 1933: "The starvation of a human body, once it begins, always follows the same course. In the first phase, the body consumes its stores of glu-cose. Feelings of extreme hunger set in, along with constant thoughts of food. In the second phase, which can last for several weeks, the body begins to consume its own fats, and the organism weakens drastically. In the third phase, the body devours its own proteins, cannibalizing tissues and muscles. Eventually, the skin becomes thin, the eyes become distended, the legs and belly swollen as extreme imbalances lead the body to retain water. Small amounts of effort lead to exhaustion. Along the way, different kinds of diseases can hasten death: scurvy, kwashiorkor, marasmus, pneumonia, typhus, diphtheria, and a wide range of infections and skin diseases caused, directly or indirectly, by lack of food."
August 24, 2025 at 10:10 AM
camillahoel.bsky.social
Process photos. Because.
Starting point. Remnants from a patchwork project to use up my linen remnants. The two sides laid out before sewing together. Closeup of the selvedges and the stitching to keep them together.
August 23, 2025 at 5:44 PM
camillahoel.bsky.social
I made a needle book from small linen offcuts. Very happy with this. Ot least because the collapsible pair of scissors I bought 20 years ago and have never used finally have a reason for existing.
A small square book made of linen selvedges, held together by a tie. The selvedges are in different colours: blue squares, large white squares on brownish black, and white tiny white squares of light green. Showing the inside of the book, with two pockets on one side for a pair of collapsible scissors and a measuring tape held together by a button. With a seam in the middle, a flap of wool is secured, and that flap holds a series of sewing needles in different sizes and a safety pin. Underneath the flap, on the last «page», patchwork of small squares of the same fabric, holding a series of entomology or silk pins. Close-up of the book in better light, showing a stitch pattern of squares from my magical sewing machine, as well as more detail in the fabric.
August 23, 2025 at 5:30 PM