2026 Between 1914 and 1921, work by poet Wilfrid Gibson appeared in Sylvia Pankhurst’s socialist feminist paper the Woman’s Dreadnought. Their association throws light on the interwoven social, political and cultural networks of the time, and on Gibson’s commitment to ‘Art for Life’s Sake’: poetry as a form of activism.
In this letter from 1980, writer and activist Ethel Mannin (1900-1984) refers to her own involvement with anarchism, and comments on anarchists Emma Goldman, Marie Louise Berneri and Kitty Lamb. I had written asking if she would agree to be interviewed by members of the anarchist feminist history group, as part of our research into … Continue reading Research note November 2025: a letter from Ethel Mannin
2024. When British poet and aphorist Elizabeth Gibson Cheyne described herself in ‘Who’s Who’ as a suffragist, socialist and freethinker, she was actively constructing a public identity not just as a writer, but as an activist. But identities can’t be so neatly categorised and controlled. Paper given at the Womens’ History Network annual conference.
2023. British poet Elizabeth Gibson Cheyne contributed to the ferment of new ideas about art, religion, poetry and politics in the early twentieth century. She was a suffragist, socialist and freethinker as well as a poet, and her social networks included artists, feminists, reformers and revolutionaries.
2023. Biographical article about Elizabeth Gibson Cheyne published in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography online in July 2023.
2014. This short piece draws on Helen Lowe’s own words to give a background to her involvement with the feminist organisation Women Against Fundamentalism. Chapter in Women Against Fundamentalism: stories of dissent and solidarity, eds. Sukhwant Dhaliwal and Nira Yuval-Davis.
2014 (1977). Women activists speak about anarchism, feminism and the interrelationship of the personal and the political in interviews from 1977 by Lynn Alderson and Judy Greenway.
2014. Committed to ‘Art for Life’s Sake’, both poets wrote about suffering, injustice and social responsibility. Similarities and differences in their beliefs show in the form and content of their work. Article from Dymock Poets & Friends, No. 13.
2012. ‘Gautama of India, Jesus of Nazareth, Emerson of Concord, Abdu’l-Bahá of Persia … one God, though called by innumerable beautiful names’, wrote Elizabeth Gibson Cheyne after meeting Abdu’l-Bahá. Talk given at the Commemorative Day celebrating the centenary of Abdu’l-Bahá’s visit to Oxford.
2011. How are ideas of sexual and political dangerousness connected? How can we challenge the polarization between academics and activists, theory and practice, and find new ways of propagating ideas?
Preface to Anarchism and Sexuality: Ethics, Relationships and Power, eds. Jamie Heckert and Richard Cleminson.