Erasmus lived against the backdrop of the growing European religious Reformation. He remained a member of the Catholic Church all his life, remaining committed to reforming the Church and its clerics’ abuses from within.[8][9] He also held to the doctrine of synergism, which some Reformers (Calvinists) rejected in favor of the doctrine of monergism. His middle-road (via media) approach disappointed, and even angered, scholars in both camps.
Erasmus died in Basel in 1536 while preparing to return to Brabant and was buried in Basel Muenster, the former cathedral of the city.[10]
Early life
Desiderius Erasmus is reported to have been born in Rotterdam on 28 October in the mid-1460s, probably 1466.[11] He was named after Erasmus of Formiae, whom Erasmus’ father Gerard personally favored.[12][13]
Although associated closely with Rotterdam, he lived there for only four years, never to return afterwards. Information on his family and early life comes mainly from vague references in his writings. His parents could not be legally married: his father, Gerard, was a Catholic priest and curate in Gouda.[14] His mother was Margaretha Rogerius (Latinized form of Dutch surname Rutgers),[15] the daughter of a doctor from Zevenbergen. She may have been Gerard’s housekeeper.[11][14][16] Although he was born out of wedlock, Erasmus was cared for by his parents until their early deaths from the plague in 1483.
Erasmus was given the highest education available to a young man of his day, in a series of monastic or semi-monastic schools. In 1475, at the age of nine, he and his older brother Peter were sent to one of the best Latin schools in the Netherlands, located at Deventer and owned by the chapter clergy of the Lebuïnuskerk (St. Lebuin’s Church),[11]. During his stay there the curriculum was renewed by the principal of the school, Alexander Hegius. For the first time in Europe north of the Alps, Greek was taught at a lower level than a university[17] and this is where he began learning it.[18] His education there ended when plague struck the city about 1483, and his mother, who had moved to provide a home for her sons, died from the infection.[11]
Born on Milk Street in the City of London, on 7 February 1478, Thomas More was the son of Sir John More,[15] a successful lawyer and later a judge,[9] and his wife Agnes (née Graunger). He was the second of six children. More was educated at St. Anthony’s School, then considered one of London’s best schools.[16][17] From 1490 to 1492, More served John Morton, the Archbishop of Canterbury and Lord Chancellor of England, as a household page.[18]: xvi
Morton enthusiastically supported the “New Learning” (scholarship which was later known as “humanism” or “London humanism”), and thought highly of the young More. Believing that More had great potential, Morton nominated him for a place at the University of Oxford (either in St. Mary Hall or Canterbury College, both now gone).[19]: 38
More began his studies at Oxford in 1492, and received a classical education. Studying under Thomas Linacre and William Grocyn, he became proficient in both Latin and Greek. More left Oxford after only two years—at his father’s insistence—to begin legal training in London at New Inn, one of the Inns of Chancery.[18]: xvii [20] In 1496, More became a student at Lincoln’s Inn, one of the Inns of Court, where he remained until 1502, when he was called to the Bar.[18]: xvii
Spiritual life
According to his friend, the theologian Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam, More once seriously contemplated abandoning his legal career to become a monk.[21][22] Between 1503 and 1504 More lived near the Carthusian monastery outside the walls of London and joined in the monks’ spiritual exercises. Although he deeply admired their piety, More ultimately decided to remain a layman, standing for election to Parliament in 1504 and marrying the following year.[18]: xxi
More married Joanna “Jane” Colt in 1505. In that year he leased a portion of a house known as the Old Barge (originally there had been a wharf nearby serving the Walbrook river) on Bucklersbury, St Stephen Walbrook parish, London. Eight years later he took over the rest of the house and in total he lived there for almost 20 years, until his move to Chelsea in 1525.[19]: 118, 271 [24][25]Erasmus reported that More wanted to give his young wife a better education than she had previously received at home, and tutored her in music and literature.[19]: 119 The couple had four children: Margaret, Elizabeth, Cecily, and John. Jane died in 1511.[19]: 132
Going “against friends’ advice and common custom,” within 30 days, More had married one of the many eligible women among his wide circle of friends.[26][27] He chose Alice Middleton, a widow, to head his household and care for his small children.[28] The speed of the marriage was so unusual that More had to get a dispensation from the banns of marriage, which, due to his good public reputation, he easily obtained.[26]
More had no children from his second marriage, although he raised Alice’s daughter from her previous marriage as his own. More also became the guardian of two young girls: Anne Cresacre who would eventually marry his son, John More;[19]: 146 and Margaret Giggs (later Clement) who was the only member of his family to witness his execution (she died on the 35th anniversary of that execution, and her daughter married More’s nephew William Rastell). An affectionate father, More wrote letters to his children whenever he was away on legal or government business, and encouraged them to write to him often.[19]: 150 [29]: xiv
More insisted upon giving his daughters the same classical education as his son, an unusual attitude at the time.[19]: 146–47 His eldest daughter, Margaret, attracted much admiration for her erudition, especially her fluency in Greek and Latin.[19]: 147 More told his daughter of his pride in her academic accomplishments in September 1522, after he showed the bishop a letter she had written:
When he saw from the signature that it was the letter of a lady, his surprise led him to read it more eagerly … he said he would never have believed it to be your work unless I had assured him of the fact, and he began to praise it in the highest terms … for its pure Latinity, its correctness, its erudition, and its expressions of tender affection. He took out at once from his pocket a portague [A Portuguese gold coin] … to send to you as a pledge and token of his good will towards you.[29]: 152
More’s decision to educate his daughters set an example for other noble families. Even Erasmus became much more favourable once he witnessed their accomplishments.[19]: 149
A portrait of More and his family, Sir Thomas More and Family, was painted by Holbein; however, it was lost in a fire in the 18th century. More’s grandson commissioned a copy, of which two versions survive.
The Alþingi (pronounced [ˈalˌθiɲcɪ]; Icelandic for ‘general meeting’), anglicised as Althingi or Althing, is the supremenational parliament of Iceland. It is one of the oldest surviving parliaments in the world.[1][2][a] The Althing was founded in 930 at Þingvellir (‘thing fields’ or ‘assembly fields’), situated approximately 45 kilometres (28 mi) east of what later became the country’s capital, Reykjavík. After Iceland’s union with Norway in 1262, the Althing lost its legislative power,[4] which was not restored until 1903 when Iceland gained Home Rule from Denmark. For 641 years, the Althing did not serve as the parliament of Iceland, ultimately power rested with the Norwegian, and subsequently the Danish throne.[4] Even after Iceland’s union with Norway in 1262, the Althing still held its sessions at Þingvellir until 1800, when it was discontinued. It was restored in 1844 by royal decree and moved to Reykjavík.[5] The restored unicameral legislature first came together in 1845 and after 1874 operated in two chambers with an additional third chamber taking on a greater role as the decades passed until 1991 when Althing became once again unicameral.[6] The present parliament building, the Alþingishús, was built in 1881, made of hewn Icelandic stone.[7] The unicameral parliament has 63 members, and is elected every four years based on party-list proportional representation.[8] The current speaker of the Althing is Birgir Ármannsson.
The constitution of Iceland provides for six electoral constituencies with the possibility of an increase to seven. The constituency boundaries and the number of seats allocated to each constituency are fixed by legislation. No constituency can be represented by fewer than six seats. Furthermore, each party with more than 5% of the national vote is allocated seats based on its proportion of the national vote in order that the number of members in parliament for each political party should be more or less proportional to its overall electoral support. If the number of voters represented by each member of the Althing in one constituency would be less than half of the comparable ratio in another constituency, the Icelandic National Electoral Commission is tasked with altering the allocation of seats to reduce that difference.[9]
Historical background.
The Althing claims to be the longest running parliament in the world.[1][2] Its establishment as an outdoor assembly or thing held on the plains of Þingvellir (‘Thing Fields’ or ‘Assembly Fields’) from about 930, laid the foundation for an independent national existence in Iceland. To begin with, the Althing was a general assembly of the Icelandic Commonwealth, where the country’s most powerful leaders (goðar) met to decide on legislation and dispense justice. All free men could attend the assemblies, which were usually the main social event of the year and drew large crowds of farmers and their families, parties involved in legal disputes, traders, craftsmen, storytellers, and travellers. Those attending the assembly lived in temporary camps (búðir) during the session. The centre of the gathering was the Lögberg, or Law Rock, a rocky outcrop on which the Lawspeaker (lögsögumaður) took his seat as the presiding official of the assembly.[4] His responsibilities included reciting aloud the laws in effect at the time. It was his duty to proclaim the procedural law of the Althing to those attending the assembly each year.[10]
The Gulathing Law was adopted in 930 at the first Althing, introduced by Úlfljótr who had spent three years in Norway studying their laws. The Icelandic laws conferred a privileged status on the Danes, Swedes and Norwegians.[11]
According to Njáls saga, the Althing in 1000 declared Christianity as the official religion.[11] By the summer of 1000, the leaders of Iceland had agreed that prosecuting relatives for blaspheming the old gods was obligatory. Iceland was in the midst of unrest from the spread of Christianity that was introduced by travelers and missionaries sent by the Norwegian king Olaf Tryggvason.[12] The outbreak of warfare in Denmark and Norway prompted Thorgeir Ljosvetningagodi, a pagan and chieftain of the Althing, to propose “one law and one religion” to rule over the whole of Iceland, making baptism and conversion to Christianity required by law.[11]
Lögrétta
Public addresses on matters of importance were delivered at the Law Rock and there the assembly was called to order and dissolved. The Lögrétta, the legislative section of the assembly, was its most powerful institution. It comprised the 39 district Chieftains (goðar) plus nine additional members and the Lawspeaker. As the legislative section of the Althing, the Lögrétta took a stand on legal conflicts, adopted new laws and granted exemptions to existing laws. The Althing of old also performed a judicial function and heard legal disputes in addition to the spring assemblies held in each district. After the country had been divided into four-quarters around 965, a court of 36 judges (fjórðungsdómur) was established for each of them at the Althing. Another court (fimmtardómur) was established early in the 11th century. It served as a supreme court of sorts, and assumed the function of hearing cases left unsettled by the other courts. It comprised 48 judges appointed by the goðar of Lögrétta.[4]
Viola Ford Fletcher smiles as her mind burrows back in time more than a hundred years. “We were happy then,” she says wistfully. “Before this happened, we had children in the neighbourhood to play with. We had schools, churches, hospitals, theatres and anything that people enjoyed. It was a strong community.”
“This” refers to the 1921 Tulsa race massacre, when a white mob descended on the neighbourhood of Greenwood, home to a business district known as Black Wall Street, killing an estimated 300 people and looting and burning businesses and homes. Thousands were left homeless and living in a hastily constructed internment camp.
For most Americans it is the stuff of history books and museum exhibits, as foreign and faraway as Charles Lindbergh or the Wall Street crash. For Fletcher, it is a childhood scar that never went away.
Now 109 and still dressing to the nines with earrings and bracelets, she is the oldest living survivor of the massacre. In 2021, the year of its centenary, “Mother Fletcher” and her brother, Hughes “Uncle Red” Van Ellis, testified to the US Congress to push for reparations and travelled to Ghana, where they were treated like royalty.
Now Fletcher is thought to have become the world’s oldest author with Don’t Let Them Bury My Story, a memoir that recounts the impact of the massacre on her life and advocates for racial justice. “I’ve enjoyed life so far, so I think if I can do it at this time, I should,” she says.
I remember seeing people running and being shot, falling dead, houses burning and noise
Viola Ford Fletcher
Her debut book tour took her to New York for the first time (“I think all the people in the United States is in New York!”) and then on an Amtrak train for the first time (“That was really history for me, I thought it was very nice”) to Washington, where on Juneteenth she is resplendent in white and speaking to the Guardian from a wheelchair in the cavernous atrium of a business hotel.
She is joined by an attentive grandson, Ike Howard, 56, chief foundation officer of the Viola Ford Fletcher Foundation, which operates in the US and Ghana. His “constant prodding” persuaded Fletcher to overcome her fears and tell her story, he says, and they wrote the book together with Van Ellis, now 102, contributing a foreword.
Fletcher was born before the first world war on 5 May 1914 in Comanche, Oklahoma. Her parents were sharecroppers before moving to the prosperous Greenwood neighbourhood of Tulsa. On the night of 31 May 1921, she was a carefree seven-year-old girl with a favourite toy – a rag doll – and future full of possibilities. Then she was woken by her family and told they had to leave at once.
Part of Greenwood district burned in race riots, Tulsa, Oklahoma, in June 1921. Photograph: Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group/Getty Images
She recalls: “I remember seeing people running and being shot, falling dead, houses burning and noise – guns shooting. We were advised to get out of town before we were all killed. So my mother and father gathered six children and we were loaded into a horse-drawn cart and we got out of town safely.”
There are some things that time doesn’t heal, at least not completely. More than a century later, Fletcher speaks about living through the massacre every day and not being able to sleep at night. Howard explains: “At midnight, she’s awake. Three o’clock in the morning, she’s awake. She goes to sleep when the sun is high in the sky.”
The family was forced to move from farm to farm and Fletcher lost her chance at education beyond the fourth grade. She recalls: “They would sharecrop. We wasn’t able to go to school. The days we should be in school was time to harvest a crop or something. The family kept moving from one neighbourhood to another. I didn’t know where we were going. Being a child, they didn’t tell us everything. We had to follow.”
Viola Fletcher, 109, known as ‘Mother Fletcher’, the oldest survivor of the Tulsa race massacre. Photograph: Shuran Huang/The Guardian
Fletcher married her husband, Robert, in 1932 and moved to California to work as an assistant welder in the shipyards during the second world war. “During the war time, when my brothers were in service, I worked at a shipyard and helped build ships. I worked there until the war was over.”
Later she and Robert returned to Oklahoma, where Fletcher became a domestic worker serving white families (she did not retire until was 85). She gave birth to two sons and a daughter and now has more than 20 great-grandchildren. Her life has spanned a century of civil rights struggles, with all their victories and setbacks.
Fletcher was 94, for example, when Barack Obama was elected the US’s first Black president. She recalls: “It was wonderful to see that. Before then I probably didn’t notice about the presidents and all of that. I should know all the presidents but I don’t. But with that one I naturally learned that this was our first.”
Two years ago Fletcher travelled to Washington for the first time to ask that her country acknowledge what happened in Tulsa in 1921. She testified to a House of Representatives judiciary subcommittee considering legal remedies and received a standing ovation. She laughs: “I enjoyed it. There were portions I didn’t quite understand but I guess I said something that they wanted to hear.”
There has never been any direct compensation from the city of Tulsa or the state of Oklahoma for massacre survivors or their descendants. Racial disparities, compounded by gentrification and urban planning, persist in Tulsa today.
Last year a judge in Oklahoma issued an order allowing Fletcher, Van Ellis and another survivor, Lessie Benningfield Randle, to continue seeking damages under state nuisance laws. The lawsuit argues that, in the years after the massacre, city and county officials actively thwarted the community’s effort to rebuild in favour of overwhelmingly white parts of Tulsa.
Let us have our day in court. If we win, we win. If we lose, we lose. But at least the situation will be reconciled to some degree
Viola Ford Fletcher’s grandson Ike Howard
Howard, sporting a colourful T-shirt and gold chain necklace, comments: “Now the court case hangs in the balance because the judge hasn’t given us a decision. On her 109th birthday we were in court. I don’t think the judge knew that it was her birthday but you would take that personal: they burn down your house, they run you out of town, then they have a court date on your 109th birthday.
“It makes it feel like they’re waiting for you to die so the case can just go away. We’re stronger together so it would be wise just to go ahead. Let us have our day in court. If we win, we win. If we lose, we lose. If we settle, we settle. But at least the situation will be reconciled to some degree.”
Also in 2021, Fletcher made her first trip to Africa. She and her brother met the Ghanaian president, Nana Akufo-Addo, as well as the vice-president, three kings and a group of ambassadors. They were granted royal Ghanaian names and subsequently citizenship. She says: “I was looking to see who could be some of our ancestors.”
“I remember seeing people running and being shot, falling dead, houses burning and noise – guns shooting. We were advised to get out of town before we were all killed,” says Fletcher. Photograph: Science History Images/Alamy
Fletcher, who still lives in Tulsa, and her brother, based in Denver, Colorado, make a formidable team. Van Ellis, who served in an all-Black battalion during the second world war, has been at her side throughout the book tour. Wearing a grey suit with blue pinstripes and an “Army veteran 1939-1945” cap, he comments: “We always stuck together. You have a family and you stick together, you can always make it through.
“She and I went through all this. We went through 1921: I was only five months old: that was a bombing. I served in the United States army: that was a bombing. I was in the 234th AAA gun battalion down in Burma. I survived that bombing so I would call myself blessed.”
But like his sister, Van Ellis was robbed of school and career opportunities by the massacre; he has previously said his family were “made refugees in our own country”. He eventually became a handyman in Oklahoma City, working odd jobs in construction and as a painter and plumber.
He reflects: “If I had lived in Tulsa I would probably had a chance to get a good education and a decent job. But we had to work from sunup to sundown to make a living and feed our families.”
Fletcher recently co-published her memoir Don’t Let Them Bury My Story with her grandson, Ike Howard. Photograph: Shuran Huang/The Guardian
For decades, Van Ellis recalls, the massacre was a taboo subject in Tulsa, unspoken by neighbours, untaught in schools and uncommemorated by any memorial. “We were taught not to talk about it. They said, ‘Don’t talk about it. If you talk about it, your family is liable to get killed. Your dogs, your cats.’ You could not talk about. I don’t know why but that’s what they said. ‘Don’t talk about it.’”
He was relieved when the conspiracy of silence came to an end and the city began to confront its past, including a search for the unmarked mass graves of victims and visit by Joe Biden for the centenary. “You have to live. You can’t stop. You have to keep going ahead. Do your best in the world,” Van Ellis says.
Having fought for the US overseas, he hopes the book will play at part in achieving justice at home after all these years. “This is a new world to me – I didn’t think it would ever happen. It’s exciting and it’s history. Let the world know. It’s been 102 years so I’m proud I’m living to tell about it.”
Van Ellis, who has seven children, 10 grandchildren and 14 great-grandchildren, remains cautiously optimistic about the future of the country he served. “I saw little changes but it could be better. I saw some changes and I think I’m going to get better. I love America and I love people in America.”
And he fully intends to live for another 28 years. His secret? Spinach. Van Ellis, a palpably indomitable spirit, paraphrases: “I’m Popeye the Sailor Man / I’ll eat my spinach and fight to the finish / I’m Popeye the Sailor Man!”
In an ironic twist in the world of behavioral science, a Harvard professor who studies honesty has been accused of data fraud.
Over the last few weeks, allegations have surfaced against Francesca Gino, a prominent Harvard Business School (HBS) professor who has been accused of falsifying results in several behavioral science studies.
On 16 June, the Chronicle of Higher Education reported that Max Bazerman, a HBS professor and co-author who published a paper in 2012 alongside Gino, said that Harvard informed him that it believed one of the studies overseen by Gino had falsified results.
The paper in question is on findings published in – and later retracted by – the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and surrounds an experiment that asked participants to fill out tax and insurance paperwork.
“Many written forms required by businesses and governments rely on honest reporting. Proof of honest intent is typically provided through signature at the end of, eg, tax returns or insurance policy forms. Still, people sometimes cheat to advance their financial self-interests at great costs to society. We test an easy-to-implement method to discourage dishonesty: signing at the beginning rather than at the end of a self-report, thereby reversing the order of the current practice,” the paper’s abstract read.
The study claimed to have discovered that participants who were asked to sign truthfulness declarations at the top of the page were more honest than those who were asked to sign the declarations at the bottom of the page.
According to the Chronicle of Higher Education, Bazerman said that the university provided a 14-page document that included “compelling evidence” of data falsification, including the discovery that someone accessed a database and added and altered data in the file. He went on to deny any involvement in the alleged data tampering, telling the Chronicle: “I did not have anything to do with the fabrication.”
A day later, a blog called DataColada and run by three behavioral science academics published a four-part series of posts that detailed extensive evidence of the alleged fraud in four academic papers co-authored by Gino.
“We discovered evidence of fraud in papers spanning over a decade, including papers published quite recently (in 2020),” the blog authors, ESADE Business School’s Uri Simonsohn, University of California, Berkeley’s Leif Nelson, and University of Pennsylvania’s Joseph Simmons, wrote.
“In the fall of 2021, we shared our concerns with Harvard Business School. Specifically, we wrote a report about four studies for which we had accumulated the strongest evidence of fraud. We believe that many more Gino-authored papers contain fake data. Perhaps dozens,” the scholars said.
“We understand that Harvard had access to much more information than we did, including, where applicable, the original data collected using Qualtrics survey software. If the fraud was carried out by collecting real data on Qualtrics and then altering the downloaded data files, as is likely to be the case for three of these papers, then the original Qualtrics files would provide airtight evidence of fraud. (Conversely, if our concerns were misguided, then those files would provide airtight evidence that they were misguided),” they added.
To the best of their knowledge, none of Gino’s co-authors carried out or assisted with the data collection for the studies in question, the scholars said.
According to Gino’s HBS profile, she is currently on administrative leave.
Speaking to the New York Times, a man who identified himself as Gino’s husband said: “It’s obviously something that is very sensitive that we can’t speak to now.”
Filmmaker Sahar Zand vividly explores the ongoing struggle women face at the hands of Iranian morality police — like living as second-class citizens with no right to travel, divorce or wear their hair uncovered — and points to new hope as protests against this unfair treatment continue across the country and around the world. She urges us all to stand in solidarity with the fight for “Woman, Life, Freedom” and shows why hope is so dangerous to authoritarian regimes.
The man represented by the Prince of Disks is a quiet and meditative man, who works with unfailing determination towards the goals he sets himself. He is reliable and resourceful, unswerving and creative in his dedication.
He is more imaginative than the Knight of Disks, though he has the same quiet strength and gentleness. His quality of contemplation often yields fruit in surprising ways, generating a deep and broad-sweeping understanding about the inner workings of life.
If he is ill-dignified, the Prince of Disks can become stubborn and short-sighted – even bloody-minded in his attitudes. Faithful and loyal himself, he will not tolerate faithlessness in others. Neither will he accept lack of integrity, nor dishonesty.
He is hard-working, trustworthy and inventive, often producing unusual yet practical solutions which resolve otherwise intractable problems. As a friend he is non-judgemental and supportive, though capable of shedding new perspectives on situations. He’s generally a good listener, though he has little patience with histrionics and manipulation.
His approach to life overall is one of industrious practicality. He believes that all things yield to a determined will and well-directed activity.
Though emotionally he at first gives the impression that he is solid and perhaps even a little unimaginative, when his feelings are roused, he can be deeply passionate and sensual.
He rarely comes up to indicate a change of mood in a person, though sometimes he will appear to indicate some-one learning to take responsibility in everyday life.
BBC Select Jun 15, 2023 Art is so much more than pretty pictures. It has the power to move, shock, inform and transform. In this groundbreaking and award-winning series, art historian Simon Schama attempts to illustrate the sheer force of the visual image via eight iconic masterpieces. These works were often derided or dismissed when first created, but they went on to change the way we look at the world. BBC Select is the new home for documentaries. Available in the U.S and Canada. Find out more and start your free trial: https://bit.ly/3kwM3bU
Episodes
1. Caravaggio (David with the Head of Goliath)
The host looked at what made Caravaggio paint this work and the message Caravaggio intended to show in his work. The episode reveals to viewers that Caravaggio was charged with murder and became a criminal, with Schama suggesting that this led to the darker themes found in his work.[1] He details that the artwork’s intended message was as a plea for forgiveness from the Pope to remove the death by decapitation sentencing that Caravaggio had received following the murder of Ranuccio Tomassoni in 1606.[2]
2. Bernini (Ecstasy of St Theresa)
The work was constructed in Santa Maria della Vittoria, Rome over a five-year period between 1647 and 1652,[3] depicting Teresa of Àvila. The narrator describes that he sought to portray the Saint’s overpowering joy or ecstasy in her servitude to God. The influence behind such a work came as a result of Bernini’s passion and devout belief in Christianity. This religious belief saw him place the work at the back of the chapel and construct a hidden window above where rays of sunlight dawned on the marble sculpture so as to give it a heavenly, religious touch.[4]
3. Rembrandt (The Conspiracy of Claudius Civilius)
Schama outlines that the painting was commissioned by the Amsterdam City Council for the new Town Hall (Cavalli-Björkman, Görel, and Margaretha Rossholm-Lagerlöf 135–136). It was originally appointed to Govert Flinck who died before the project was undertaken. The project was then divided up, with Rembrandt being commissioned to paint a scene from the rebellion of the Batavians (former inhabitants of Holland) against the Romans. The host notes, the work was painted after the death of his wife and three of his children, describing that the etched, darker brushwork was influenced by this. This style was also common in the Baroque period and Rembrandt’s style as a whole.
4. David (Death of Marat)
The episode analyses how the artwork was as a tribute to his late friend and French Revolution leader, Jean-Paul Marat, who had been murdered by Charlotte Corday. The stylistic features of the work incorporated the history of the Roman and Greek empires. This was to symbolise to the people of the French Revolution that a future similar to these empires lay in front of them. While also forewarning what a misuse of freedom could lead to (death of their leader).[1]
5. Turner (The Slave Ship)
Schama outlines the inspiration behind such a painting. Turner was compelled to paint the work after reading The History and Abolition of the Slave Trade by Thomas Clarkson, he learned of the Zong massacre in 1781, when more than 130 slaves were ordered to be thrown overboard in order to collect insurance payments.[5] The episode examines the development of Turner from a landscape painter to a symbolic expressionist painter, connecting the original landscape and transforming it into a more abstract piece that links together the natural environment. Specifically, it is noted how he transformed the natural environment using water colours, so that, “The storm is partially lulled, and the torn and streaming rain clouds are moving in scarlet lines to lose themselves in the hollow of the night.”[6]
6. Van Gogh (Wheatfield with Crows)
This work was one of Vincent van Gogh’s final works and was completed in July 1890, before he died on 29 July 1890. The episode details the effect Van Gogh’s lack of wealth had on his work, where this combined with his undiagnosed epilepsy, saw him end up in a mental asylum. It was here that Van Gogh was inspired to, “Sadness, extreme loneliness,”[7] while also wanting to show what he considered, “Healthy and fortifying about the countryside.”[7] Schama examines the subject matter of the work, where, “The menacing sky, the crows and the dead-end path are said to refer to the end of his life approaching.”[8]
7. Picasso (Guernica)
Schama outlines how the artwork was crafted in response to the bombing of a defenceless city,[9]Guernica, by Nazi planes during the Spanish Civil War. The work is one of Picasso’s cubist works, where its subject matter revolved around, “The most notorious bombing of the century.”[10] The artwork spans 7.77m wide and 3.49 high. The episode outlines that the message intended from the artwork was to exemplify the horrors and damages of war and act as an anti-war symbol. And that the size of the artwork aids to engulf the majority of the viewer’s field of vision and exemplify this message.
8. Rothko (Black on Maroon)
This early Rothko work was completed in order to fulfil a commission for the Four Seasons in New York. Rothko withheld the work from installation at the restaurant,[11] as he did not want his work as a background to the wealthy.[12] Schama outlines this and the inspirations surrounding Rothko and this work, specifically outlining his upbringing as a Russian emigrant. Rothko initially gained inspiration as an abstract expressionist. Heavily influenced by philosophy and mythology, these two influences culminated in Rothko using colour to form a different medium, liberating colour from the objects, so that objects no longer have colour, but the painting as a whole, does.[1]
Andrew Pask receives funding from the NIH, ARC and NHMRC.
Deidre Mattiske does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.
Female enjoyment of sex is typically associated with the human species.
But actually all female mammals have a clitoris, the highly sensitive organ that is linked with pleasure and orgasm in women.
And research is now starting to slowly unpack how the clitoris might be involved in sexual encounters in mammals. For example, a research paper presented at a biology conference this week showed that the clitoris in dolphins is very large, and more complex than we previously thought.
Let’s take a look at the biology and evolution of the clitoris – for science.
How The Conversation is different: Accurate science, none of the jargon
Find out more
It starts in the uterus
All babies, regardless of whether they are destined to become a boy or a girl, begin development in the womb with a small bulge called a genital tubercle.
If the developing fetus is destined to become male, the fetal testes will produce the male hormone testosterone and the genital tubercle will develop into a penis. If, on the other hand, the fetus is destined to become a female, the fetal ovary will not produce any hormones and instead the genital tubercle will develop into the clitoris.
Both structures look very similar in the early days of pregnancy.
Since the penis and the clitoris both develop from the same structure, they share many similarities.
The clitoris has a hood in humans: this is the same as the foreskin in males. The clitoris has a glans, which is the same structure as the head of the penis in men. Both the penis and clitoris become engorged with blood when stimulated. And both structures are full of nerves which, at least in humans, provide a pleasurable sensation when stimulated.
A very recent science
But compared to the penis, the clitoris is not well studied even in humans.
Amazingly, it was not until the late 1990s that the complete anatomy of the human clitoris was accurately described by Australia’s first female urologist, Helen O’Connell. Her work to understand the detailed form and function of the clitoris provides answers to some basic biological questions about sex.
Such research also has implications in pelvic area surgery, where doctors can use this knowledge to avoid any loss of sexual function.
The external aspect of the human clitoris is just a very small portion of its entire structure. In this image, the dark pink and white structures are internal. from www.shutterstock.com
Because the penis and clitoris develop from the same tissue in the fetus, anything that affects the hormone balance in the embryo can impact its development. A great example of this is seen in the female spotted hyena.
In this mammal, the female rules the pack. She is larger and more muscular than the males because she is exposed to high levels of male hormones during embryonic development.
But this more muscled physique comes at a cost. The male hormones also affect the clitoris, turning it into a structure that looks like the male penis.
Unfortunately for the female hyena this 20cm clitoris contains the birth canal. So, the female needs to both mate and give birth through her clitoris, which often splits in the process, causing a high death rate in first time mothers.
There are other known differences in clitoris anatomy across species too.
The urethra is the tube through which urine passes to the outside of the body. Many animals have the urethra running through the clitoris (as it does in the penis) while in humans, the urethra opens at the base of the clitoris.
Most mammals also have a small bone in the clitoris to help it become rigid during intercourse. This is known as the os clitoris and again shares a counterpart in the penis, the os penis. Os clitoris and os penis bones are present in most mammals, and humans are unusual in not having one in either organ.
The jury is still out on whether all mammals experience orgasm.
Non-human primates almost certainly do, but it is difficult to measure pleasure in animals.
What is certain is that females who stick around for longer during the act of mating are much more likely to become pregnant and produce more offspring. So if a clitoris does enhance enjoyment, then it would be strongly selected for in nature through increasing the females chance of having offspring.
Although the clitoris is not well studied, there is evidence of larger clitorides – yes, this is the plural of clitoris – in animals in which sex plays an important part in relationship building. Examples include the matriarchal hyena, bonobo chimps, humans and most recently in the dolphin.
Lots of surprises
A paper released this week reveals that female bottlenose dolphins have clitorides similar to humans, and that female dolphins may experience sexual pleasure.
Researchers used a combination of dissections and 3D scans to explore the female genitalia of dolphins in detail.
The shape and structure of the dolphin clitoris is very similar to that of the human. Both animals have extensive areas of erectile tissue that are larger than the clitoral hood. The skin under the clitoral hood also contains bundles of nerves that may increase sensitivity, raising the possibility that sexual experiences can be pleasurable for female dolphins.
Computer reconstruction of the clitoris of the bottlenose dolphin, which researchers say is remarkably similar to the human clitoris in its structure and shape. Dara Orbach, Mount Holyoke College
However, there are also some differences in the location of the clitoris with respect to the vaginal opening and how it would be stimulated during copulation.
These comparative studies help us learn about the function of genitalia, and the evolution of sexual bonding across species.
Some of us call it chance; those less at peace with the randomness that governs the universe may call it “God.” But however we name it, there are moments in life when we feel its workings deeply and seek to make meaning out of them — that is part of our creaturely inheritance as the sensemaking species, the pattern-seeking animal. Hindsight is the enchanted loom on which we weave the pattern of our destiny, threading together fragmentary memories and chance occurrences into a thing of cohesion, from which a shape and a story emerge — a story we call fate. Suddenly, we find in our past omens of our present — synchronicities that become signposts, pointing us to where we were always meant to go.
In this haunting sense of fatedness, the determinism of science and the predestination of spirituality converge.
Because love is the supreme magnifying lens of our human experience, through it all of our hopes and fears are enlarged with life; through it the smallest coincidences swell with meaning. It is when we fall in love that we come to feel this eerie fatedness most acutely — something James Baldwin illuminated as he reckoned with love and the illusion of choice. Suddenly, every smallest serendipity is rife with assurance and every found overlap in yesterday’s shadow — the stuffed snail you both snugged as your most beloved toy eons before you knew of each other’s existence, the song you both secretly loved in high school, the shared aversion to pickled radish — a promise of blissfully joined tomorrows.
Long before she furnished the greatest definition of love in her prose, the Nobel-winning Polish poet Wisława Szymborska (July 2, 1923–February 1, 2012) winked at its fundamental chance-nature in a playful and poignant poem about how lovers cast the spell of fatedness on each other.
On the pages of Queirazza’s Love at First Sight (public library), the text of Szymborska’s poem unspools across a magical-realist sequence of illustrations, woven together by the floating leaf that emerges as the poem’s central symbol for the serendipities we read into love.
The strangers who populate the pages — melancholy, dreamsome people all moving through the world as if distracted by some unseen preoccupation — remind us that any two people may cross each other’s path at any given moment without knowing who they would become to one another in some future season of being, unwittingly enacting the poem’s closing verse:
Every beginning is only a sequel, after all, and the book of events is always open halfway through.
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