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Archive for May, 2015

The juried Mark on the Wall exhibition at the 25th Annual International Conference on Virginia Woolf presents artists from all over the world who have been inspired by Woolf and her female contemporaries.

The show of works on paper attracted woolf_callforentriesmore than 400 submissions, with 49 chosen for the exhibit, including Susie Lilly, a former women’s studies student of mine at the University of Akron, where she graduated with a degree in art.

The opening and awards presentation will be 6-8 p.m. Thursday, June 4, at The Gallery at Greenly Center, 50 East Main St., Bloomsburg. The exhibit runs through June 30.

Those chosen are: TBettina Badr • Laura Bernstein • Mischa Brown • Deborah Bruns-Thomas • Dylan Collins • Laura Collins • Ozlem Habibe Mutaf Buyukarman • Maria DiMauro • Elaine M. Erne • Nicole Foran • Anita Ford • Leah Gallant • Lori Glavin • Stephanie Haughton • Craig Hill • Susie Lilley • Erika Lizée • Yvonne Love • Janet Maher • Jo Margolis • Marcella Marsella • Tonia Matthews • Alberto Meza • Chieko Murasugi • Jacqueline-Dee Parker • Frank Pulaski • Dana Scott • Carolyn Sheehan • David Thomas • Rhonda Thomas-Urdang • Maxene White • Jacqueline Young

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The web team for the International Virginia Woolf Society announces the launch of the redesigned website.

IVWS Logo

IVWS Logo

New features include:

  • Drop down boxes for menu items, making it easier to access information
  • A new Archives page that will preserve the history of Annual International Virginia Woolf Conferences, and IVWS sponsored sessions at the Modern Language Association, making an electronic complement to the paper Archives, held at the Pratt Library, Victoria University at the University of Toronto
  • How to Join page under About Us to access the easy, PayPal-based method of becoming a member or of keeping your membership up to date.

The site can be accessed at: http://www.utoronto.ca/IVWS/

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Jane Marcus, distinguished professor emerita at CUNY and author of so much ground-breaking scholarship on Virginia Woolf, Rebecca West, feminism, modernism and other topics, died May 28 at the age of 76. The news was announced by her son Ben. Since then, tributes to her have come in via the VWoolf Listserv, Facebook and Twitter.

Jane Marcus

Jane Marcus: 1938-2015

From Jean Mills:

She was a giant upon whose shoulders we all stand. Jane Marcus asked the important questions. Go back. Re-read her. All of it. There are gems to be mined there that will guide you, test you, frustrate you, but demand that you rethink possible. Her work will remain generative, bold, and meaningful to our own questions and research as we stay up late reading and writing forgetful of the tea kettle on the stove …but somehow certain that we’re on to something, something that matters.

From Christine Froula:

What very sad news. Jane’s pioneering scholarship and devoted teaching as well as her kindness and generosity have encouraged and inspired countless scholars of Woolf, Elizabeth Robins, feminism, modernism, and much more, and the enduring legacy of her own work will keep her spirit alive. We will miss you, Jane.

From Lauren Elkin:

It’s such a loss I don’t even know what to say, apart from simply that she was my mentor, and she taught me how to read, and how to be fierce. I hope I can live up to that legacy with my own students.

From Jan McVicker:

This is very sad news. Jane Marcus was a passionate thinker and her generosity was legend. I imagine there will be a tribute to her memory and legacy at the upcoming conference? I would be willing to help. Condolences to those who knew her well and to her family.

From Elisa Kay Sparks:

In her 1982 ground-breaking critique of traditional approaches to Virginia Woolf, “Storming the Toolshed,” Jane Marcus wrote: “It is an open secret that Virginia Woolf’s literary estate is hostile to feminist critics. There are two taboo subjects: on one hand her lesbian identity, woman-centered life, and feminist work, and on the other, her socialist politics. If you wish to discover the truth regarding these issues, you will have a long, hard struggle. In that struggle you will find the sisterhood of feminist Woolf scholarship” (Signs 13.1, p. 628). The degree to which those two subjects now provide the cornerstones of international Virginia Woolf studies is largely due to Jane Marcus’s long, hard years of struggle to document the full political and social context of Woolf’s writing. We are all forever in her debt.

From Bonnie Scott:

Jane was so many things to so many people, and to the authors she helped us see anew.  Her passion for following new lines of investigation was infectious, and she supported what she inspired?something I came to greatly appreciated when studying Rebecca West. I feel both bereft and blessed this morning.  Much love to the family she was so justly proud of.

From Diana Swanson:

She was and is an inspiration and one of the founding mothers of feminist scholarship and Woolf scholarship. Her contributions are incalculable.

From Allison Lin:

We will miss you, Jane… a wonderful Woolf scholar.

From Angeliki Spiropoulou:

Very sad news indeed. Her work is foundational.

From an unidentified member of the list:

This is terrible news — my very, very best to those who knew her well. Her work has been magnificent; and the generosity and real, insightful interest with which she engaged inexperienced young scholars, and normalized that interest, was wonderful. And she coined “the Virginia Woolf Soap Operas”! She will be missed so much.

I cut my teeth on Jane’s work when I was a fledgling graduate student working on my master’s in liberal studies with a focus on Woolf. I particularly appreciated her work on Woolf and anger, since that is a topic that continues to resonate. Though I never met her in person, I will miss her as well.

Added June 10, 2015:

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Editor’s Note: Emma Slotterback is a student at Bloomsburg University who is writing a series of articles for Blogging Woolf in advance of the 25th Annual International Conference on Virginia Woolf: Virginia Woolf and Her Female Contemporaries, which will be held June 4-7 at Bloomsburg University in Bloomsburg, Pa. This is the third article in the series.

By Emma Slotterback

Robin Callahan, Bloomsburg High School English teacher

Robin Callahan, Bloomsburg High School English teacher

As an aspiring high school teacher, I believe our involvement with the Bloomsburg Area High School and the Berwick Area High School is one of the most exciting relationships we have developed due to the conference. Continuing our effort towards building a new generation of Woolf scholars, we came up with another idea that would not only build connections within our town, but also encourage young people to read and write about Woolf.

We reached out to two local high schools and connected with two high school English teachers. We also collaborated with Dr. Michael Sherry who was previously an English professor at Bloomsburg University. Our goal was to extend an invitation to high school students to expand their knowledge on Woolf and develop papers that could be presented at the conference.

Megan Hicks, work study student

Megan Hicks, work study student

Both the teachers and the students were thrilled about this opportunity and began planning accordingly. We sent the teachers multiple lesson plans that could be used to teach Woolf and Dr. Sherry provided the students with copies of Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway. The students began reading and discussing the book and each student came up with his or her own paper proposal.

Similar to what we did with the undergraduates, we took the students’ papers and sorted them into panels. These panels are also going to run alongside scholarly panels. To prepare for this, work study students such as myself and Megan Hicks have taken multiple trips to the local Bloomsburg Area High School to work with these students. During these trips, Megan and I would discuss the conference and ease any public speaking related anxieties the students might have. During one of our visits, we formed two small group of students and each student practiced reading his or her paper out loud. Practicing gave Megan and me the opportunity to give the students constructive criticism and praise.

The high school students will be presenting on Thursday and will be encouraged to attend all of the conference related events on that day. Many students have expressed interest in attending manyhs3 scholarly panels. After reading and writing on Woolf for an entire semester, these students are extremely excited to connect their schoolwork with outside experience and be able to develop new ways of thinking after hearing the ideas of others. This aspect of the conference is providing young people with experiences that will further their love for modernism and Woolf, as well as paving the way for the future generation of Woolf scholars.

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So many exciting links to Bloomsbury and Virginia Woolf resources are popping up on social media this week. Since I don’t fry_booklet_virginia_woolf_1-209x300have time to write about them because I am busy preparing for the 25th Annual International Conference on Virginia Woolf: Virginia Woolf and Her Female Contemporaries, June 4-7 at Bloomsburg University, I am posting links to them here.

  1. On Twitter, I learned of a rare find in the basement of the Bristol Museum of a booklet printed for the Fry memorial exhibition held at the Bristol Museum & Art Gallery in 1935. It contains the text of the exhibition’s opening speech written and delivered by Woolf. “After further research, it appears this booklet is one of the most sought after publications by the writer,” wrote Fay Curtis in her museum post. “The print run was just 125, which is why they are so rare today, and the curator at the time had several to give away. Thankfully for us, he slipped one into the exhibition file – where it remained for eighty years. We have now removed it from the old file in the basement and entered it into the Fine Art collection.”
  2. On Facebook, I learned that a copy of the exhibit booklet is available at the University of Toronto Libraries.
  3. Facebook also told me Virginia Woolf is on the move at Victoria Library. Here’s the post, which pictured the small Woolf doll on a picnic blanket in front of a college building: “Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) is on the move. She left her secure box in the E.J. Pratt Library for the summer and will be visiting places on campus. Her first stop is in front of the Victoria College building.Victoria Library FB post screenshot” The Woolf doll is actually listed in the library catalog.
  4. From Catherine Hollis via Facebook comes the news that letters from George Mallory to Lytton Strachey are up for sale. You can view the lot.
  5. From the VWoolfListserv comes news that letter from Clive Bell to Lytton Strachey are also up for sale.
  6. This morning, the items below popped up on Twitter:

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