Rumor, hearsay, tittle-tattle, scuttlebutt, scandal, dirt. From mid-to-late 1600s colonial Virginia churchyards and New England courthouses to the early-twentieth-first-century blogosphere—and in many places and times in between—gossip has been called many things. It is one of the most common—and often…
Author: Jocelynne Scutt
Reading as Life Line: A Literary Mother from 11th Century Japan
“For we think back through our mothers, if we are women,” wrote Virginia Woolf in A Room of One’s Own, the book in which she reflected on women as writers and pondered the scarcity of women’s writing in world literary…
Remembering Naomi Jacob (1884-1964)
Although she was brought up in the Church of England, Jacob converted to Roman Catholicism at around the age of eighteen. But she remained proud of her Jewish heritage. This is most clearly demonstrated in The Gollantz Saga, which she began writing just before the Nazis swept to power in Germany. Beginning in early nineteenth century Vienna, it follow several generations of a Jewish family, as the head of the house establishes a business and life in England, moving among the British upper classes. The series is an engaging and warm exploration of family ties and rivalries, and the principles of honour and loyalty.
Homelessness or Heartlessness? When Government Fails Women
As Australians for whom World War 2 and the seventies were emblematic, we are distraught at the destruction of our once wonderful women’s refuges. Dr Goebbels, Adolph Hitler’s Minister for Propaganda, instructed the world that ‘words are valuable’; they…