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Archive for March, 2021

Eighty years later, we remember Virginia Woolf

Posted in events, in memoriam, Virginia Woolf, Woolf Icon, tagged , , , , , on Sunday 28 March 2021| Leave a Comment »

Today marks the 80th anniversary of Virginia Woolf’s death, which is being noted around the globe.

Emma Woolf ruminates

Her great-niece, Emma Woolf, daughter of the late Cecil Woolf and Jean Moorcroft Wilson, has marked this day with the following two articles:

Emma Woolf shared these photos on her Facebook page.

Yay Virginia, say the Italians

The Italian Virginia Woolf Society is holding an online event on Facebook  11 a.m. – 1 p.m. (EDT) today titled “Eviva Virginia,” which features readings of her works, along with a celebration of her life.

And the Virginia Woolf Society of Great Britain celebrated Woolf’s work by posting this on their Facebook page:

Facebook tribute from VWSGB 

“80 years ago today the world lost a great writer in Virginia Woolf. However, we would prefer to celebrate her life, and the fact that she gave us ten novels, a biography, two feminist treatises, three dozen short stories, enough essays and reviews to fill six chunky volumes, thousands of letters, perhaps the most detailed diary by any writer, several memoirs, three Russian translations, a comic play, a juvenile newspaper, as well as numerous photograph albums. Enough material, that is, to keep Woolfians interested to the present day and beyond.”

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Women in Strange Love: Sigrid Nunez contemplates Carrington

Posted in Bloomsbury, books, Virginia Woolf, Woolf in Contemporary Fiction, tagged , , , on Thursday 18 March 2021| Leave a Comment »

Sigrid Nunez is most known to Woolfians for Mitz: The Marmoset of Bloomsbury, her 1998 (and reissued in 2019) fictional portrait of the Woolfs’ pet monkey, inspired by Flush, Virginia Woolf’s similar treatment of Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s dog.

Bloomsbury makes a brief appearance in her new novel, What Are You Going Through, a series of musings, meetings and memories. The nameless narrator follows some anecdotes about the divisions between women and men by reflecting that while she doesn’t like romance fiction, she’s fascinated by stories of unconventional or hopeless love. She imagines a collection of these tales, called Women in Strange Love.

She considers Dora Carrington’s unrequited love and devotion to Lytton Strachey, her marriage to Ralph Partridge and their lopsided ménage à trois to accommodate Lytton’s passion for Ralph. She recaps Carrington’s suicide two months after Lytton’s death. Virginia Woolf visited Carrington the day before and recounted that she said, “There is nothing left for me to do; I did everything for Lytton.” Woolf’s parting impression of Carrington was “Like some small animal left.”

“Women’s stories are often sad stories,” observes the narrator.

Nunez novel reflects on women’s lives—friendship, aging and death—in the context of the narrator’s response to a friend with terminal cancer. The title is a translation from Simone Weil, who said that love of one’s neighbor is being able to ask the question, Que lest ton tourment?

 

 

 

 

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On St. Patrick’s Day, follow Virginia Woolf to Ireland

Posted in diaries, Ireland, tagged , on Wednesday 17 March 2021| Leave a Comment »

Virginia and Leonard Woolf made their sole trip to Ireland in late April and early May of 1934. They traveled to counties Cork, Kerry and Galway, and they also spent time in Dublin.

In her diaries, Virginia mentioned some of the specific things she loved about the Emerald Isle. They included:

  • “the perfection of Irish conversation,”
  • the “character and charm” of “half squalid” Irish life,
  • and the “rocks and the desolate bays.”

So today, put on your green and read more about the Woolfs’ 1934 trip, complete with photos that attempt to portray — with a 21st century twist — what she saw in Ireland.

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Three calls for papers on Virginia Woolf

Posted in call for papers, tagged , , , on Saturday 13 March 2021| Leave a Comment »

CFP #1: Modern Language Association – International Virginia Woolf Society Affiliated Organization Session (Guaranteed Panel)

Topic: Virginia Woolf, Hope and Wonder

See attachment for fuller description. This session will explore the question, “Where and how do we see hope and wonder in Woolf’s earliest memories, her responses to war, and her approaches to making meaning?”  Submit a CV and 300-word abstract by March 15, 2021 to Angela Harris (angela.cat.harris@gmail.com).

CFP #2: Modern Language Association – International Virginia Woolf Society Session (Possible Panel)

Topic: Woolf’s 21st Century Academia

In our profession, we have an opportunity to create what Virginia Woolf envisioned as a totally new version of higher education in the 21st century, that of “an experimental college, an adventurous college…The aim of the new college, the cheap college, should be not to segregate and specialise, but to combine. It should explore the ways in which mind and body can be made to co-operate; discover what new combinations make good wholes in human life” (Three Guineas 43).

This panel will inspire productive conversation around the idea of Woolf’s 21st century notion of what academia might look like—exploring the myriad ways in which we, as professors, graduate students, undergraduates, bloggers, and common readers alike, might realize her collaborative vision in our teaching and scholarship today and in the increasingly uncertain future of academia. Please send a 250-300 word abstract and your contact information by March 15, 2021 to emhinnov@yahoo.com.

CFP #3: Louisville Conference

The International Virginia Woolf Society is pleased to host its twenty-second consecutive panel at the University of Louisville’s Conference on Literature and Culture Since 1900, scheduled for February 25-27, 2022. We invite proposals for critical papers on any topic concerning Woolf’s work. A specific panel theme may be decided upon depending on the proposals received. Previous IVWS panels have met with great enthusiasm at Louisville, and we look forward to another successful session.

Please submit by email a cover page with name, email address, mailing address, phone number, professional affiliation, and title of paper, and a second anonymous page containing a 250-word paper proposal, with title, to Emily M. Hinnov, ehinnov@ccsnh.edu, by Monday, August 30, 2021.

Panel Selection Committee
Beth Rigel Daugherty
Jeanne Dubino
Vara Neverow

Virginia Woolf reading at home

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First @LitCamb Virginia Woolf Season continues through June

Posted in events, Woolf Courses, Woolf online, tagged , , on Saturday 6 March 2021| Leave a Comment »

Literature Cambridge continues its online Virginia Woolf Season, studying all 12 major books by Woolf in chronological order.

Woolf’s groundbreaking A Room of One’s Own (1929) is up now, with online lectures via Zoom this month by Alison Hennegan on androgyny on March 6, and Trudi Tate on women on March 13 and 14.

These are followed by five different lectures on The Waves,  a rare chance to consider all aspects of this fascinating novel.

Five lectures on The Waves

  1. Emma Sutton on music in The Waves on March 23
  2. Ellie Mitchell on Percival in The Waves on April 3
  3. Trudi Tate on friendship in The Waves on April 4
  4. Karina Jakubowicz on gardens in The Waves on April 11
  5. Gillian Beer on “Reading The Waves Across a Lifetime” (repeated by popular request) on April 24

From Flush to Between the Acts

Alison Hennegan will discuss Flush on April 10.

Karina Jakubowicz lecturing for Literature Cambridge

Literature Cambridge will finish out its first Woolf Season with Claire Davison on music in Three Guineas, Anna Snaith on The Years, Claire Nicholson on Between the Acts and costume, and more.

Get more details and registration information.

Second Woolf Season this fall

A second Woolf Season is planned for October 2021, and you can study some of Woolf’s brilliant contemporaries in the Women Writers Season: May Sinclair, Sylvia Townsend Warner, Zora Neale Hurston, Jean Rhys, HD, Rosamund Lehmann, Vita Sackville West, Winifred Holtby, and others, starting in June 2021. https://www.literaturecambridge.co.uk/women

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