Blogging Woolf

You have nearly two weeks to get ready for Woolf Salon No. 17: Woolf, Beauvoir& Phenomenology, so check out the details below. But if your schedule doesn’t allow for any prep time, don’t worry. You can always log on to just listen.

Virginia Woolf reading at home

Details

Hosts: Marie Allègre and Luca Pinelli of The Woolf Salon Project
Day: Friday, March 25
Time: 2 p.m.–4 p.m. ET
Please note that the U.S. will have entered Daylight Saving Time by this date, so the time conversion might be a bit different for those outside the U.S.
How to join: Anyone can join the group, which meets on one Friday of each month via Zoom and focuses on a single topic or text. Just contact woolfsalonproject@gmail.com to sign up for the email list and receive the Zoom link, as well as a PDF of the second reading listed below.

What to read

• Virginia Woolf’s “Evening Over Sussex: Reflections in a Motor Car” (1930)
• Simone de Beauvoir’s “What Can Literature Do?”

Woolf’s short essay can also be found in Essays Vol. 6 (pp. 453–56). It is also included in the collection The Death of the Moth.

What to consider

The hosts advise the following in preparation for the Salon, and they assure us that no prior knowledge of either Beauvoir or phenomenology will be necessary to participate in the discussion:

• Think about the ways in which the self is represented in all its forms in these texts
• Feel free to refer to other texts by either Beauvoir or Woolf regarding any of the themes that emerge in” “Evening Over Sussex” or “What Can Literature Do?”

At the event, the hosts will also be drawing participants’ attention to critical texts that make connections between Woolf and Beauvoir and will share a PDF of a recent book chapter by artist and Woolf scholar Suzanne Bellamy.

Attendees have loved salons that simply focus on one or two short texts. These events provide opportunities to share ideas that emerge from discussion of old favorites and discoveries of new ones. – The Woolf Salon Project

Background on the Salon

The Salon Conspirators — Hagen, Shilo McGiff, Amy Smith, and Drew Shannon — began the Woolf Salon Project in July 2020 to provide opportunities for conversation and conviviality among Woolf-interested scholars, students, and common readers during and beyond the COVID-19 pandemic.