Rachel Holmes

On the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment, the definitive biography of suffragette Sylvia Pankhurst-political rebel, human rights champion, and radical feminist ahead of her time. Sylvia Pankhurst fought militantly for a woman's right to vote, inspiring movements around the globe. But the vote was just the beginning. A talented artist, a free-spirit, a visionary, Sylvia was seen as “wild,” even by the standards of her activist mother and sister. She became a radical feminist, committing herself to the fight for reproductive rights, equal pay, access to welfare and education, and freedom of sexual expression. She converted her experiences of torture, imprisonment, and violence into a lifelong quest to champion human rights. Encompassing both World Wars and lasting through the Anti-Apartheid Movement, Pankhurst's political life was international in scope; it included Irish independence, pacifism, the rights of refugees, and the fight against racism in Europe, the Indian subcontinent, and colonial Africa. Her United States lecture tours made headlines and connected her with both American feminists and the NAACP. She spent her life in dialogue, dispute, and resolution with Winston Churchill, Vladimir Lenin, Jomo Kenyatta, Haile Selassie, Harriot Stanton Blatch, and W.E.B. DuBois. And she wrote about it all, prolifically. In this enthralling biography, acclaimed author Rachel Holmes interweaves Pankhurst's rebellious political and private lives to show how her astonishing achievements continue to resonate today.

Natural Born Rebel

Sylvia Pankhurst

China Miéville

Susan Abulhawa

Henning Mankell

Chinua Achebe

Geoff Dyer

Michael Ondaatje

Linda Spalding

Adam Foulds

Pankaj Mishra

Claire Messud

Kamila Shamsie

Teju Cole

Deborah Moggach

Michael Palin

J.M. Coetzee

Raja Shehadeh

Sabrina Mahfouz

William Sutcliffe

Mohammed Hanif

Molly Crabapple

Alice Walker

Mahmoud Darwish

Ed Pavlic

Gillian Slovo

Ru Freeman

Najwan Darwish

Jeremy Harding

Yasmin El-Rifae

Suheir Hammad

Mercedes Kemp

John Horner

Suad Amiry

Bridget Keenan

Jehan Bseiso

Atef Abu Saif

Omar El-Khairy

Selma Dabbagh

Remi Kanazi

Muiz,

Ghada Karmi

Maath Musleh

Nancy Kricorian

Nathalie Handal

Victoria Brittain

Jamal Mahjoub

Writers from Alice Walker to Michael Ondaatje to Claire Messud share their thoughts on one of the most vital gatherings of writers and readers in the world. The Palestine Festival of Literature was established in 2008 by authors Ahdaf Soueif, Brigid Keenan, Victoria Brittain and Omar Robert Hamilton. Bringing writers to Palestine from all corners of the globe, it aimed to break the cultural siege imposed by the Israeli military occupation, to strengthen artistic links with the rest of the world, and to reaffirm, in the words of Edward Said, "the power of culture over the culture of power." Celebrating the tenth anniversary of PalFest, This Is Not a Border is a collection of essays, poems, and sketches from some of the world's most distinguished artists, responding to their experiences at this unique festival. Both heartbreaking and hopeful, their gathered work is a testament to the power of literature to promote solidarity and hope in the most desperate of situations. Contributing authors include J. M. Coetzee, China Miéville, Alice Walker, Geoff Dyer, Claire Messud, Henning Mankell, Michael Ondaatje, Kamila Shamsie, Michael Palin, Deborah Moggach, Mohammed Hanif, Gillian Slovo, Adam Foulds, Susan Abulhawa, Ahdaf Soueif, Jeremy Harding, Brigid Keenan, Rachel Holmes, Suad Amiry, Gary Younge, Jamal Mahjoub, Molly Crabapple, Najwan Darwish, Nathalie Handal, Omar Robert Hamilton, Pankaj Mishra, Raja Shehadeh, Selma Dabbagh, William Sutcliffe, Atef Abu Saif, Yasmin El-Rifae, Sabrina Mahfouz, Alaa Abd El Fattah, Mercedes Kemp, Ru Freeman.

Reportage & Reflection from the Palestine Festival of Literature

This Is Not A Border

Victoria Pepe

Amy Annette

Martha Mosse

Alice Stride

Is feminism still a dirty word? We asked twenty-five of the brightest, funniest, bravest young women what being a feminist in 2015 means to them. We hear from Laura Bates (of the Everyday Sexism Project), Reni Eddo-Lodge (award-winning journalist and author), Yas Necati (an eighteen-year-old activist), Laura Pankhurst, great-great granddaughter of Emmeline Pankhurst and an activist in her own right, comedian Sofie Hagen, engineer Naomi Mitchison and Louise O'Neill, author of the award-winning feminist Young Adult novel Only Ever Yours. Writing about a huge variety of subjects, we have Martha Mosse and Alice Stride on how they became feminists, Amy Annette addressing the body politic, Samira Shackle on having her eyes opened in a hostel for survivors of acid attacks in Islamabad, while Maysa Haque thinks about the way Islam has informed her feminism and Isabel Adomakoh Young insists that women don't have to be perfect. There are twelve other performers, politicians and writers who include Jade Anouka, Emily Benn, Abigail Matson-Phippard, Hajar J. Woodland and Jinan Younis. Is the word feminist still to be shunned? Is feminism still thought of as anti-men rather than pro-human? Is this generation of feminists - outspoken, funny and focused - the best we've had for long while? Has the internet given them a voice and power previously unknown? Rachel Holmes' most recent book is Eleanor Marx: A Life; Victoria Pepe is a literary scout; Amy Annette is a comedy producer currently working on festivals including Latitude; Alice Stride works for Women's Aid and Martha Mosse is a freelance producer and artist.

I Call Myself A Feminist

The Scandalous Life and Astonishing Secret of James Barry, Queen Victoria's Most Eminent Military Doctor

Scanty Particulars

A Life

Eleanor Marx

Unrestrained by convention, lion-hearted and free, Eleanor Marx (1855-98) was an exceptional woman. Hers was the first English translation of Flaubert's Mme Bovary. She pioneered the theatre of Henrik Ibsen. She was the first woman to lead the British dock workers' and gas workers' trades unions. For years she worked tirelessly for her father, Karl Marx, as personal secretary and researcher. Later she edited many of his key political works, and laid the foundations for his biography. But foremost among her achievements was her pioneering feminism. For her, sexual equality was a necessary precondition for a just society. Drawing strength from her family and their wide circle, including Friedrich Engels and Wilhelm Liebknecht, Eleanor Marx set out into the world to make a difference - her favourite motto: 'Go ahead!' With her closest friends - among them, Olive Schreiner, Havelock Ellis, George Bernard Shaw, Will Thorne and William Morris - she was at the epicentre of British socialism. She was also the only Marx to claim her Jewishness. But her life contained a deep sadness: she loved a faithless and dishonest man, the academic, actor and would-be playwright Edward Aveling. Yet despite the unhappiness he brought her, Eleanor Marx never wavered in her political life, ceaselessly campaigning and organising until her untimely end, which - with its letters, legacies, secrets and hidden paternity - reads in part like a novel by Wilkie Collins, and in part like the modern tragedy it was. Rachel Holmes has gone back to original sources to tell the story of the woman who did more than any other to transform British politics in the nineteenth century, who was unafraid to live her contradictions.

Susie Orbach

Lisa Appignanesi

Half a century after the publication of The Feminine Mystique, have women really exchanged purity and maternity to become desiring machines inspired only by variations of sex, shopping and masochism - all colored a brilliant neuro-pink? In this volume, fifty women young and old - writers, politicians, actors, scientists, mothers - reflect on the shades that inspired them and what being woman means to them today. Contributors include: Margaret Atwood, Joan Bakewell, Bidisha, Lydia Cacho, Shami Chakrabarti, Lennie Goodings, Linda Grant, Natalie Haynes, Siri Hustvedt, Kathy Lette, Kate Mosse, Pussy Riot, Bee Rowlatt, Elif Shafak, Ahdaf Soueif, Sandi Toksvig, Natasha Walter, Timberlake Wertenbaker Jeanette Winterson - alongside the three editors.

Fifty Shades of Feminism

Lee Clarke

Karen M. O'Neill

Caron Chess

It is often said that in times of crises experts, officials, and organizations should speak with one voice. But this homily has not been subjected to either conceptual or empirical scrutiny. We begin those tasks in this paper. To pursue our analysis, we use statements from the popular and scholarly presses; we also use our interviews with local officials in New Jersey, USA, who had to respond to the anthrax attacks in the fall of 2001. We outline some of the meanings of the admonition to speak with one voice and discuss the rhetorical significance of the advice. Our argument is that it may be wise to speak with one voice, but this can not be taken for granted. Difference audiences may well need different messages or different kinds of messages. Speaking with multiple voices is often the most effective way to advance meaningful communication.

Risk Communication Lessons from the Us Anthrax Attacks

Speaking with One Voice

Abigail Hackett

Christina MacRae

Working with Young Children in Museums makes a major contribution to the small body of extant research on young children in museums, galleries and heritage sites. Bridging theory and practice, the book introduces theoretical concepts in a clear and concise manner, whilst also providing inspirational insights into everyday programming in museums. Structured around three key themes, this volume seeks to diverge from the dominant socio-cultural learning models that are generally employed in the museum learning literature. It introduces a body of theories that have variously been called new materialist, spatial, posthuman and Deleuzian; theories which enable a focus on the body, movement and place and which have not yet been widely shared or developed with the museum sector or explicitly connected to practice. This book outlines these theories in an accessible way, explaining their usefulness for conceptualising young children in museums and connecting them to practical examples of programming in a range of locations via a series of contributed case studies. Connecting theory to practice for readers in a way that emphasises possibility, Working with Young Children in Museums should be essential reading for museum practitioners working in a range of institutions around the world. It should be of equal interest to researchers and students engaged in the study of museum learning, early childhood education and children's experiences in museums.

Weaving Theory and Practice

Working with Young Children in Museums

This is a biography of the enigmatic Dr James Miranda Barry, who performed the first recorded successful caesarean section. Posted by the army as staff surgeon, Barry spent much of his career traversing the globe and eventually reaching the higest rank of Inspector General of Hospitals. But throughout his career, Barry courted controversy - through his flamboyant dress, his dalliances with society women and his strange and enduringly intimate friendship with Lord Charles Somerset, Governor of South Africa. The mystery surrounding Barry climaxed after his death, when the servant who laid out his body made a most surprising revelation...

The Life of Dr James Barry

A biography of the enigmatic Doctor James Miranda Barry, who performed the worlds finest successful caesarean section. Posted by the army as staff surgeon, Barry spent much of his career traversing the globe and eventuall reaching the highest rank of Inspector General of hospitals. But throughout his career, Barry courted controversy - through his flamboyant dress, his dalliances with society women and his strange and enduringly intimate friendship with Lord Charles Somerset, Governor of South Africa. The mystery surrounding Barry climaxed after his death, when the servant who laid out his body made a most surprising revelation. This is the deeply personal tale of an very public person whose life unfolds amidst constant drama, a world of medical innovation and colonial adventure. A story at whose centre stands a remarkable individual whose lifetime of mystery is irresistibly alluring.

The Life of Dr. James Barry

The Secret Life of Dr James Barry

Unrestrained by convention, lionhearted and free, Eleanor Marx (1855–98) was an exceptional woman. Hers was the first English translation of Flaubert's Madame Bovary. She pioneered the theater of Henrik Ibsen. She was the first woman to lead the British dock workers' and gas workers' trade unions. For years she worked tirelessly for her father, Karl Marx, as personal secretary and researcher. Later, she edited many of his key political works and laid the foundations for his biography. But foremost among her achievements was her pioneering feminism. For her, gender equality was a necessary precondition for a just society, and she crusaded for this in Britain and on a celebrated tour across America in 1886. Drawing strength from her family and their wide circle, including Friedrich Engels and Wilhelm Liebknecht, Eleanor Marx set out into the world to make a difference. Her favorite motto: "Go ahead!†? With her closest friends--among them Olive Schreiner, Havelock Ellis, George Bernard Shaw, Will Thorne, and William Morris--she was at the epicenter of British socialism. She was also the only Marx to claim her Jewishness. But her life contained a deep sadness: She loved a faithless and dishonest man, the academic, actor, and would-be playwright Edward Aveling. Yet despite the unhappiness he brought her, Eleanor Marx never wavered in her political life, ceaselessly campaigning and organizing until her untimely end. Rachel Holmes has written a dazzling and original portrait of one of the most remarkable women of the nineteenth century.

This teacher resource is filled with worksheets, tasks and activities focused on developing the social skills of autistic children aged 8-12. It has been created to be used alongside the story Finding Kite: An Interactive Tudor Mystery, although activities can stand alone as a programme of intervention. Each task encourages young people to think about their own experiences, challenges and goals, building self-esteem and confidence along the way. Suitable for use in small groups or 1:1, the worksheets are flexible in design, allowing the facilitator to respond to the needs of each child. Key features of this resource include: Engaging activities divided into sections focused on ‘Making Sense of my World’ and ‘Connecting with Others’ Photocopiable and downloadable worksheets, filled with opportunities for reflection and discussion The option to use it alongside the engaging, choose your own adventure story, Finding Kite, which immerses the reader in a sensory adventure Designed for students aged 8-12, this resource provides an invaluable opportunity to build an understanding of the complexities of social dynamics. Although created with autistic girls in mind, it can be used with students of different genders and adapted for their needs.

The ‘Finding Kite’ Teacher Guide

Adventures in Social Skills

'A significant and timely book ... Holmes has produced a laceratingly powerful story' Frances Wilson, Literary ReviewIn 1810 the slave turned showgirl Sarah Baartman, London's most famous curiosity, became its legal cause célèbre. Famed for her exquisite physique - in particular her shapely bottom - she was stared at, stripped, pinched, painted, worshipped and ridiculed. This talented, tragic young South African woman became a symbol of exploitation, colonialism - and defiance.In this scintillating and vividly written book Rachel Holmes traces the full arc of Baartman's extraordinary life for the first time.

The Hottentot Venus

Saartjie Baartman was twenty-one years old when she was taken from her native South Africa and shipped to London. Within weeks, the striking African beauty was the talk of the social season of 1810–hailed as “the Hottentot Venus” for her exquisite physique and suggestive semi-nude dance. As her fame spread to Paris, Saartjie became a lightning rod for late Georgian and Napoleonic attitudes toward sex and race, exploitation and colonialism, prurience and science. In African Queen, Rachel Holmes recounts the luminous, heartbreaking story of one woman’s journey from slavery to stardom. Born into a herding tribe known as the Eastern Cape Khoisan, Saartjie was barely out of her teens when she was orphaned and widowed by colonial war and forced aboard a ship bound for England. A pair of clever, unscrupulous showmen dressed her up in a body stocking with a suggestive fringe and put her on the London stage as a “specimen” of African beauty and sexuality. The Hottentot Venus was an overnight sensation. But celebrity brought unexpected consequences. Abolitionists initiated a lawsuit to win Saartjie’s freedom, a case that electrified the English public. In Paris, a team of scientists subjected her to a humiliating public inspection as they probed the mystery of her sexual allure. Stared at, stripped, pinched, painted, worshipped, and ridiculed, Saartjie came to symbolize the erotic obsession at the heart of colonialism. But beneath the costumes and the glare of publicity, this young Khoisan woman was a person who had been torn from her own culture and sacrificed to the whims of fashionable Europe. Nearly two centuries after her death, Saartjie made headlines once again when Nelson Mandela launched a campaign to have her remains returned to the land of her birth. In this brilliant, vividly written book, Rachel Holmes traces the full arc of Saartjie’s extraordinary story–a story of race, eros, oppression, and fame that resonates powerfully today.

The Real Life of the Hottentot Venus

African Queen

Neel Mukherjee

Olivia Laing

Helen Macdonald

Jackie Kay

Marina Warner

David Herd

Josh Cohen

Alex Preston

Ian Duhig

Caroline Bergvall

Upon changing his religion, a young man is denounced as an apostate and flees his country hiding in the back of a freezer lorry… After years of travelling and losing almost everything – his country, his children, his wife, his farm – an Afghan man finds unexpected warmth and comfort in a stranger’s home... A student protester is forced to leave his homeland after a government crackdown, and spends the next 25 years in limbo, trapped in the UK asylum system... Modelled on Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, the second volume of Refugee Tales sets out to communicate the experiences of those who, having sought asylum in the UK, find themselves indefinitely detained. Here, poets and novelists create a space in which the stories of those who have been detained can be safely heard, a space in which hospitality is the prevailing discourse and listening becomes an act of welcome. All profits go to the Gatwick Detainee Welfare Group and Kent Help for Refugees.

Refugee Tales: Volume II

Working with Young Children in Museums makes a major contribution to the small body of extant research on young children in museums, galleries and heritage sites. Bridging theory and practice, the book introduces theoretical concepts in a clear and concise manner, whilst also providing inspirational insights into everyday programming in museums. Structured around three key themes, this volume seeks to diverge from the dominant socio-cultural learning models that are generally employed in the museum learning literature. It introduces a body of theories that have variously been called new materialist, spatial, posthuman and Deleuzian; theories which enable a focus on the body, movement and place and which have not yet been widely shared or developed with the museum sector or explicitly connected to practice. This book outlines these theories in an accessible way, explaining their usefulness for conceptualising young children in museums and connecting them to practical examples of programming in a range of locations via a series of contributed case studies. Connecting theory to practice for readers in a way that emphasises possibility, Working with Young Children in Museums should be essential reading for museum practitioners working in a range of institutions around the world. It should be of equal interest to researchers and students engaged in the study of museum learning, early childhood education and children’s experiences in museums.

Rachel Holmes

Books

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