Beyond hagiography: new books on gay and lesbian life writing

Abstract

The records of women's rights organisations active in Birmingham during the 1870s and 1880s indicate that these societies were dominated by women and men from families connected with the city's leading Unitarian chapel, the Church of the Messiah. In this article, I explore this phenomenon as a way of illuminating the relationship between religious belief and feminist activism. The shared social, economic and political values and progressive outlook of the Unitarian elite underpinned their emergence as a feminist network. This collective reformist consciousness was channelled into concern to improve the position of women by the ‘feminist gospel’ preached by Henry Crosskey, the minister of the chapel from 1869 to 1893. Furthermore, Crosskey's influential role, along with the substantial presence of other Unitarian men in local women's rights associations, reveals how denominational affiliation could operate to stimulate male support for feminism.     

Assessing the impact of women's movements: Sisterhood and after

Sisterhood and After: The Women's Liberation Oral History Project, illuminates the impact of women's movements in the UK in tracing the life histories of key UK-based activists and intellectuals, but it more directly eludicates the biographical consequences of activism. This, I suggest, has a different but also important value, not simply in terms of understanding the impact on the many individuals who do become life-long activists, but as a contribution to cultural memories that show how gender relations can be different and better. In this respect, oral history projects can be part of a process of feminist influence that goes beyond the more measurable aspects of campaigns.     

The objective interpretation of histopathological data: an application to the ageing of ovine bruises

Muscle and adipose tissue from a total of 178 experimental bruises inflicted on sheep and aged from 1 to 72 h old were processed for light microscopic examination. Five observed histopathological features of inflammation and repair were scored semiquantitatively on a scale of 1-4 according to their degrees of change from the normal state. These data were evaluated mathematically using a Bayesian probability model designed for the purpose. The model was able to age bruises with an acceptable degree of accuracy only as either 1-20 h or 24-72 h old but within these constraints a degree of confidence in excess of 90% was achieved. The exact performance of the model depended on the nature and number of tissue samples examined but mathematical ageing was superior to interpretative ageing based on personal experience.