George Eliot

thanks for the link Marguerita- if it wasn't the season of goodwill I'd be sending a link to DS- I especially liked this para

Here are some related questions: is the success of those venerable movements — of feminism in the 1970s-’80s, of queer activism from the 1990s into the 21st century — the reason they come under attack? Feminists and queer activists fundamentally altered the culture in ways few thought possible. Does this proof of the potential for collective social change so threaten the dominant order that all the blandishments of advanced capitalism — therapy, cosmetic surgery, makeovers, Kardashians — are rolled out to convince the young that their elders were wrong to seek and find solutions to their problems outside neo-liberal structures of competitive individualism? Must we elders now, unless we meekly defer to the claw-back of medical and juridical authority against which our movements were formed, be diagnosed/accused as “transphobic” and cured/punished through “sensitivity training” with the threat of further institutionalized sanctions as these advocates of trans-correctness demand?

follow the money

Oh cross post.

Some of you might like this response to Professor Lavery. It isn't in relation to Lavery's position on Elliot but the gist of what they are responding to is clear.

blog.lareviewofbooks.org/essays/conversion-therapy-v-re-education-camp-open-letter-grace-lavery/

Recent thread discussing US academics kick back against Queer theory as posited by Grace Lavery.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3450279-Queer-theory-resisters

Article by Christopher Castiglia and Christopher Reed (focus of thread above)
blog.lareviewofbooks.org/essays/conversion-therapy-v-re-education-camp-open-letter-grace-lavery/

Queer Theory academics response:
blog.lareviewofbooks.org/essays/open-letter-queer-studies-scholars/

Julius Caesar as the laurel leaf crown looks a little bit like a plait from a certain angle?

As I pointed out on another thread, all Roman men wore dresses so were clearly trans. And Julius does sound similar to Julia, ergo, definitely trans.

"In a letter to John Morley, she declared her support for plans "which held out reasonable promise of tending to establish as far as possible an equivalence of advantage for the two sexes, as to education and the possibilities of free development", and dismissed appeals to nature in explaining women's lower status."

Newton, K. M. (2018). George Eliot for the Twenty-First Century: Literature, Philosophy, Politics. Springer. p. 23-24.

If she had a transgender identity, they would have to erase both her writing, and all those portraits of her dressed as a woman

And Grace Lavery seems very keen to comb Eliot's oeuvre for sex tips (Romola, Middlemarch, and Marie Stopes)

Sex tips? What is this? An academic publication or Carrie Bradshaw writing for Cosmo?

George Eliot transgender? Jog on. Who else are they going to claim? Mahatma Gandhi because he was non violent and wore sandals ? Jesus as he’s often depicted with long hair AND a beard?
Julius Caesar as the laurel leaf crown looks a little bit like a plait from a certain angle?
Pillocks.

That’s what makes me so cross - as if adult human females could or would present themselves that way in a professional photograph (or at all). Womanhood as simpering, eye-fluttering vacuity.

Not many female academics would want to present themselves in that way on their university website. As for asserting that George Eliot had a transgender identity... I'm lost for words.

Interesting topic.
Frankenstein was originally published anonymously, and even when the author was revealed as Mary Shelley, it was still a huge success with the public (and many critics), but it didn't stop one critic writing the following:
"The writer of it is, we understand, a female; this is an aggravation of that which is the prevailing fault of the novel; but if our authoress can forget the gentleness of her sex, it is no reason why we should; and we shall therefore dismiss the novel without further comment"

starcrossedseahorse

OMG that pic of Grace Lavery! Is that what we women do?

Stomach-churning.

Sorry newt was grumbling away without being clear.

The person in ScipioAfricanus' link asserts that George Eliot had a transgender identification, amid all the other waffle.

that was to to starcrossedseahorse

eh? what?

And Eliot did not have a 'transgender identification' FGS. Aaarrrgggh.

I need to step away from it all today I think.

There is a hospital named after George Eliot and the local hospice is linked and named "Mary Ann Evans hospice". The hospice has shops and a good presence locally. This seems a good lasting legacy. I wouldn't want to change her name, plenty of writers use pseudonyms.

Apologies if that is offensive and gets deleted but the ridiculous 'womaning' that these people attempt just really pisses me off.

OMG that pic of Grace Lavery! Is that what we women do?
Reminds me of Larry Grayson!

I agree it would be wrong to erase from history the fact that Marian Evans had to hide her sex to get published.

I would though like her books to show the author's name as 'George Eliot (Marian Evans)' to emphasise this and to educate people who think George Eliot was a man!

Wonder why trans groups aren't falling all over themselves to claim Riley Sagar??

Someone who seems to think performing femininity is what women do seems to be discussing it. Can’t tell through all the random word salad what this person actually thinks about Eliot.

english.berkeley.edu/profiles/386

Honestly, I thought literature was postmodern nonsense when I was at uni 20 years ago. I am so grateful I didn’t have to deal with this level of self indulgent twaddle.

When Emily Bronte wrote Wuthering heights, a male critic stated that it was a masterpiece of written by a man but a complete disgusting travesty if written by a woman. This attitude should also be remembered.