‘An admirable little book written by a lady’: Emily Williams and recording and restoration of stained glass in late Victorian England

The preservation of the papers of Emily Williams (1835–1900) allows a close examination of the work of an important female antiquarian of the late Victorian period. Williams, the first known woman to write a book on English stained glass, published Notes on the Painted Glass in Canterbury Cathedral anonymously in 1897. The book formed the foundation for later studies of the cathedral's monumental glass and includes multiple illustrations based on Williams’ drawings. In addition to writing this book, Williams partnered with the cathedral glazier to reinstate medieval glass in a number of the cathedral's windows, glass that is viewed by many thousands of tourists annually. A study of Williams’ work in the 1890s brings to light a new chapter in the history of Canterbury's famed stained glass; it also adds to our understanding of the work of female antiquarians, the activities of women in clerical communities, the publication and illustration of female-authored works, the roles played by women in the Victorian obsession with stained glass, the lives and self-fashioning of spinsters, and the gendering of types of intellectual labor.     

Fatima's Revolutionary Image in Fadak fi al-Ta'rikh (1955): The Inception of Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr's Activism

This article examines Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr's first publication, Fadak fi al-Ta'rikh, contextualising the historiographical depiction of the dispute that ensued between Abu Bakr and Fatima over the Fadak land. Informed by traditional Shi‘i approaches to this episode of early Islamic history, the study locates the text's themes within various Iraqi contexts, including the struggle for the ideological orientation of the state, the quest for a unified Iraqi Civil Code and the place of Shi‘is in the new Iraqi state. The main contention of this study is that through his engagement with contours of Iraqi oppositional discourse, Sadr transforms the traditional image of Fatima from a weak and abused victim of injustice to a revolutionary heroine who fought for Shi‘i political and legal rights. His innovative portrayal of Fatima's claim to the Fadak marks one of the earliest efforts to reinterpret Shi‘i parables in an activist spirit. Sadr is among the first to promote the shift from passive eschatological expectations for redress to temporal confrontation with forces of injustice and to convey the message that protest is desirable irrespective of its chances of success.     

The Spinster in the Garden: Joy and Transcendence in Elizabeth von Arnim’s Father and Fräulein Schmidt and Mr Anstruther

Abstract

This article proposes an original reading of Father (1931) and Fräulein Schmidt and Mr Anstruther (1907), two texts by Elizabeth von Arnim that centre on a young single woman. It will examine how female autonomy is spatially imagined in the form of a garden and poses significant challenges to the patriarchal societies presented in the texts. Many scholars have detailed the recurring motif of the garden in Elizabeth and Her German Garden (1898) and The Solitary Summer (1899). The two texts this article addresses were published later than those that have been discussed in relation to the garden, and signal a move away from the married female towards an examination of the independent or single female. Significantly, they disrupt the traditional ‘marriage plot’ novel by tracing two single women’s movement into the garden as a retreat from the societies in which they live. In both texts, von Arnim presents a distinctively beautiful, transcendent garden experience for her female protagonists that contrasts with the oppressive expectations placed on them by urban society. These texts turn on dichotomies—city/country, built/organic environments, repression/freedom—to expose the central characters’ repression and their attempts to gain some degree of independence. Each central character experiences joy as a result of her interaction with the organic environment and the power the protagonist exercises over this space.     

The Ultimate Shopper

Using the example of a fictional shopper from the early twentieth century, Bowlby looks at how the notion of mobility as characteristic of the modern subject intersects with notions of femininity and masculinity. Valéry Larbaud's ultramobile imaginary shopper is compared with Freud's portrait of the woman sadly fixed for all time in her character once she has reached the age of thirty. The concluding section looks at the way that mobility of identity has become a norm for both sexes in the last part of the century, making the very idea of a self into a kind of rational shopping, a 'choosing' of different identities.     

The trouble with frames: Insights from India on the challenge of using collective action frames to persuade state agents

Collective action frames are a key strategy of human rights activists and educators, and central to this strategy is the ability to connect frames to a population's extant beliefs. But two dilemmas plague framing efforts directed at state agents such as police officers, who are seen as potential violators of rights. First, these actors may be less likely than members of the general public to share the beliefs in terms of which human rights workers frame rights; and second, frames by their very nature simplify reality, and fail to take into account factors that constrain state agents' actions. This article explores these issues through a case study of human rights education involving police officers in India. Educators may be able to mitigate such obstacles by basing their framing efforts on research on the specific populations with which they are working, and using frames as only one part of an approach that takes into account the limited ability of frames to encompass all aspects of the situations in which violations occur.