Eleanor’s Friends — Podcast
‘Eleanor’s Friends’ is FLAD’s new podcast. With a live recording and open to the public, Raquel Vaz Pinto and Pedro Vieira will meet monthly at FLAD to talk about extraordinary women who distinguished themselves in politics, education, science, the arts and who marked the past, present and future.
Listen to the Podcast
Episode 10
Episode 10, with which we close these Friends of Eleanor, takes place in the shadow of evil: from the fascinating Lucrezia Borgia to the Machiavellian Madame Mao; from the infamous Unity Mitford to the despotic Elena Ceausescu, we put together a list of villainies to close with a flourish. And gall.
Kick-Off: Bloopers Eleanor’s Friends www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-4gRekCnRc
Lucrezia Borgia
Paul Strathern, ‘The Borgias, Power and Fortune’, Atlantic Books, London, 2019.
Image 1: premium-art.shop/products/rape-of… in-and-lucretia/
Image 2: www.nationalgeographic.com/history/his… al-intrigue
Image 3: upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/comm… zia-Borgia.jpg
Madame Mao
«Mao – The Unknown Story», Jung Chang and Jon Hallyday, Quetzal
edition BBC News Brasil: www.bbc.com/portuguese/geral-57880458
Encyclopaedia Britannica: www.britannica.com/biography/Jiang-Qing
The New York Times (1991): www.nytimes.com/1991/06/05/obitua…-is-reported.html
Image 1: b20.photo.store.qq.com/http_imgload…. 2aa917e54caf7, Public domain, commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=13353619
Image2: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gang_of_Fou…
our_at_trial.jpg Image 3: insidestory.org.au/the-silence-tha… f-modern-china/
Unity Valkyrie Mitford
Jonathan Guinness (with Catherine Guinness), ‘The House of Mitford’, Phoenix, 2004.
Image 1: By Unknown author – i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archi… ily_3051013k.jpg, Public Domain, commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=65679751
Image 2: www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-39304317
Tim Bouverie, ‘Appeasing Hitler, Chamberlain, Hitler and the Road to War’, The Bodley Head, London, 2019.
Elena Ceausescu
Kiss the Hand You Cannot Bite: The Rise and Fall of the Ceausescus, Edward Behr, Villard
edition Encyclopaedia Britannica: www.britannica.com/biography/Nicol… sescu#ref133682
The Guardian: www.theguardian.com/world/2021/dec/… scientific-work
Image 1: pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elena_Ceau%C8%99escu and Por not credited – Fototeca online a comunismului românesc, Photo no. #E595,, Attribution, commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=5881251
Image 2: www.gettyimages.com.br/fotos/elena-ceausescu
Image 3: pt.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ficheiro:C…
h_II_-_1978.jpg Suggested extra reading: Annabele Hirsch, «A History of Women in 101 Objects», Planeta, Lisbon, 2024.
Episode 9
From the optimism of Helen Keller’s faith in action to the unshakable faith of Etty Hillesum, passing through the devotion to the thought of Anna Komnene and the intellectual restlessness of Christina of Sweden, these are women whose spirit surrendered to what they felt most truly.
Kick-off: «Abril Futebol Clube» jersey by Carlos Vieira Reis and www.camisa14.com.br
Hellen Keller
Photos:
www.neh.gov/project/digitizatio… Archival-Collection
www.wnyc.org/story/eleanor-roos… helen-keller-well/
Autobiographies and other Writings, The Story of My Life, The World I Live in, Essays, Speeches, Letters, and Journals, edited by Kim E. Nielsen, The Library of Congress, New York, 2024.
Etty Hillesum
Photos: jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/hillesum-etty
An Interrupted Life: the Diaries and Letters of Etty Hillesum 1941-43, Foreword by Eva Hoffman, Persephone Books, Bath, 2023 edition.
Diary, 1941-1943, Assyrian and Alvim
Letters edition, 1941-1943, Assyrian and Alvim
Jewish Women’s Archive: jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/hillesum-etty
The Paris Review: www.theparisreview.org/blog/2019/04/… tty-hillesum/
Queen Christina of Sweden
Photo from the Encyclopaedia Britannica
Greta Garbo www.rottentomatoes.com/m/queen_christina
Painting by Adrienne Marie Louise Grandpierre-Deverzy (1798-1869) from 1824 www.chateaudefontainebleau.fr/en/collect… hi-killed/
Encyclopaedia Britannica: www.britannica.com/biography/Chris… queen-of-Sweden
The New York Times: www.nytimes.com/2004/11/07/books/… a-royal-mess.htmlBBC News Brasil: www.bbc.com/portuguese/internacional-45252893
The Collector: www.thecollector.com/who-was-queen-…
ina-of-sweden/
Anna Komnena and her mid-twelfth-century
Alexiad Map of the Byzantine Empire from the Encyclopaedia Britannica
Photo: hagiasophiaturkey.com/mosaic-john-ko… irene-alexios/
Cover of Leonora Neville’s Book available on the Amazon
website Peter Frankopan, The Silk Roads, A New History of the World, Bloomsbury, London, 2015
Leonora Neville, Anna Komnene, the Life and Work of a Medieval Historian, Oxford University Press, New York, 2016.
Anna Komnene, The Alexiad, translated by Elizabeth A. S. Dawes. Masterworks Classics/Stonewell Press, Salt Lake City, 2015 edition.
Episode 8
Episode 8 is made with the power of women creators: from the thousand faces of Josephine Baker to the thousand nuances of Toni Morrison; from the thousand talents of Alma Mahler to the thousand sorrows of Frida Kahlo, there are thousands of reasons to show that Art counts. Woman to woman.
Josephine Baker
Damian Lewis, The Flame of Resistance, The Untold Story of Josephine Baker’s Secret War, Spy, Quercus, 2022.
Photos:
1. ionline.sapo.pt/artigo/744256/jos… c-s?seccao=Mais_i
2. www.bbc.com/portuguese/geral-59453094
Château des Milandes Museum : www.milandes.com/
Toni Morrison
«Until they were respected, until you realized that women didn’t just write about rosy things, until you realized that women had a valid word, it took a long time»
sicnoticias.pt/cultura/2024-03-2… ia-Jorge-a1ca8c61
National Women’s History Museum
www.womenshistory.org/education-reso…/toni-morrisonBiography Channel
www.biography.com/authors-writers/toni-morrisonEncyclopaedia Britannica
www.britannica.com/biography/Toni-MorrisonBeloved, Don Quixote Editions, June 2009
Hufington Post
www.huffpost.com/entry/toni-morri… e4b01ae816c8b08b
Pictures:
www.corriere.it/sette/cultura-soc… 8c15ec5de19.shtml
www.washingtonpost.com/history/2019/…-rescued-her/
Alma Mahler
Cate Haste, Passionate Spirit, The Life of Alma Mahler, Bloomsbury, 2019.
Photos:
www.aso.org/artists/detail/alma-mahlerVarian Fry Photography: holocaustmusic.ort.org/resistance-an… ahler-werfel/
www.telegraph.co.uk/books/what-to-r… Seduced-Vienna/
Frida Kahlo
Diego and Frida, Le Clézio, Water Clock, December 1994
Encyclopaedia Britannica
www.britannica.com/biography/Frida-KahloBiography Channel
www.biography.com/artists/frida-kahloFrida Kahlo – A Biography, Maria Hesse, Iguana, October 2022
Photos:
1. By Guillermo Kahlo – Sotheby’s, Public domain, commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=32639240
2. “The Broken Column” www.gqportugal.pt/frida-khalo-arte-obra
3. “Self-Portrait dedicated to Leon Trostky” www.gqportugal.pt/frida-khalo-arte-obra
4. Photo with Josephine Baker in 1939: owlcation.com/humanities/When-Fr… on-Josephine-Baker
Sophia de Mello Breyner Andresen:
25 April
«This is the dawn I was waiting for
The initial day whole and clean
Where we emerge from the night and silence
And free we inhabit the substance of time»
Episode 7
Episode 7 is made up of stainless women against the iron of tyranny: from the more-than-brave Sophie Scholl to the immovable passenger Rosa Parks, passing through the Simone Veil monument and concluding with the unbreakable Narges Mohammadi, let’s talk about people of fiber. That doesn’t break or twist.
#FandangoGate: Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen
Sophie Scholl
Photos: mjhnyc.org/events/remembering-… and-the-white-rose/ and 3. www.holocausthistoricalsociety.org.uk/conten…
l.html Annette Dumbach and Jud Newborn, Sophie Scholl and the White Rose, One World, 3rd edition, 2023.
Alexandra Lloyd, Defying Hitler, the White Rose Pamphlets, Bodleian, ed. 2022.
Harald Jähner, The Hour of the Wolves, The Life of the Germans in the Aftermath of the Third Reich, Don Quixote, Lisbon, 2023.
Rosa Parks
National Women’s History Museum: www.womenshistory.org/education-reso… ies/rosa-parks
Britannica: www.britannica.com/biography/Rosa-Parks
BBC: www.bbc.com/portuguese/articles/c5179z2v6dwo
My Story by Rosa Parks, Perfection Learning, 1999
Photos: www.aclualabama.org/en/news/rosa-pa… sa-parks-arrest
encyclopediaofalabama.org/media/rosa-p… s-ride-1956/
Simone Veil
A Life, her Autobiography, Silk Books/Plane Tree Publisher 2008
Photos: ajmonnet.eu/pt/members/simone-veil/ and eco.sapo.pt/2017/06/30/morreu-s… European Parliament/
Narges Mohammadi
Nobel Prize: www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/20… ohammadi/facts/
Britannica: www.britannica.com/biography/Narges-Mohammadi
NPR: www.npr.org/2023/10/07/12044353… ion-to-human-rights
Photos: news.un.org/pt/story/2023/10/1821412 and www.cig.gov.pt/2023/10/premio-no… Narges-Mohammadi/
Episode 6
In the sixth episode, we grab our passports and travel on the back of explorers, adventurers and incorrigible curious. From the flying Amelia Earhart to the intrepid Annemarie Schwarzenbach, from the tireless bulldozer Gertrude Bell to the activist Harriet Tubman, not forgetting the hieroglyphic Lucy Duff-Gordon, February is about letting go of moorings. And tie listeners together.
Amelia Earhart: “The most difficult thing is the decision to act. The rest is merely tenacity. The fears are paper tigers. You can do anything you decide to do. You can act to change and control your life and the procedure. The process is its own reward.”
Biography, Facts Quotes From www.ameliaearhart.com/
About the Distinguished Flying Cross decoration: www.dfcsociety.org/pages/the-disti… ing-cross-medal
Photograph: Underwood Underwood (active 1880 – c. 1950) [1] – amextbg2.wgbhdigital.org/wgbh/america… llery_07.jpg, Public Domain, commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=57938262
Annemarie Schwarzenbach
“Death in Persia”, Indian Ink edition, 2008
“All paths are open”, edition Relógio d’Água, 2016
Photography:
Anita Forrer – Original photograph is in the Swiss Literary Archives (SLA). Online sources: Helvetica Archives; Strange Flowers (WordPress) Self portraits of the world, CC BY-SA 3.0, commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=38557529
Gertrude Bell
Biographical data, facts and quotes: «The Letters of Gertrude Bell» Vol. I and II
Photos:
www.britannica.com/biography/Gertr…/1/59603/122325 + By Beaugosses at the English Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0, commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=34544901 (Cairo Conference)
Harriet Tubman
National Women’s History Museum, 2022-2024
Encyclopaedia Britannica, January 2024
Photograph: Library of Congress www.nps.gov/people/harriet-tubman.htm
Lucie Austin Duff Gordon
Biographical data, facts and quotes from Toby Wilkinson, A World Beneath the Sands, Adventurers and Archaeologists in the Golden Age of Egyptology, Picador, London, 2020
Photograph: The National Portrait Gallery en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucie,_Lady… rait_Gallery.jpg
Episode 5
In “Women on the Lookout”, we launch ourselves into female espionage throughout history. Objective of the mission: to reveal the preponderant roles of women in the resolution of major conflicts, using Antiquity and the extraordinary Josephine Baker (that one); remembering the brave Mildred Harnack and Virginia Hall in the fight for Freedom, right in the heart of Nazism; and still peeking (QED) at the extraordinary case of the D Day Girls, fundamental for the Allied landing in Normandy and for the Europe we know – and live – today.
«Every time you went to answer a question, you were answering for your entire sex. It may not have been true, but certainly you felt that way. You were different and the object of curiosity.» Ruth Bader Ginsburg
Queen Gorgo of Sparta: Herodotus, The Histories, Robert Strassler edition, The Landmark Herodotus, Quercus, London, 2008.
Sun Tzu, The Art of War, translated by Samuel B. Griffith, Illustrated Edition, Watkins Publishing, London, 2005, chapter 13.
Ioanna Iordanou, Venice’s Secret Service, Organizing Intelligence in the Renaissance, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2019.
Edward N. Luttwak, Grand Strategy of the Byzantine Empire, The Belknap Press of the Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass. and London, 2009.
Helen Fry, Women in Intelligence, The Hidden History of Two World Wars, Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 2023.
Odette Sansom: Sarah Rose, D-Day Girls, The Spies who Armed the Resistance, Sabotaged the Nazis, and Helped Win World II, Crown, New York, 2019
Virginia Hall: Sonia Purnell, A Woman of No Importance, The Untold Story of Virginia Hall, WW2’s Most Dangerous Spy, Virago, London, 2019.
Josephine Baker: Damien Lewis, The Flame of Resistance, The Untold Story of Josephine Baker’s Secret War, Quercus, London, 2023.
Mildred Harnack: Rebecca Donner, All the Frequent Troubles of Our Days, The True Story of the American Woman at the Heart of the German Resistance to Hitler, Back Bay Books, New York, 2021.
Episode 4
In “From the outside in” after making a history of the public and civic presence of women, to episode 4 we move on to the thematic cultural broth. From the Outside In tells the story of women who helped transform America, coming from abroad; from the poetry of Emma Lazarus to the thought of Hannah Arendt, through the activism of Mother Jones and the political impact of Madeleine Albright, we turn the borders inside out in this territory of Eleanor’s Friends.
Emma Lazarus, ‘The Poems of Emma Lazarus, Vol. I: Narrative, Lyric and Dramatic’, Dover Thrift Editions, Mineola, New York, 2015, pp. 202-203.
Mother Jones, two quotes:
“Praise for the dead and fight like hell for the living”: www.loc.gov/item/2015649968/
“No matter what your fight,” I said, “don’t be ladylike! God Almighty made women and the Rockefeller gang of thieves made the ladies.”: digital.library.upenn.edu/women/jones/… ography.html
Link to Mother Jones photo: www.irishcentral.com/roots/history/… s-mother-jones
And also, a bibliographic reference: us.macmillan.com/books/9780809070947/motherjones
Samantha Rose Hill, ‘Hannah Arendt’, Reaktion Books, London, 2021
Hannah Arendt, “The Origins of Totalitarianism”, Harcourt Books, San Diego, ed. 1994.
Madeleine Albright, ‘Madam Secretary, a memoir’, Harper, New York, 2013 and ‘Fascism: A Warning’, Harper, New York, 2018.
Setare Association: www.setare-association.com/
Episode 3
In “Lusco-Fusco: And light was shed on women”, after ‘The Great Blackout’ we continue with the first moments of visibility of women with emphasis on two themes: the right to education and the right to vote and to be able to run for elections. The adventure of episode #3 begins with Mary Wollstonecraft, returns to John Stuart Mill, analyzes the suffrage movement in the USA and Great Britain, looks at pioneers such as Jeanette Rankin and Beatriz Ângelo and will end with a photograph of today’s world. What are the barriers to access to knowledge and education and to the full right of women to vote? What do women like Shirin Ebadi, Malala Yousafzai and Ellen John Sirleaf tell us?
Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1st edition in 1792), Penguin Classics, London, 2004. There are two editions in Portuguese: Antígona and Penguin.
John Stuart Mill, The Subjection of Women (1st edition in 1869), in On Liberty and Other Essays, Oxford University Press, Oxford and New York, 1991.
«Declaration of Sentiments», Seneca Falls, 1848, available in https://www.nps.gov/wori/learn/historyculture/declaration-of-sentiments.htm
Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederik Douglass, An American Slave and Other Texts, Penguin Classics, Lisbon, 2023 and his quote on the role of women in the fight against slavery can be found in https://www.nps.gov/articles/the-internationalist-history-of-the-us-suffrage-movement.htm
Maria do Rosário Pedreira and Elsa Martins, Extraordinary Portuguese, Women of Courage Ahead of Their Time, Booksmile, Amadora, 2019.
Pocket RBG Wisdom, Supreme Quotes and Inspired Musings from Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Hardie Grant Books.
Eleanor Roosevelt, My Day, The Best of Eleanor Roosevelt’s Acclaimed Newspaper Columns, 1936-1962, edited by David Emblidge, Da Capo Press, 2001.
Episode 2
In “The Great Blackout”, we talk about the absence of women in History: a journey from Ancient Egypt to Classical Antiquity, passing through the revolutionary painting of Artemisia Gentileschi and the scrutiny of this systemic absence until the nineteenth century, a century that was decisive for the visibility of women. Oh, and the explanation of that circumstance.
Sojourney Truth: www.thesojournertruthproject.com/compare-… peeches/
Mary Beard, Women and Power, a Manifesto: p. xi of the introduction
Homer’s Odyssey, translated by FREDERICO LOURENÇO da Quetzal: Canto I 325-364, + 354-359.
BLOCK I
Greeks and Romans: Iliad, Odyssey, the Aeneid and others
Helen of Troy: Bettany Hughes, Helen of Troy, Goddess, Princess and Prostitute (also author of the book Istanbul, a Tale of Three Cities)
Circe: Madeleine Miller and her book Circe
Dido: Virgil’s Aeneid translated by Carlos Ascenso André, Quetzal Editions.
Ariadne: Jennifer Saint, Ariadne
STATESMEN AND STATESWOMAN OF ART
Elizabeth I: Susan Ronald, The Pirate Queen.
Artemisia Gentileschi: Mary D. Garrard, Artemisia Gentileschi and Feminism in Early Modern Europe
Isabel Lowndes Vicente, Art without History
Judith beheading Holofernes
Caravaggio: www.arte.it/calendario-arte/rom… zzo-barberini-93353
Artemisia: www.uffizi.it/en/artworks/judith… heading-holofernes
Maria Theresa Habsburg: Habsburgs, Andrew Wheatcroft’s Embodying Empire
NINETEENTH
CENTURY Leopoldina Habsburg and other women of the Independence of Brazil: Heloísa Starling and Antonia Pellegrino (coord.), Independence of Brazil, the Women who were there; Habsburgs, Embodying Empire, Andrew Wheatcroft: and Brazil, a biography of Lilia M. Schwarcz and Heloise M. Starling,
John Stuart Mill: On Liberty and The Subjection of Women
ELEANOR ROOSEVELT
Autobiography, 2021 Zed Edition (1961 Original ed.), p. 373
Episode 1
In “Thank You, Eleanor”, we go through the biography of Eleanor Roosevelt, a figure that sets the tone for the podcast: her civic and political participation, as a woman with initiative in a context of male domination. From there, we started to discuss the challenges faced by women in accessing important positions, introducing concepts such as the glass ceiling.