Ralph Fiennes

Summer trip 2018: The Clay Castle, Transfagarasan Road, Sighisoara Medieval City and Turda Salt Mine / Romania.

Ralph Fiennes interview: 'Cinema reduces love to cliché' - Telegraph

Ralph Fiennes, the director and star of The Invisible Woman, on Hollywood, tabloid gossip, and Charles Dickens’s complicated romantic life

Women in Anthropology: MARGARET ALICE MURRAY

In the 100 years Margaret Murray was on this Earth she became a driving force for women in anthropology and in academia, earning the titles of archaeologst, Egyptologist, author, lecturer, Folkorist, and feminist. 

Murray was born to wealthy English parents in Calcutta, India in 1863. She spent her early years living in Britain and Germany before settling back in India as a nurse until 1887 when she moved to England and became a social worker.

She began attending the University College London (UCL) at the age of 31 in 1894 (proving that there is no set age to being your academic career) and by 1898 she was working as a junior lecturer of linguistics in the Egyptology department. 

In 1902 she joined British Egyptologist Sir William Flinders Petrie for 2 field seasons in Egypt. During the first field season she helped to excavate a temple to Osiris, the Osireion, built during the New kingdom (roughly 16th to 11th century BCE) under the Pharaoh Seti I (pictured below). 

After returning to London, she became a big supporter of the first wave feminist movement and joined the Women’s Social and Political Union. Murray initiated many campaigns to change the culture for women in academia and make it more accessible. At her insistence for inclusivity, the UCL common room was opened to women and later a redesigned room was constructed and named the Margaret Murray Room. 

During World War I, she began studying and publishing articles and books on the history of witchcraft in Europe and Folklorism. Eventually, in 1927 she was awarded an honorary doctorate for her work in Egyptology. Throughout her career she wrote several books and many articles on Egyptology, Folklorism and also authored her own autobiography titled “My First Hundred Years” published in the year of her death 1963. 

It is challenging for modern day academics to truly comprehend the different era and culture for a woman in anthropology during the late 19th to mid-20th centuries. Although, I am sure many of us agree that the academic climate of today oftentimes has much more progress to make. In any case, Margaret Murray was one of the first women to ‘make it’ within this scientific field dominated by a white men, and her contributions to academia were significant, well known, and respected.

However, this does not mean she was perfect. Much of her academic work and theory, especially in the field of Folklorism, is often criticized. Anthropology has changed quite a bit since Murray first entered the field over 158 years ago, and our views and methods of understanding are extremely different today.

What will not change is Murray’s solidified importance as an academic mind and as a woman in archaeology. She paved the way for other female scholars, and she fought for their advancement and their voices along the way. 

Refs:

Drower, Margaret S. (2004). “Margaret Alice Murray”. In Getzel M. Cohen; Martha Joukowsky (eds.). Breaking Ground: Pioneering Women Archaeologists. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. pp. 109–141

Margaret Murray. (n.d.). Retrieved March 16, 2021, from https://www.fembio.org/english/biography.php/woman/biography/margaret-murray/

Margaret Murray. 25 Feb. 2021, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Murray.

“Margaret Murray”. Stories From The Museum Floor, 2021, https://storiesfromthemuseumfloor.wordpress.com/2018/03/02/margaret-murray/.

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About the podcast: The I Dig It Podcast was created by Alyssa and Michaela in March of 2020. Our goal for this podcast was to provide archaeology enthusiasts with insight into the student perspective of navigating the world of academia and the job market for archaeology and anthropology. Guests on the podcast include people from all different parts of their career, including highschool, undergrad, grad school, post doc, and early career!

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Women Scientists on the New Book Shelf

Just to be clear, there are only books on the new book shelf - not people.  But some of those books were written by and about women, and, as Women’s History Month draws to a close, we call attention to a few.  Follow the links to see the catalog record and contents, reviews, etc., for each:

Rebels, scholars, explorers : women in vertebrate paleontology / Annalisa Berta and Susan Turner

The story of life in 10 ½ species / Marianne Taylor

Human / Amanda Rees and Charlotte Sleigh

Our biosocial brains : the cultural neuroscience of bias, power, and injustice / Michele K. Lewis

Books on display are just a small sliver of new books available!  Browse online, using the “New in the Science Library” guide (depicted above); one of many “General Purpose Guides” in the Research Tools section of the library website.  Tens of thousands of more books are available from OBIS in digital form.  Click on the eBooks tab to focus your search to that format, or limit your search results to location=internet.  

Happy searching!  Contact library staff anytime for assistance.

Elizabeth Lee Hazen and Rachel Fuller Brown

Hazen and Brown discovered nystatin, an early antifungal medication.

The discovery of nystatin by Elizabeth Lee Hazen (1885–1975) and Rachel Fuller Brown (1898–1980) at the Division of Laboratories and Research of the New York State Department of Health ("the Division") was inspired by the discovery and development of penicillin (see Alexander Fleming and Howard Florey and Ernst Chain) and by the success of biochemist and microbiologist Selman Waksman in screening soil samples for antibacterial agents. Nystatin, which is now known by a number of brand names, including Mycostatin, has been used for years as an effective treatment for fungal infections of the skin, mouth, vagina, and intestinal tract.

Check out the Historical Biographies on our website.

“ I know you’ll come carry me out to the Palace of Winds. That’s what I’ve wanted: to walk in such a place with you. With friends, on an earth without maps. ”

The English Patient — Almàsy + landscapes

Ralph Fiennes in Maid in Manhattan

Women from three different countries training to become doctors at Women's Medical College of Philadelphia in 1885. From left to right: Dr. Anandibai Joshi (from India), Dr. Kei Okami (from Japan) and Dr. Sabat Islambouli (from Syria). All were among the first women to practice Western medicine in their respective countries.

ESBAT • oil on panel • 2019 for the RITUAL exhibition at Haven Gallery in New York