Read on Twitter
Thinking about the specific type of empathy you develop to become a good historian
Reading a @edwardW2 thread on horary astrology and the comment about being ‘struck’ by the types of questions posed specifically ‘is my friend at home or not’
I read this first thing in the morning and it made me laugh because imagine going to an astrologer to ask if your mate is at home or nah
But then I thought more about it and well it might be more reasonable in those times to ask an astrologer to cast a chart than to travel to see if your friend is home, or go around seeing whether anyone else knows if your friend is at home
I haven’t read the book referred to in the thread, so I’m not sure what the outcome was, but people couldn’t just text or call to see if their friend was home. How long was the journey? Would the weather change along the way? Would there be shelter if something were to happen?
Similarly, watching Bernadette Brady dispel myths about the corsets being understood as a tool of oppression (adding her experience as someone w scoliosis who had to wear a corset for that)
Because, from a modern feminist perspective that perhaps limits our historical empathy, it makes sense to link corset to oppression by thinking about bra burning, high heels and the general modern pains of looking good
That should say Bernadette BANNER, the YouTube fashion historian, not the fixed stars astrologer lol
Banner dispels the myths, that are regularly repeated by actresses playing period characters wearing corsets, that corsets squish organs and breaks ribs. We love it! It was an undergarment, creating a specific shape in each specific period!
No idea if any of this makes sense or how I matched Banner and traditional astrology but hey mercury in Sagittarius amirite
