Normal service will, I hope, be resumed

I am currently in the midst of transferring Lesley Hall's Web Pages to a new hosting service. There may be a few hiccups but I hope these will soon be smoothed out.

Please ensure that any links you may have to any pages on the site are pointing towards my registered  domain http://www.lesleyahall.net rather than the old homepages.primex.co.uk URLs, as Primex, after giving me sterling service for many years, are going out of business.

Getting hysterical

Talking about the movie and actual medical practice with Lisa Appignanesi on Woman's Hour today

Harder to kill than Dracula?

Impending advent of the movie Hysteria has led to yet another resurgence of uncritical mentions of the Victorian doctors/vibrators factoid. Why historians find this popular assumption problematic. Though possibly the question to be asked is why this caught on so quickly and just keeps on spreading: probably to do with constructions of the Victorians as the epitome of sexual weirdness (concatenating ignorance, repression, and kinkiness), as discussed in my chapter in forthcoming volume edited by Kate Fisher and Rebecca Langlands, Sex, Knowledge and Receptions of the Past (Oxford University Press) .

As Kenneth Williams declaims in what is probably a more amusing faux-historical film 'Infamy, infamy, they've all got it infamy'.

And more about Stella Browne continues to drift in

Learnt from Gill Fildes while at the Women's History Network Annual Conference this weekend (report may follow, or not, as I have the Society for the Social History of Medicine Annual Conference happening from tomorrow), that according to entry in Winifred Holtby's diary, she was visiting her near neighbour in Chelsea,  Cicely Hamilton, and Stella also happened to be there.

This not only confirms my sense that the contacts which existed, but for which evidence is fragmentary, between Stella and Winifred, were probably face to face rather than epistolary, but also brings in further confirmation about her relationship with Cicely Hamilton, for which there is already evidence.

Alas, I don't think I'll be able to get to this

Women in science: Wikipedia workshop Friday 19 October 2012, 14.30-20.00, The Royal Society, London

Group 'Edit-a-thon' to improve Wikipedia articles about women in science, held at the Royal Society's library.*

The event is open to people who are new to Wikipedia and experienced Wikipedia editors. Female editors are particularly encouraged to attend.

At the workshop representatives from Wikimedia UK will explain how Wikipedia works and be on hand to answer questions about editing and improving Wikipedia articles.

The Society's library holds a rich collection of printed works about women in science, including biographies and works authored by scientists. At the event the Society's librarians will explain more about the collections and provide guidance on finding sources.

Before the event the Society will select Wikipedia articles relating to women in science which need improving. Attendees will be encouraged to work together to edit those articles, using the library's resources.

For more information and to register for a place please go to: http://royalsociety.org/events/2012/wikipedia-workshop/

Dorothy Hodgkin FRS, Nobel Laureate,
portrait by Maggie Hambling

*I suppose this begins to make some reparation for not admitting women, however distinguished, as Fellows until after World War II...