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Archive for the ‘Orlando’ Category

All Woolfians, whether in Turkey or not, are welcome to join the inaugural event of the newly formed Virginia Woolf Society Turkey for an online talk and the sharing of ideas for talks, blog posts, and/or projects on Virginia Woolf and her connection to Turkey.

When: Tuesday, July 4, at 5 p.m. BST
Who: Dr Lee Okan from Lesley University, Cambridge, MA
What: “Time’s Fluidity: Analyzing Virginia Woolf’s Orlando through Henri Bergson’s Philosophy of Duration”
How: Register FREE on Eventbrite.

This free online talk will explore the use of time and its intertwining with gender and identity, particularly in relation to Henri Bergson’s theories of time and duration. Join in to see how Woolf defies traditional conceptions of time.

For further information, please contact: virginiawoolfturkiye@ gmail.com and follow the group on Twitter: @VWoolfTurkiye

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The Beyond Words French Literature Festival at Institut français in Kensington, London celebrates Virginia Woolf’s work at 8:15 p.m. on May 19 as Paul B. Preciado and Merve Emre engage in conversation on Orlando’s impact on Preciado’s art and personal journey.

Preciado is a philosopher and writer. Emre is an author, academic and literary critic.

Virginia Woolf wrote my biography before me when publishing Orlando, a century ago – trans writer and philosopher Paul B. Preciado

More on the agenda

But don’t stop there. From May 12-21, the seventh edition of the festival will cross borders and genres to take participants on a literary journey through lively discussions, powerful readings and inspiring live performances and screenings.

Renowned authors from both side of the Channel, such as Ian McEwan, Lauren Elkin, Deborah Levy, Éric Vuillard, Laurent Mauvignier and Muriel Barbery, as well as new exciting voices, will meet, discuss or present their latest releases.

Many events are in English or both English and French and are priced at £3-15.

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If you will be in New York City on March 15, you can learn about Vita Sackville-West from her cousin. Yes, I’m serious.

Sponsored by the Royal Oak Foundation, the first talk in an in-person lecture series will be given by Robert Sackville-West, 7th Baron Sackville on March 15 at 6 p.m. (ET) at 20 W. 44th Street, between 5th and 6th avenues. A reception and book signing will follow the lecture, which is titled “Vita Sackville-West and A Sense of Place.”

Information about the event, which I learned about from a press release, is a bit sketchy. The release did not include any information regarding cost, and the appropriate page on the Royal Oak Foundation website is not updated to include the lecture series focused on Vita. However, I did find this email address, which might be helpful for obtaining more information: lectures@royal-oak.org

About the lecture series

The lecture series will describe Vita Sackville-West’s life and illustrate the places important to Virginia Woolf’s friend and lover.

One of these places was Knole, the 365-room house in which she grew up but which she was not able to inherit due to her sex. Woolf immortalized Vita’s feelings about Knole in her 1928 novel, Orlando.

In his lectures, Sackville-West will discuss Vita’s connections to Knole, as well as Sissinghurst, a nearby castle ruin and tumbledown farm that is considered Vita’s greatest creation and most enduring legacy. Both Knole and Sissinghurst are now owned by Britain’s National Trust.

About Robert Sackville-West

Robert Sackville-West, the 13th generation of the family to live at Knole, studied history at Oxford University and went on to work in publishing. He now chairs Knole Estates, the property and investment company that, in parallel with the National Trust, runs the Sackville family’s interests at Knole.

Knole House, originally built as an archbishop’s palace but given to the Sackville family in 1603.

Rooftop view of Sissinghurst Gardens

 

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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:

  1. “Imagining Woolfian Criticism”
  2. “The Leaning Tower”
  3. “Kew Gardens” and its recent adaptation in the anthology film London Unplugged
  4. “Planetary Woolf,” which introduced attendees to the forthcoming book collection, Virginia Woolf and Contemporary Global Literature (Edinburgh UP, 2021
  5. “Solid Objects” and “A Society”

Just yesterday, we met to discuss the theme “Stay, This Moment,” with a focus on two readings, Woolf’s essay “The Moment: Summer’s Night” and her story “Slater’s Pins Have No Points.”

The full schedule is available online.

Submit a proposal

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.

 

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Available on YouTube from now until July 10 is the Royal Ballet’s performance of Wayne McGregor’s Woolf Works, a triptych created in 2015.

Featuring music by Max Richter, the ballet received critical acclaim, winning McGregor the Critics’ Circle Award for Best Classical Choreography and the Olivier Award for Best New Dance Production.

Inspired by the writings of Virginia Woolf, Woolf Works is based on three of Woolf’s novels: Mrs Dalloway, Orlando and The Waves and weaves in elements from her letters, essays and diaries. The ballet looks at both her life and her work.

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