Focusing on the ‘keeping’ and ‘cure’ of frantic persons, Chapter 5 explores the ideational link between ‘reason’ and ‘rule’ which – in the minds of contemporaries – justified these interventions. If the ‘ruling faculties’ of the human mind were impaired, this merited the placement of the affected individual under the ‘rule’ of others. If the subject was an adult male, the result was a rapid and often chaotic reshuffling of power relations within the home and the wider community. Looking at how householders, parishioners, physicians, mayors, and local magistrates responded to frenzy, this chapter shows how the ideas explored in Chapters 1–3 changed the lives of those who received the diagnosis. It suggests that, if the high premium placed on the faculty of the ‘reason’ served to shore up the rigidly hierarchical order of social relations which obtained in early modern England (encompassing rank, age, gender, and species), frenzy exposed the fragility of that same order.

Whereas male poets such as Coleridge and Keats used the figure of the witch to explore the connections between the shapeshifting powers of the female demonic and (male) creativity, the third chapter reveals how women novelists like Charlotte Smith and Maria Edgeworth remapped contemporary cultural anxieties in Britain surrounding witches and transgressive female energies onto the colonial landscape of Jamaica. These two authors position the female practitioners of Obeah as an intriguing alternative to the degradation of women in England and the enslaved populations in the colonies.

This chapter continues the discussion of eighteenth-century representations of Lady Macbeth as a monstrous wife and mother, examining how this was depicted in a series of paintings that portray Lady Macbeth as dominating and exerting control over her timid spouse. After the French Revolution, British caricaturists cast Jacobin sympathizers as the witches in Macbeth, and visual artists such as Johan Zoffany, Henry Fuseli and William Blake invoked the figure of the witch to fuel fears regarding dangerous female sexuality and the horrific consequences of giving women social and political power. Mary Wollstonecraft, who embodied these fears for Fuseli and Blake, along with Germaine de Staël and Sarah Siddons, responded by emphasizing the psychological elements of Macbeth and representing Lady Macbeth as a sympathetic character.

The Introduction situates Romanticism Bewitched within current historicist scholarship on gender and witchcraft, feminist political theory and recent scholarship on misogyny and women’s anger. In addition, it traces the trajectory of witchcraft belief from the seventeenth century down to the Romantic era, exploring the eighteenth-century fascination with Shakespeare’s Macbeth and the gendered politics of representations of Lady Macbeth. During the Romantic period, Siddons’s powers of enchantment in that role, and the effect it had on her audience, is an example of how the figure of the Romantic witch opened a space to imagine and explore the constructive and destructive uses of female magic. While some Romantic witches confirmed the worst fears regarding female magic and its pernicious influence, other Romantic witches invited more positive reactions, ranging from sympathy to the deep admiration bordering on awe that Siddons inspired.

This chapter provides an analysis of Ann Radcliffe’s representation of contemporary female artists and authors like herself and Sarah Siddons as witches or enchantresses in “On the Supernatural in Poetry,” and offers examples of the wide variety of witches in Romantic-period Gothic literature, with sections on mother witches, political witches, marvelous witches, Faustian witches and serpent witches. Romantic-era Gothic writers discussed include well-known authors such as Ann Radcliffe, Matthew Lewis, Samuel Coleridge and Charlotte Dacre as well as lesser-known writers (at least to us now) such as Catherine Smith, Mary Julia Young and George Brewer.

Chapter 10, Disagreements and Debates in Psychology’s History, elucidates how theories and practices in psychology are influenced by historical and cultural circumstances and modes of thought. First we look back to the nineteenth century, when some psychologists were influenced by evolutionary theory and adopted the eugenic framework, with ideas of selective breeding of “good” types of humans. We then give a brief account of psychology and evolutionary theory today. This is followed by a discussion of the history of psychological measurement, and of how, eventually, a wide-ranging imperative to use quantitative methods was established in the discipline. Next is the history of operational definitions. We then take a short tour of the histories of psychology’s words – where they come from and how they change, and the importance of being aware of the changes. In the final subsection, the topic is the history of psychological theories and practices regarding women and gender, and the debates about them.

This chapter explores the chamber music of Maconchy, delving into her creative process, influences, and the socio-political context in which she worked and highlighting her commitment to chamber music – especially the string quartet – as a medium for personal expression and intellectual discourse. The paper situates her work within the broader landscape, drawing connections to Bartók and Brahms. It discusses the challenges Maconchy faced as a woman in a male-dominated field, including limited performance opportunities and the perception of her music as elitist. Through case studies of key works, such as her Oboe and String Quintet and Fourth String Quartet, it illustrates her innovative use of instrumentation and thematic development. Ultimately, it argues that Maconchy’s chamber music is a vital contribution to the cultural and political dialogues of her time and calls for a re-evaluation of her music in light of its technical rigour and expressive depth.

This chapter revisits Sadr’s production from the mid-1970s until his execution in 1980, analyzing two overlooked texts – Manabi‘ al-Qudra fi al-Dawla al-Islamiyya and Al-Madrasa al-Qur’aniyya – that challenge portrayals of Sadr as an unequivocal supporter of Khomeini and Wilayat al-Faqih. These writings reflect Sadr’s engagement with Arab Leftist thought and Marxist determinism, as well as his commitment to developing a political theology centered on human agency. In contrast to Khomeini’s model of absolute clerical guardianship, Sadr advanced a participatory theory of Islamic government. His writings articulated the cultural and civilizational aims of Islamic governance. Notably, Sadralso staged a rare intervention on veiling and gender norms, marking a striking but forgotten episode. The chapter situates Sadr’s thought within ideological currents of the 1970s, including intra-Shi‘i debates in Iraq, the emergence of the Islamic Left, and evolving conceptions of turath (heritage). It argues that Sadr’s vision represented a distinctive alternative to both leftist models and clerical authoritarianism: a Shi‘i Islamic framework for cultural renewal, moral agency, and constitutionalism. By theorizing an Islamic notion of free will and social contract, Sadr carved out a critical space within post-1967 Arab political thought – one that remains vital to rethinking modern Islamic political thought.

This chapter considers concert-going audiences in mid twentieth-century England, with a focus on the conditions Maconchy faced. Structured along the phases of her career, the chapter traces the evolving socio-cultural and historical factors that shaped audience reception of her work. The account reveals how gender biases, geographical isolation, and the limited infrastructure for contemporary music hindered her visibility and accessibility. It discusses how her music was often mischaracterized as complex and inaccessible, overshadowing its emotional expressiveness. Despite obstacles, including her tuberculosis and motherhood, Maconchy established a loyal audience, particularly among women’s networks, broadcasting and small concert series, though her broader appeal remained constrained by societal biases. The chapter ultimately illustrates how the interplay of audience composition, media influence, and institutional support contributed to the reception of Maconchy’s music, emphasizing the ongoing struggle for recognition faced by women composers in a male-dominated field.

Elizabeth Maconchy inhabited a variety of different worlds. She was a female composer at a time when there were considerably fewer of them than their male counterparts; she was a wife and mother; she was English born to Irish parents, spending much of her childhood in Ireland before moving back to England as a teenager to study at the Royal College of Music; and she had a life-changing bout of tuberculosis in an era when the treatment largely involved cold, fresh air and a retreat from hard work. These worlds, as well as the colourful and thrilling variety of Maconchy’s music, are explored in Maconchy in Context, the first in the series to be devoted to a female composer.

While Elizabeth Maconchy was not keen on the term ‘woman composer’ her career was nonetheless affected by the fact of her gender. Against a backdrop of long-standing, widespread and seemingly intractable sexism, Maconchy found support and validation from other women composers, notably Grace Williams. This chapter explores the phenomenon of such ‘Supportive Sisterhoods’ over generations and across many different milieus, both artistic and otherwise, from the Amazons to the wives and sisters of the Lake Poets, to the CIA, to the group of women who formed the Macnaghten–Lemare concert series in the 1930s. We find that women have consistently and instinctively banded together to not only form creative partnerships but to stand against the extraordinarily persistent, if ill-founded, view that creativity is something best left to men.

This chapter illustrates how gender is integral to Pater’s aesthetic philosophy and its subversive potential. It explains that renewal and rebirth were strongly gendered concepts in the Victorian period, showing that Pater’s understanding of sex and gender form a vital basis for the aesthetic philosophy he constructs across his literary oeuvre, a basis that revolves around metaphors of pregnancy and childbirth. It then develops an examination of how Pater reworks traditional Victorian gender categories to his ideas of renaissance and aestheticism in two sections: first, it shows how Pater’s concept of the renaissance is defined by a consistent metaphor of female reproductive biology, with attention to his figures of Demeter, Persephone, and Mona Lisa; second, it shows how Pater’s male figures create aesthetic meaning for these matrilineal cycles, with attention to Plato.

This survey chapter considers the public reception of female composers across the UK, USA, France, Germany and Austria at four points during Elizabeth Maconchy’s life, taking three or four examples from each period: 1904–10, 1932–9, 1959–60 and 1994–5. Composers at the end of their careers, such as Pauline Viardot and Irène Wieniawska (Poldowski) are considered alongside younger talents including Errollyn Wallen, Ruth Gipps and Margaret Bonds. Changing attitudes to class, race, ‘appropriate’ musical genres for women to engage with, and the very question of how intellectual and emotionally profound female composers could be, are considered – both in terms of prevailing narratives, and notable exceptions. Consideration is also given to the question of how these composers might be reincorporated into the historical narrative; and how much work remains to be done to raise awareness of their creative efforts.

This chapter describes the law governing transgender girls’ participation in girls’ sports. It compares the interpretations of Title IX’s prohibition on sex discrimination by the Obama and Biden administrations on the one hand and the Trump administration on the other. It explores the state laws regarding transgender girls’ inclusion or exclusion that have arisen against the backdrop of Title IX ambiguity. Finally, the chapter examines what courts have said about what Title IX and the Equal Protection Clause require with regard to transgender girls’ inclusion in or exclusion from girls’ sports.

This chapter explores the scientific connection between sex and sport. It begins by examining the meaning of sex and the criteria used to assign individuals to the male or female category. It ends by exploring the link between sex and sport and identifying the sex-related traits that have the greatest impact on athletic performance.