Louise Siddons
LightNews LightNews
banner
lsiddons.bsky.social
Louise Siddons
@lsiddons.bsky.social
260 followers 230 following 45 posts
Diversity is strength. Equity is freedom. Inclusion is liberation.

Professor of Visual Politics, Winchester School of Art, University of Southampton. Also dance caller/teacher, public transport fan, avid walker, and sometime printmaker.
Posts Replies Media Videos
lsiddons.bsky.social
Encountering myself in the wild at #LesbianLives — just outside the room where I’m about to present. @thegraduatecenter.bsky.social @uminnpress.bsky.social
Bookseller’s table with various volumes including Good Pictures Are a Strong Weapon, by Louise Siddons.
October 25, 2025 at 3:20 PM
lsiddons.bsky.social
Unabashedly delighted to see Good Pictures in person at the @forarthistory.org.uk book fair in York — thanks @uminnpress.bsky.social for being present!
View of Good Pictures Are a Strong Weapon alongside other books on a display table.
April 9, 2025 at 12:58 PM
lsiddons.bsky.social
Marketing colleagues asked for an author photo, so we took several and I asked my sister for her help choosing one. This was her reply.
Harvey, possibly the least attractive and most photogenic dog on earth, dressed in a professorial sweater and resting his tiny paw on a copy of “Good Pictures Are a Strong Weapon”. He is looking at the camera with characteristically bulging eyes.
December 16, 2024 at 12:46 PM
lsiddons.bsky.social
It's officially here from @uminnpress.bsky.social! Some reminders:
- #NEH supported open access: manifold.umn.edu/.../good-pic...
- Prefer real paper? www.upress.umn.edu/.../good-pic...
- Stay tuned for our 2026 exhibition at @unisouthampton.bsky.social!
- Book tour in 2025 - #queer venue ideas?
Book cover of 'Good Pictures Are a Strong Weapon: Laura Gilpon, Queerness, and Navajo Sovereignty' by Louise Siddons, alongside the following text: "Compelling... demands our attention and allows us to see things in new ways." Kevin Bruyneel, author of 'Settler Memory.' University of Minnesota Press, z.umn.edu/9uj5 Book cover of 'Good Pictures Are a Strong Weapon: Laura Gilpon, Queerness, and Navajo Sovereignty' by Louise Siddons, alongside the following text: "Encourages us to think about the implications of visual sovereignty in our own moment in powerful ways." Cara Rodway, British Library. University of Minnesota Press, z.umn.edu/9uj5
December 10, 2024 at 10:33 AM
lsiddons.bsky.social
Mood: “Ambrosia Tønnesen was unmarried, but not alone.” Kode Permanenten, the word you are looking for is lesbian.

A beautifully crafted exhibition, though, and it is delightful to discover another reason to revisit my lesbian sculptors project, which had to take a back seat to the book for a bit.
Ambrosia Tønnesen, Self-Portrait (bust), unfired clay covered in plaster and paint, 1895. A young woman with close-cropped hair looks slightly down. The angle of the photograph gives her a bemused air.
December 5, 2024 at 3:18 PM
lsiddons.bsky.social
At the Bryggens Museum, wondering what the evidentiary/connoisseurial benchmarks are for identifying a medieval artefact as an ‘ear spoon’. Also googling ‘ear spoon’.
View into a museum display case containing three artefacts, identified as a net or loom weight, a possible awl, and a possible ear spoon.
December 2, 2024 at 5:57 PM
lsiddons.bsky.social
Bedtime reading: short stories by Billy-Ray Belcourt, beautiful in many ways but specifically of interest to me for the multiple ekphrastic moments around imaginary photographs. Woke up to a sunrise that feels positively triumphant on the heels of so much recent grey.
Morning clouds across a blue sky are lit orange by the rising sun; rooftops in the foreground. The cover of the paperback edition of Billy-Ray Belcourt’s book, coexistence.
November 20, 2024 at 7:52 AM
lsiddons.bsky.social
Holding my new book (it just arrived!) feels so lovely I’m almost tempted to read the whole thing again. Many writers will know this was not how I felt 24 hours ago! But I’ve been surprised this week by two colleagues who find Book Arrival Day underwhelming. So, authors: is BAD good for you? Or meh?
A close view of the cover of my book, Good Pictures Are a Strong Weapon, resting on my knees.
November 18, 2024 at 1:55 PM
lsiddons.bsky.social
Available now from @uminnpress.bsky.social! ‘Good Pictures Are a Strong Weapon’ began with my desire for stories of intersectional allyship in art history (why, yes, it was 2017) — a search for inspiration and courage from the past even as we learn from its limitations to do better.
November 13, 2024 at 6:59 AM