What does the vaginal speculum have to do with power? How does the history of this instrument help us to understand how bodies have been understood, policed, and governed? Can this object be reclaimed?
Lisa Godson explores.
Radical Objects
Radical Object: Richard Carlile’s Little Hammer
How does a small gavel on display in the offices of Britain’s National Secular Society commemorate past struggles for free thought and free speech? Robert Forder explores.
Radical Objects: “Dear Comrade Angela”
Maurice Casey explores letters sent to Angela Davis from Britain and Ireland during her imprisonment in California in 1971-72.
Radical Objects: The Obelisk of Axum and the Complexities of Restitution
What powers of legitimacy do physical representations of the past hold? Duncan McLean explores the journey and repatriation of a radical object, the Obelisk of Axum, from Abyssinia to Italy to Ethiopia – its return seemingly affirming Tigray’s influence as long-standing grievances have led to hostility in the region.
Radical Objects: Alan Winnington’s Camera & Documenting the Daejeon Massacre
Long-unpublished photographs taken by journalist Alan Winnington in South Korea are now providing crucial evidence for the 1950 Daejeon Massacre. David Miller explores
Radical Object: Charles Bradlaugh’s Study by Walter Sickert
Walter Sickert’s portrait of Charles Bradlaugh, atheist, republican, and birth control pioneer, weaves together disparate threads of late nineteenth century British radical history. Robert Forder explores.
Radical Object: Gingerbread
As the festive season approaches and thoughts turn to gifts and treats, Edmund Wareham explains how gingerbread could be a Radical Object in medieval & early modern Germany.
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