Spoiled? Spolia or museums The joy of walking through and discovering palimpsest streets in Ankara, and the realisation that display cases make me feel uneasy.

Not sure, given what I do for a job, that I should admit that display cases make me feel queasy, which is also not a very intellectual response to the exhilarating conversations and thoughts of the past few days!

Spotting spolia in Ankara - Hisar.

www.debbiechallis.com/post/spoiled...

Always gonna find a bull in Crete 😊

Thought you had enough bulls - think again!
Live (almost) from the Museum of Anatolian Civilisation in Ankara - bulls from 6,000 BCE & a millennia or so later & a goddess riding a bull.

On leave at mo but drop me a line if you are interested in @porticolibrary.bsky.social / events@theportico.org.uk in Manchester

The illustrated guide is becoming one of my favourite things about doing Podyssey. Love the fact I throw loads of images & texts together & it get combined with everyone else’s and then looks amazing❤️.

This LUSH illustrated guide and an invite to this week's live Q&A on Europa (Thursday, 8pm) will go out tonight. To get them go to ko-fi.com/podyssey and become a monthly supporter.

This week, a bona fide Greek archaeologist is joining host Alex to answer your questions. It will be MOOgnificent.

Oh wow- that’s fascinating!

I know. Took photos of 100s of them and they give a massive insight into being a working female artist in the 1850s

Finding Mary’s Work: Art and Archive Detection Matching names to portraits of women by a female artist that gives us a glimpse of her working practice and matriarchal patronage (or matronage), with a note on Legacies of British Slave Ownership.

Matching names to portraits of women by a female artist that gives us a glimpse of her working practice and matriarchal patronage (or matronage) with a note on the legacies of British Slave Ownership @cslbs.bsky.social

www.debbiechallis.com/post/finding...

Here is the final part. Enjoy!

NEW 🌍 EUROPA II: How to invent a continent

How did a myth all about movement, fluidity, and cultural dialogue become an origin story of rigidity, superiority, and separation?

🎧 open.spotify.com/episode/3187...

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Facebook post from Robert Jenrick, a politician who famously had Mickey Mouse cartoon murals painted over at a children’s asylum centre

a bizarre intervention on entry fees for museums and attractions from Robert Jenrick — and a fascinating comments section in which nobody seems to agree with this apparent Reform UK culture policy
www.facebook.com/share/18FNQ1...

Paul Robeson, African-American singer, actor, communist and former shipyard worker was born on this day 1898. He appeared at Belle Vue, Manchester, in 1949 at a rally organised by professional boxer Len Johnson, Communist co-founder of the New International Club.

2.3 EUROPA I: Quite a lot of bull Podcast Episode · Alex Andreou's Podyssey · 8 April · 58min

NEW 🌍 EUROPA I: Quite a lot of bull 🐂

From a Phoenician girl kidnapped from a picnic, to Nazi experiments on extinct bulls; from mechanical cows, to the Minoan civilisation; from the Catholic Church, to the Euro banknotes...

🎧 open.spotify.com/episode/5wy4...

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Been thinking about the intimacy - sexual and affection - between the Mary Severn and Charles Thomas Newton in their marriage and before, and how do you write about it. This was an aspirational read for that and in so many other ways.

@suzannefagence.bsky.social

I had never understood why Jane had a relationship with Wilfred Scawen Blunt as he always seemed such a female trophy hunter, but reading this kind of got why. Bit of stud, no morbidness & a finalish flung.

Finished How We might Live by @suzannefagence and it is a wonderfully intimate biography of William and Jane Morris and their connections. Went to the exhibition at @arcwinch in January and there was no catalogue so bought this instead and it was better!

Had no idea that William Morris’ legendary edict ‘do not have anything in your house that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful’ was first scribbled to the Manchester Literary Club in 1879 or that he gave a talk to them on Art, Wealth and Riches in 1883.

#morris #manchester

Decades of putting others first – the toll it takes on women’s bodies Always looking after others and putting yourself last can take a toll on women's bodies, as many find out in midlife

Always looking after others and putting yourself last can take a toll on women's bodies, as many find out in midlife | Lowri Dowthwaite-Walsh

Workers who fall for ‘corporate bullshit’ may be worse at their jobs, study finds New study finds that employees impressed by corporate speak may be least equipped to make effective decisions

"A new study out of Cornell Universit found workers most excited and impressed by corporate speak may be the least equipped to make effective, practical business decisions, and it can leave companies with dysfunctional leaders."

Thank you for sharing. It’s the exhaustion that I find so frustrating. I’m training’s a therapist and that is helping too.

‘You lose yourself’: inside the mental health crisis hitting gen X women My generation had great role models, free university and the morning-after pill. We should be running the world. Instead, two-thirds of us are facing mental health problems – and it’s not all about th...

I feel seen - having read this lying in bed with exhaustion after a horrendous day yesterday:
www.theguardian.com/society/2026...

Absolutely!💯

Two books on a desk: ancient myths & legends without men and Monique Wittig Les Guerilleres

Guess which myth for @alexpodyssey.bsky.social am reading for?

Screenshot from this academic article: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/9781118936894.ch13 Text reads: "The leaders of the Third Reich propagated a particularistic morality that was to replace the universalistic tradition of Christian and Enlightenment ethics and compassion to Aryan Germans, the Volksgemeinschaft. The Nazi regime saw empathy, pity, and mercy towards ‘racial aliens’, especially Jews, to ‘community aliens’, and other individuals and groups as a threat to or burden on the Volksgemeinschaft and denounced them as immoral. This morality built upon pre-Nazi ideologies, social Darwinism and racial hygiene, the code of honour, the ideal of emotional hardness, and the priority of the community over individualism. While motivating the deeds of many Nazi perpetrators, it also affected larger parts of Nazi society as it challenged the old moral standards."

"The Nazi regime saw empathy, pity, and mercy towards ‘racial aliens’... as a threat... or burden... and denounced them as immoral" onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

Screenshot of Daily Mail article by (GB News presenter) Matt Goodwin. The image shows a number of women in hijabs, while the headline says "How the Britain we grew up in is being destroyed by the suicidal empathy of our ruling elite"

Today's Daily Mail is lashing out at (checks notes) *empathy* - and suggesting that Britain's "ruling elite" has too much of it 🤔

With advertising from LloydsBank, Lidl, The Range and Lotto

Doctor Who’s lost episodes are worth getting excited about Two parts of a previously missing 1965 Dalek serial represent the series at the peak of its powers

Wrote a thing about these newly found episodes of Doctor Who: www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/a36baf2...

White woman talking about books in a library

Spot the photo of my giving a talk with my eyes open? Nope. 🤦🏻‍♀️

Women hidden in print tour tonight @porticolibrary.bsky.social .

#womenhistorymonth

The BBC’s job is to “inform, educate, and entertain”? Let’s talk about the middle word.

What follows is the story of what we found in an FOI request (per the Observer) about the Corporation killing off plans to launch an online catalogue and failing to deliver ‘learning for people of all ages’. 🧵

Married Life for Mary. 2 - Art & Her Profession Falling down a rabbit hole of names - finding Mary's work after marriage: Ann Mary Severn, Mary Severn, M Severn, Miss Severn, M Newton, Mary Newton, Mrs Newton, Mrs M Newton, Mrs Charles Newton, Mrs ...

I meant to post this #internationalwomensday yesterday but found out too many things & went down too many rabbit holes around Mary Severn Newton, like her exhibition of Mrs Liddell at the RA & drawing of her daughter Alice (yes - that Alice) in Llandudno 1864
www.debbiechallis.com/post/married...

🆕 And here it is - the brilliant live discussion and Q&A we had on Pandora. On everything from why misogyny is a perennial weed to what to do if you miss the last swan back to Avalon.

Happy #IWD2026, you wonderful people. A x

🎧 open.spotify.com/episode/0bze...

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