Cross-cultural “Stuff”
The Question of the Queen Mother
Speaking of the linguistic booby traps that await the unwary in the pursuit of global history, as I believe we were, I offer you the example of the Queen Mother. In English, the term “Queen Mother” generally refers to the widow of a king* who is the mother of a reigning monarch. The term has…
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The Umbrella vs the Crown
In the course of writing Women Warriors, I wrote a lot of variations on the sentence “inherited the throne/crown” . (Or in several instances, “seized the throne/crown”. Because transfer of power is often not a bloodless event.) Eventually it dawned on me that while throne and crown can be actual objects, they are also metaphors…
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From the Archives: Déjà Vu All Over Again – Climate Change
The consensus in the places that I hang out, in real life and on line, is that it is unseasonably cold and we are sick of it. It reminded of this blog post, which I wrote in February, 2014, when we were also sick of winter in these part. Earlier this week I stood in…
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