Historical fiction is a touchy subject for reasons that I, as someone with Asperger’s syndrome, have a hard time fathoming. There is fiction, and there is fact, and if the twain don’t meet 100% then it is historical fiction. In fact, historical fiction that is 100% accurate in historical details (how I do love Susan… Read more Fictions and Factions
Back when the earth was still cooling and I was in grad school, I took a class on anthropological theory. Now, I am a semi-postmodern girl, in that I think the truth is highly subjective and relative … but I do think some things are provable data. The graduate school I was attending was, at… Read more From Whence Science
Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia died on Saturday of a heart attack while on a West Texas hunting trip. Now, I would never write a tribute to the man who said torture was Constitutionally okay because it wasn’t punishment per se or black people were maybe better off in lesser schools (which is another way… Read more Scalia’s Death and the Next Member of SCOTUS
Religious turmoil was ubiquitous in sixteenth century England. In fact, the entire continent of Europe was a roiling cauldron of ecumenical and dogmatic crazy-sauce. The question of who had the “correct” form of Christianity – the Catholics or the Protestants – was so controversial and important that people were burned to death over their answer,… Read more God’s Traitors by Jessie Childs
Today, January 25, is the day Anne Boleyn and Henry VIII wed in secret for the second time in 1533. From the Catholic perspective, it was bigamy, in that the Pope had not released Henry from his first marriage. The marriage was also wildly unpopular with his subjects because Anne was thought of as a… Read more An Anne Boleyn Analog in Modern China?
I am a huge and avid fan of Jane Austen and her works. I am a Janeite, and I wear that badge proudly because as an anthropologist I believe the academic mindset that named those who appreciate Jane Austen the “wrong” (read: non-academic “popular culture”) way is full of “high-culture” baloney. You do not have… Read more The Best Colonel Brandon
I’ve posted about Maria de Salinas before, on more sites than this one, but she DESERVES multiple posts because she was awesome. On this day in history Maria Willoughby, nee de Salinas, defied a king and arrived at Kimbolton manor house to comfort Katherina of Aragon on her deathbed. Maria de Salinas is one of… Read more Once More About Maria de Salinas
Welcome to Niki Incorvia, who is here on my blog to tell us all about her first book, Monarchial Roles: Redefining Religion and Family under Henry VIII and Mary I! Henry VIII and Mary I are a bit of a mystery to us in the twenty-first century, their lives and personalities are crafted together from… Read more Monarchial Roles by Niki Incorvia
I am currently at my parent’s house in Eastern Kentucky, where love is abundant and internet connections are sparse. Prior to that, I was frolicking throughout Florida and costal Georgia with my children and my parents. I’ll tell you more about that odyssey in a Honda Odyssey when I return to civilization, AKA: the Land… Read more Christmas Eve and Sunny
On this day in 1941 the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor in a surprise attack that would rip through the American psyche in a way unequaled until the terrorist attacks on 9/11/2001. The next day my paternal grandfather, Henry Cornelius, signed up the US Navy and served in World War II. He wanted, he said, “a… Read more Pearl Harbor Day and My Grandfather