We are nearly three weeks post-election. The results still feel impossible, improbable, and incredibly sad. Here is what I am doing to keep myself together:
Reading more news, as Woolf would, because knowledge is power.
Thinking about the importance of creativity, as Woolf argues in “Thoughts on Peace in an Air Raid” (1940).
Eating more chocolate. Leonard and Virginia were thrilled to find chocolate creams in a local shop after the Great War.
Drinking more wine. Cecil Woolf once told me he remembered the Woolfs enjoying their wine outdoors in Tavistock Square.
Spending time with like-minded friends, as the Woolfs did with the Bloomsbury group.
Collecting memes that make me think, give me hope, or make me laugh. Here are a few of my favorites:
As a woman, I have no country. As a woman I want no country. As a woman my country is the whole world. – Virginia Woolf, Three Guineas (1938)
I once wrote that famous Virginia Woolf quote on the wall of my office because it resonated with me. However, it has never resonated with me as strongly as it does today, the day after a U.S. presidential election that will allow a fascist to lead our country for the next four years.
Along with many others in the United States who value freedom, justice, truth, peace, kindness, and love — I find it devastating to face the reality of four years with a president who values none of those things.
But like Woolf — and like countless other women throughout this country and the world — I will not give up the fight. I will never surrender.
Instead, I will continue to fight for all the things I value. I will look to the words and actions of Woolf and others to guide my thinking and my life as we move forward to keep light alive in this dark, dark time. I will do my best to create a close community like the Bloomsbury group that I and my friends can count on for support.
If you have additional advice for me — and others — please do share it in the comments section below.
Virginia Woolf’s advice for defeating fascist thinking
Back in 2017, after Democrat Hilary Clinton lost the 2016 presidential election to the most horrible of Republican candidates, I — like many people around the globe — was deeply concerned about the future of our country and our world. So I turned to Woolf for wisdom.
I never thought that essay would have a long shelf life. But as things have turned out, it still applies today — perhaps more than ever — as we grieve the defeat of yet another woman, Democrat Kamala Harris, who brought such brilliance and joy to the campaign trail.
Now, thanks to a Facebook reminder from Woolf friend, Emily MacQuarrie Hinnov, I will add a quote she shared from Woolf’s 1940 essay, “Thoughts on Peace in an Air Raid,” as we move towards a frightening four years with a man who admires dictators holding the highest office in our land.
Who is Hitler? What is he? Aggressiveness, tyranny, the insane love of power made manifest, they reply. Destroy that, and you will be free…Let us try to drag up into consciousness the subconscious Hitlerism that holds us down. It is the desire for aggression; the desire to dominate and enslave. Even in the darkness we can see that made visible. We can see shop windows blazing; and women gazing; painted women; dressed-up women; women with crimson lips and crimson fingernails. They are slaves who are trying to enslave. If we could free ourselves from slavery we should free men from tyranny. Hitlers are bred by slaves…We must create more honourable activities for those who try to conquer in themselves their fighting instinct, their subconsicous Hitlerism…Therefore if we are to compensate the young man for the loss of his glory and of his gun, we must give him access to the creative feelings. We must make happiness. We must free him from the machine. We must bring him out of his prison into the open air. But what is the use of freeing the young Englishman if the young German and the young Italian remain slaves?
Post-It notes written by visitors and added to a display at the “People Power Fighting for Peace” exhibit at the Imperial War Museum in London in July 2017.
The way I see it, there are several connections between Greta Gerwig, her blockbuster film Barbie, and Virginia Woolf. Here we go:
One of Gerwig’s all-time favorite books is Woolf’s To the Lighthouse (1927). It is, she notes, “A classic for a reason. My mind was warped into a new shape by her prose, and it will never be the same again. The metaphysics she presents in the book are enacted in a way that allowed me to begin to understand that corner of philosophy.”
In A Room of One’s Own (1929), Woolf writes that “a woman must have a room of her own” in order to write fiction. In Barbie, all of the Barbies have entire dream houses of their own — and they find such ownership essential to their independent, feminist lifestyles.
An NPR story on the film includes this quote: “But Barbie could fend for herself. Like Nancy Drew, she drove her own roadster and lived in her own dream house — Virginia Woolf’s room of one’s own painted in pastels.”
From Second Wind Books comes this Facebook post that lists the similarities between Woolf and Barbie:
From Woolf scholar and novelist Maggie Humm comes this Twitter post:
Obligatory Barbie photo. Loved the artifice (like Asteroid City my last movie outing) pic.twitter.com/yzETjzw79J
If you are a regular reader of Blogging Woolf, you may have noticed that I have not posted as regularly as usual for the past year or so. I blame the pandemic.
Poster for The Woolf Salon No. 7, “A Room of Your Own Will Not Protect You: Woolf and the Second Wave Feminists”
It has shortened my attention span, sapped my motivation, stifled my creativity, and generally made it difficult for me to focus for very long on anything seemingly unessential for survival.
You may have experienced similar feelings. Or not.
Pandemic-prompted Salon
Luckily, for a number of energetic Virginia Woolf readers and scholars, the pandemic has prompted the creation of something new and innovative for Woolf lovers around the globe, The Woolf Salon.
Ben Hagen, Shilo McGiff, Amy Smith, and Drew Shannon began the project last July. Their goal was to provide regularly scheduled opportunities for conversation among those interested in Woolf.
Anyone can join the group, which meets on the third or fourth 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.
Topics have included:
“Imagining Woolfian Criticism”
“The Leaning Tower”
“Kew Gardens” and its recent adaptation in the anthology film London Unplugged
“Planetary Woolf,” which introduced attendees to the forthcoming book collection, Virginia Woolf and Contemporary Global Literature (Edinburgh UP, 2021
Anyone interested in hosting a future salon is invited to submit a proposal. Organizers are particularly interested in featuring the work of early career researchers as well as artists and graduate students. Or a host can choose to focus on one or two short texts.
Why a Salon?
Woolf provides justification for the concept of a literary salon in Orlando (1928), the gender-shifting pseudo-biography that paid tribute to her lover Vita Sackville-West.
She describes her title character’s experiences with the salons she encountered upon her return to England from Turkey in the 18th century.
Nor could she do more as the ship sailed to its anchorage by the London Bridge than glance at coffee-house windows where, on balconies, since the weather was fine, a great number of decent citizens sat at ease, with china dishes in front of them, clay pipes by their sides, while one among them read from a news sheet, and was frequently interrupted by the laughter or the comments of the others? Were these taverns, were these wits, were these poets? . . .‘Addison, Dryden, Pope,’ Orlando repeated as if the words were an incantation. – Orlando 123-4.
Now, the Lady R.’s reception room had the reputation of being the antechamber to the presence room of genius; it was the place where men and women met to swing censers and chant hymns to the bust of genius in a niche in the wall. Sometimes the God himself vouchsafed his presence for a moment. Intellect alone admitted the suppliant, and nothing (so the report ran) was said inside that was not witty. – Orlando 145.
In three hours, such a company must have said the wittiest, the profoundest, the most interesting things in the world. So it would seem indeed. But the fact appears to be that they said nothing. – Orlando 146.
The hostess is our modern Sibyl. She [he] is a witch who lays her [his] guests under a spell. In this house they think themselves happy; in that witty; in a third profound. It is all an illusion (which is nothing against it, for illusions are the most valuable and necessary of all things, and she [he] who can create one is among the world’s greatest benefactors), but as it is notorious that illusions are shattered by conflict with reality, so no real happiness, no real wit, no real profundity are tolerated where the illusion prevails. – Orlando 146.
Screenshot from the Sunday Zoom session on “Rethinking the Dreadnought Hoax” with Danell Jones.
Are we all Zoomed out and ready for a walk in the fresh air? The 30th Annual International Conference on Virginia Woolf, held virtually for the first time via Zoom, is now over. And while seeing each other in tiny boxes was wonderful, we missed being together in person.
But kudos to conference organizer Ben Hagen, assistant professor of English at the University of South Dakota and president of the International Virginia Woolf Society, for pulling off this amazing virtual event.
Below is a selection of some of the most recent tweets found at the conference hashtag #vwwoolf2021.
One of the beauties of this online format is for #Woolfians to be taking part in rooms of their own. It’s great that we can all get books down from the shelf to discuss passages.
I loved seeing all those shelf-lined rooms too. #vwoolf2021📚
Glad I stayed up for the ecocritical panel at #vwoolf2021. First Lucien Darjeun Meadows delivered a wonderful paper on the queer forests of The Voyage Out and now we hear from @LeLoHo_ on ecocritical insights gleaned from reading the holograph drafts of The Waves.
Fascinating panel on Woolf and things. Great to hear Ann Martin on #Woolf and #cars again! Imola Nagy-Seres on #Woolf’s toy boats and Geoff Bender provides a new angle on Woolf’s elegiac writing with ‘Jacob’s body as Vibrant Matter’. #vwoolf2021. #LS2
Carrie Rohman delivers a powerful and moving final keynote at #vwoolf2021 on the “devitalization” of women and minorities within the academy and the necessity more than ever for the searing critique we find in Woolf and other feminist texts. Truly moving.
Kelly Svoboda explores the affect in Woolf’s writing by asking how does art reflect our lives? (Silence, reflection, lack of movement, recognition) #vwoolf2021@vwoolf2021
Currently in #K3 “Performing Philosophy, Performing Journalism, Performing History” where Audrey Johnson is arguing that Woolf transgresses the romantic/scientific divide of history and Diana Royer looks at how Woolf method of using diary entries within her essays #vwoolf2021
Heading into morning sessions for the final day of #vwoolf2021! First up: “Orlando Plays at Court” with panelists Kristin Rajan, Rhoda Mayne, and Zoe Kemp’s-Harris for papers on Gucci, ice dancing, and Knole House. 💫 @zozietropes
Wonderful discussion of Suzanne Bellamy’s Woolf and Bloomsbury inspired art in the breakfast session and the need for an archive/repository for Woolf art #vwoolf2021
The most time-consuming aspect of preparing my presentation for @vwoolf2021 was definitely trying to pinpoint photographs of Woolf on the walls of Shakespeare and Company. pic.twitter.com/SCyjjcF1gB
