Does patriarchy traumatise the feminine? 15 August 2019 Posted by: Michael H Hallett Category: Arts , History , Patriarchy , No Comments Edwin Longsden Long’s 1875 painting, The Babylonian Marriage Market, is monumental in more ways than one. Firstly, in size: the painting measures 10 feet by 5 feet 8 inches. Secondly, in value: in […]
Da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man – the ‘ideal man’ is free of shame 2 July 2019 Posted by: Michael H Hallett Category: Arts , History , Shame , 1 Comment Leonardo Da Vinci’s drawing, the Vitruvian Man, has always fascinated me. Drawn around 1490, Da Vinci’s drawing is named after the Roman architect Vetruvius. He not […]
“Pleased to meet you, don’t you know my name?” It’s the right to victimize 14 May 2019 Posted by: Michael H Hallett Category: Arts , History , Patriarchy , 2 Comments The opening song of the Rolling Stones’ 1968 album Beggars Banquet kicks off with a screech and an insistent, hypnotic beat. “Please allow me […]
Nazi Germany – radicalisation of a nation 23 May 2018 Posted by: Michael H Hallett Category: History , Radicalisation , No Comments Despite the recent downfall of the Islamic State, the term radicalisation is still largely associated with religious extremism. In The sexual radicalisation of Elliot Rodger, I wrote that religion is only one of several […]
Excess, patriarchy and the murder of Stanford White 22 April 2018 Posted by: Michael H Hallett Category: History , Patriarchy , 1 Comment The media dubbed it—perhaps for the first time—the ‘crime of the century’. On the night of 25 June 1906, Harry K. Thaw shot architect Stanford White at point-blank range in the rooftop […]
The sexual radicalisation of Lawrence of Arabia 9 March 2018 Posted by: Michael H Hallett Category: History , Radicalisation , Sexuality , 9 Comments I recently wrote about the influence of unconscious shame upon the personality of perhaps the single most memorable individual to emerge from World War I, T. E. Lawrence, better known as […]
Lawrence of Arabia – a shame-driven hero? 18 February 2018 Posted by: Michael H Hallett Category: History , Shame , No Comments Shifting Sands, an exhibition at the British Civil War Centre in Newark, examines the perennially fascinating story of T. E. Lawrence—a.k.a. Lawrence of Arabia—from multiple perspectives: historical, archaeological and personal. Pursuing clues in […]
Porn categories reflect historical taboos 5 March 2017 Posted by: Michael H Hallett Category: History , Pornography , 1 Comment WARNING: Contains nude images As you are no doubt aware, PornHub recently released their statistics for 2016. Being very graphic people, they produced a nicely-coloured map of the world showing the top porn categories for […]
A brief history of shame 3 March 2017 Posted by: Michael H Hallett Category: Cornerstones , History , Patriarchy , Shame , 12 Comments In What is unconscious shame? I’ve written about how shame affects us today. In What is ancestral trauma? I’ve written about the shame we still unconsciously carry from the dim and […]
Anne Frank’s genitalia – sex meets history 23 September 2014 Posted by: Michael H Hallett Category: History , Sexuality , No Comments One of the most poignant memoirs of the World War II Holocaust, Anne Frank’s Diary, has recently become the battleground in an entirely different kind of war. Anne Frank’s Diary Gail Horalek, the mother […]