Sylvia Pankhurst and the International Auxiliary Language

HAL (Le Centre pour la Communication Scientifique Directe), 2021

On 8 March 1919, the Workers' Dreadnought published a letter signed by the president and the secretary of the Social-Democratic Party (SDP) of Dunedin, New Zealand, stating that it was 'the most advanced of any labour paper in the Empire'. 1 Mark Silverstone's and Arthur McCarthy's flattering judgement is hardly reflected by the discrete place allocated to the weekly, and more generally to Estelle Sylvia Pankhurst, by historians of British anticolonialism and of the British left in their works. 2 The poverty of historiography on Pankhurst has been partly counterbalanced, since the 1980s, by the publication of several biographies, all written by women. But until the release of Katherine Connelly's Sylvia Pankhurst in 2013, none of them, however remarkable, granted the Dreadnought the weight it deserves, be it in 1 Workers' Dreadnought, 8 Mar. 1919. Hereafter in the footnotes the weekly is referred to as WD.

Womenʼs History Review, 1996

This article reassesses the dominant representations of two First Wave feminists in Edwardian Britain, Emmeline and Christabel Pankhurst, who founded the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) on 10 October 1903 with the expressed aim of fighting for the right of women to enfranchisement on the same terms as it was, or may be, granted to men. Both women, it is argued, have been represented by historians mainly in a negative light which, at best, ignores their women-centred approach to politics and, at worst, misrepresents their views. However, if we are to understand these women as feminists then we must examine their own rationale for their actions which is in wide divergence with the views expressed by historians. As women-identified women, Emmeline and Christabel Pankhurst were forerunners of some of the ideas articulated by radical feminists in the Second Wave of feminism in the West in the 1970s. In this article, this theme is illustrated through focusing on two key areas-the world-view of the Pankhurst women and their style of leadership. Although during the last 20 years or so women's history in Britain has become a booming, scholarly activity[2], many aspects of our feminist past still remain misrepresented. In particular, this is especially the case with those First Wave militant feminists, Mrs Emmeline Pankhurst (1858-1948) and her eldest daughter Christabel (1880-1958), who founded the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) on 10 October 1903 with the expressed aim of fighting for the right of women to enfranchisement on the same terms as it was, or may be, granted to men.[3] My aims in this article are to examine the dominant representations of these two key leaders of the WSPU, to offer an alternative assessment and, finally, in my concluding remarks, to discuss why I think a knowledge of our militant feminist foremothers has relevance for feminists today. Before I undertake these

Encyclopedia of Romantic Nationalism in Europe, 2022

Feminist philosophy of language has come a long way in a very short time period. Initially, most work in the area was critical, calling for changes either to language itself or to philosophy of language. More recently, however, the dynamic has changed, with the advent of several major positive research programmes within philosophy of language. In this entry, we first discuss the critiques that constitute the first phase of feminist work in this area, before moving onto the positive research programmes that have recently come to the fore. Our focus in this entry will generally be on the analytic tradition. For continental approaches, see the entries on feminist approaches to the intersection of analytic and continental philosophy, feminist approaches to the intersection of pragmatism and continental philosophy.

H-France Salon, 2019

In this essay, I analyze the multi-semiotic processes through which gender minorities use language for political purposes. The focus on language as a grammatical, multilingual, and artistic resource gives me the possibility of shedding light on political and aesthetic issues at work in the analysis of the relations between language and gender minorities and to propose what I call "Do-It-Yourself-Language-Strategies" (DIYLS).

Centering on the English language reform movement, this chapter describes three main strategies through which feminists have targeted language, both as an object to reform and a platform for revolution. First, it describes the strategy of challenging man-made language forms, exemplified in debates over masculine generics. Second, it discusses the strategy of creating and institutionalizing egalitarian naming practices in order to reclaim the power to name and define. By tracing such forms as Ms., it becomes evident that even small shifts in language use can contribute to cultural change. Third, it describes the strategy of linguistic disruption, illustrated through such neologisms as herstory and womyn, gender-neutral forms such as singular they, and third-gender forms such as zie and zir. By using language creatively and sometimes radically to reject patriarchal language, respond to gender bias, and empower women, feminist activists and everyday speakers alike can employ linguistic practices to promote equality.

2016

In: Language as a Scientific Tool. Shaping Scientific Language Across Time and National Traditions. Hrsg. von Rocío G. Sumillera Miles MacLeod, Jan Surman und Ekaterina Smirnova. Routledge Studies in Cultural History. London: Routledge, S. 187–198

The Politics of Women’s Suffrage: Local, National and International Dimensions, 2021

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SubStance, 1990

History of Intellectual Culture , 2023

At the beginning of the nineteenth century,the age-old system of empires was beginning to crumble. People weretrying to reimaginethe political space, and geographies in Europe weres hifting.I nt hisi ntellectual landscape of upheaval, translation served as apowerful tool enablingvocabularies and ideas of revolution to travel from context to context.Translating texts into one'slanguage was ascholarlyactivity permittedfor women and it was frequentlyused by female writers as as pace wheret hey could unfold their ideas and influencet heir contemporaries. Although thereh as latelyb een ar enewed interest in translators and translation, these aspectsa re still undervalued as as ourceb yh istorians of knowledge and ideas due to am isconception that translation lacks originality.Y et,t he expressive and intercultural potential of the translated worda nd the insights that paratexts surroundingt ranslations have to offer tell an exciting story-as tory of cultural mediationalso existing outside the textual world and providingthe promise of political participation, even under the darks hadow of gender power relations.