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Archive for June, 2023

Woolf Salon No. 25: Party Time with Mrs. Dalloway

Posted in events, Mrs. Dalloway, tagged , on Wednesday 28 June 2023| Leave a Comment »

Editor’s Note: Salon organizers have added two readings to the homework list. They are in boldface below.

What a month! First, the 31st Annual International Conference on Virginia Woolf: Woolf and Ecologies. Then Dalloway Day. Now, an invitation. Mrs. Dalloway wants to keep the party going and requests the honor of your company at 2 pm. ET Friday, July 28, at Woolf Salon No. 25: Party Time.

Invite your friends! All are welcome.

The details

Hosts: Salon Conspirators
Day: Friday, 28 July 2023
Time: 2–4 p.m. EDT (New York) / 11 a.m.–1 p.m. PDT (Los Angeles) / 3–5 p.m. Brasilia / 7–9 p.m. BST (London) / 8–10 p.m. CEST (Paris) / 9–11 p.m. Ankara / 3 a.m –5 a.m. Sat 7/29 JST (Tokyo) / 4 a.m –6 a.m  Sat 7/29 AEST (Sydney)
Homework: Mrs. Dalloway’s Party

The readings

This 25th installment of the Salon Project will focus on the short stories posthumously collected in Mrs. Dalloway’s Party (1973). They are:

  • “Mrs. Dalloway in Bond Street” (Collected Short Fiction, pp. 152–59; online)
  • “The Man Who Loved His Kind” (CSF, pp. 195–200; HH, pp. 96–101)
  • “A Simple Melody” (CSF, pp. 201–07)
  • “The Introduction” (CSF, pp. 184–88)
  • “Ancestors” (CSF, pp. 181–83)
  • “Together and Apart” (CSF, pp. 189–94; HH, pp. 115–20)
  • “The New Dress” (CSF, pp. 170–77; HH, pp. 43–51)
  • “Happiness” (CSF, pp. 178–80)
  • “A Summing Up” (CSF, pp. 208–11; HH, pp. 121–24)

The event will be recorded for members of the International Virginia Woolf Society.

How to join the Salon

Anyone can join the Salon group, which usually 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.

Background on the Salon

The Salon Conspirators — Benjamin 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.

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Woolf is one of These Particular Women

Posted in books, Virginia Woolf, Woolf in Contemporary Fiction, tagged , , on Monday 26 June 2023| Leave a Comment »

I first read Kat Meads in a literary journal a few years ago, wowed by her essay on Sylvia Plath’s and Flannery O’Connor’s mothers. When I learned that this piece, along with ones on Virginia Woolf, Mary McCarthy and others, would be in her new essay collection, I ordered my copy and have been rewarded by everything about it, including the striking cover.

“Things Woolfian” is the opening act in These Particular Women. Meads recalls writing a term paper on Woolf’s novels for an honors class in 1973 when the Quentin Bell biography was the only secondary source. It’s the plethora of biographies and essays and analyses that have emerged over the past fifty years—and the turf wars over varying interpretations about Woolf’s life and work, often contrasting with Woolf’s own letters and autobiographical works—that Meads diligently scrutinizes.

Woolf, mental illness, sexuality and more

Regarding Woolf’s mental illness, she notes that not everyone accepted Leonard Woolf’s or Quentin Bell’s accounts, citing Hermione Lee and others who question the chronology and severity of Virginia’s breakdowns. Another hotly contested issue was Leonard’s role—help or hindrance?—with both pro- and anti-Leonard factions waging wars of words over the years.

Virginia Woolf’s sexuality, her relationships with friends and family, her idiosyncrasies, her death and her afterlife are explored through the extensive written record Meads—and we—sift through today.

These Particular Women approaches its other subjects with a similar dissection of the historical record, sourcing biographers, journalists, and contemporaries to speculate about Agatha Christie’s eleven-day disappearance, Kitty Oppenheimer’s struggles in her husband’s shadow, Mary McCarthy’s presentation of self, Jean Harris as dissected by Shana Alexander and Diana Trilling. Each of these women was a rebel, out of step with and often ahead of her times.

More from Kat Meads

Kat Meads has also written works of fiction, poetry, and memoir, and I can’t sign off without a brief synopsis (with Woolf citation) of her wildly entertaining 2018 novel, Miss Jane: The Lost Years. Miss Jane, a student, endures emotional abuse at the hands of the despicable Prof P, under the watchful eyes of the Greek chorus that narrates her tale.

When Prof P storms out after one of his tirades, they wish him “Good riddance! One less misery in the house!” But they become concerned about how she’ll respond to being alone. They’re relieved that there’s no shotgun in the house, that the ocean is four hours east, and:

We’re relieved Miss Jane doesn’t daily stroll alongside an Ouse-ian river with fast-flowing, tempting tides. We’re relieved Miss Jane stopped reading Virginia…. We’re relieved Miss Jane has collected no pocket stones.

 

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Get ready for Woolf and Ecologies II on Zoom Oct. 20-22

Posted in 32nd Annual International Conference on Virginia Woolf, events, tagged , , , on Saturday 24 June 2023| Leave a Comment »

Get ready for Woolf and Ecologies II! This virtual Fall Symposium will be held on Zoom Oct 20-22 to give those who did not have the opportunity to travel to Ft. Myers, Fla., for the in-person conference the chance to present their work.

It will be hosted by the International Virginia Woolf Society in conjunction with its annual Fall Lecture and in collaboration with the organizers of the 2023 Woolf Conference that took place at Florida Gulf Coast University June 8-11.

The Fall Symposium will extend the theme of the 32nd Annual International Conference on Virginia Woolf: Woolf and Ecologies. Derek Ryan will deliver the 2023 IVWS Fall Lecture, which will double as the symposium’s plenary address.

Call for papers

Those who did not present at the in-person conference in June are invited to submit a 250-word abstract to the Fall Symposium by July 31. Organizers welcome proposals from scholars, students, artists, and common readers of all backgrounds and disciplines.

The Fall Symposium seeks to foster conversations about a wide range of ecologically relevant topics. Proposals may address ecological concerns in or illuminated by Woolf’s work, but they might alternately explore artistic, social, political, economic, racial, de-colonial, anti-ableist, and/or queer ecologies, among others, in or alongside Woolf’s novels, essays, letters, or diaries.

Papers on members of the Bloomsbury Group and other associates of Virginia Woolf in relation to the conference theme are also encouraged.

Questions?

Please send inquiries to Laci Mattison and Shilo McGiff at woolfecologies@gmail.com.

Note: this virtual event is planned to increase access for those unable to travel for/present their work at the in-person conference at Florida Gulf Coast University earlier this month. Those who presented at this month’s conference, are urged to support their colleagues by attending the symposium on Zoom.

Submit for publication

As in previous years, presenters will have the opportunity to submit their work for publication in the selected papers series. Send queries to Shilo McGiff and Laci Mattison at  woolfecologies@gmail.com.

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Two podcasts celebrate 100 years since Mrs. Dalloway’s walk

Posted in Dalloway Day, Mrs. Dalloway, podcast, tagged , , on Friday 23 June 2023| Leave a Comment »

This month marks the 100th anniversary of Clarissa Dalloway’s walk through London to “buy the flowers herself.” So it seems appropriate to share two related podcasts from Literature Cambridge’s “Virginia Woolf Podcast” with Dr. Karina Jakubowicz.

Mrs. Dalloway’s party paper dolls

  1. The first, “Mrs. Dalloway’s Party,” is a 27-minute podcast about the mysterious painting by Vanessa Bell that was exhibited in 1922 and disappeared until British art dealer Anthony d’Offay offered it in 1983 from the estate of Virginia Woolf.  In it, Karina speaks with the painting’s owner, Howard Ginsberg, and the bestselling author of Bloomsbury Pie, Regina Marler, as she thinks about paintings and parties in 1920s Bloomsbury. Give it a listen. You can also see an image of the painting at the above link.
  2. The second, “Professor Dame Gillian Beer on Mrs, Dalloway,” is an actual lecture by Professor Dame Gillian Beer titled, “For There She Was: Love and Presence in Mrs. Dalloway.” It times out at 26 minutes. You can listen to it online as well.

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Turkey’s first #DallowayDay is June 21

Posted in Dalloway Day, events, tagged , , on Monday 19 June 2023| Leave a Comment »

Turkey will celebrate its first Dalloway Day Wednesday, June 21, at 20:00 (CMT +3) within the Literary Readings section of Holon Academy.

The event will take place with the participation and collaboration of Professor Mine Özyurt Kılıç, one of the creators and organizers of the British Council-supported Virginia Woolf Studies in Turkey project in January 2023.

Students, readers, academics, writers, and artists are invited to join this free online commemoration of Virginia Woolf and her work, held in Turkish.

You can register for the event by filling out the form to participate via Zoom.

 

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