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Archive for February 21st, 2011

Temps rise on Woolf list over pearls

Posted in Online discussions, VWoolf Listserv, Woolf and gender/lesbian/gay/queer studies/sex, tagged on Monday 21 February 2011| 2 Comments »

Still winter here. Snow falling. Roads bad. People complaining that their usual 15-minute drive home took two hours.

So I am staying indoors and putting up my third blog post of the day.

This one is easy. All I have to do is link you to Fernham‘s post on “Pearls and Power,” which aptly summarizes the sometimes edgy discussion that took place on the VWoolf Listserv during the last few days.

See if you agree with list mistress Anne that the dispute was between the “‘No sex, please, we’re British’ camp versus the acolytes of the clitoris.”

To illustrate the topic, I decided to play it safe. I snapped a photo of my piled-up pearls — genuine, imitation, new and hand-me-down. You may think of them however you wish.

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Will the real Virginia Woolf please stand?

Posted in 2010 Annual International Conference on Virginia Woolf: Woolf and the Natural World, art, tagged , on Monday 21 February 2011| 1 Comment »

Does the bronze statue of the new Indian Dalit Goddess of English resemble Virginia Woolf? That question was posed to the VWoolf Listserv and linked readers to the BBC photo and story.

Maybe it does. Or maybe it is the medium — combined with the hairdo — that provides the resemblance.

As soon as I saw the photo, I thought of Italian sculptor Valentina Mazzei‘s lovely bronze bust of Virginia Woolf. It was on display at the art exhibition that was part of the 2010 Annual International Conference on Virginia Woolf: Woolf and the Natural World at Georgetown University.

Mary Ellen Foley posted the link to the Goddess of English story, and several list readers responded to her suggestion that it bore a resemblance to Woolf.

Harish Trivedi thought the statue “had too round and even plump a face.” Self-identified common reader Mark Scott thought the statue did look like Woolf.

But Trivedi also spoke to the irony of the goddess’s name. “And as for Indians knowing English, there are not really that many of us around, even after a couple of centuries of British rule. 5% of the population?  10% ? Even 20%? Estimates vary, depending on what is meant by ‘knowing’ English,” he wrote.

You can see more photos of Valentina and her Woolf bust here.

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Woolf sightings: Virginia Woolf and Berlusconi?

Posted in Virginia Woolf, Woolf sightings, tagged on Monday 21 February 2011| 1 Comment »

You’ll have to scroll down to the end to find the connection between Woolf and the infamous Berlusconi, but here are the latest Woolf sightings from around the Web:

  1. WOS students win campus reading contest, TheRecordLive.com, Feb. 17, 2011
    Ragsdale took first place honors in Interpretive readings with her reading of “The Widow and the Parrot” by Virginia Woolf. Alayna Jacobs placed second with her reading of Saki’s “The Open Window.” Jacobs earned a $1500 scholarship for placing second . . .
  2. Curtain to fall on London theater’s Fringe Report, Reuters, Feb. 17, 2011
    From an office beneath a church in London’s district of Bloomsbury, famed for intellectuals such as novelistVirginia Woolf, it has served as an antidote to the bright lights of London’s West End. But after its 10th anniversary in July next year, . . .
  3. Review: Book demolishes myth that 50 is the new 30, eTaiwan News
    Finally, after months of trying to resuscitate her near-comatose career, Jackson sucked it up with the help of a quote from Virginia Woolf _ “Arrange whatever pieces come your way” _ and made a documentary about taking her spoiled teenager to the slums . . .
  4. Gems from George Eliot, New Yorker (blog)
    Virginia Woolf famously characterized “Middlemarch” as “one of the few English novels written for grown-up people,” and I would suggest that it is a book that shows its reader how to be grown up—how to love deeply, how to marry wisely, how to connect . . .
  5. ‘Merit Badges’ winner hails from hometown of author Kevin Fenton, MinnPost.com, Feb. 16, 2011
    “Merit Badges” — which Fenton describes as a blend of Virginia Woolf’s experimental novel “The Waves” and television’s “That ’70s Show” — follows four high school friends growing up together during the 1970s in Minnisapa, a fictional town a half-hour . . . (more…)

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