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Archive for the ‘Virginia Woolf’ Category

Do crafting and feminism go together? The answer is yes.

At least they made a great duo on the afternoon of day two of this year’s Virginia Woolf conference. And they are now the topic of a Zoom event set for Wednesday, Nov. 15, at  6-8 p.m. GMT (2-4 p.m. EST).

About the conference craft workshop

Amy E. Elkins, Melissa Johnson, and Catherine Paul presented a craft workshop at the 32nd Annual International Conference on Virginia Woolf: Woolf and Ecologies at Florida Gulf Coast University. Using typewriters, card catalogues, needle, thread, fabric, paper, and glue, each presenter showed participants how to create a craft that connected to Woolf — or another member of the Bloomsbury group.

About “Crafting Feminism”

Now Elkins is back, along with multi-media artist Kabe Wilson, with a “Crafting Feminism” event she is offering on Zoom, along with Decorating Dissidence, an online platform exploring the role of craft and the decorative from modernism to today.

The event also celebrates the one-year anniversary of Elkins’ Crafting Feminism from Literary Modernism to the Multimedia Present (2022).

Elkins and Wilson will be “in conversation to think through all things modernist archives, methods and materials.” And you can attend for free.

How to register

Sign up for a free ticket.

Read more

For more on crafting feminism related to Woolf — please read “Walking in Mrs. Dalloway’s shoes — literally.” You may also want to check out Crafting With Feminism, a book full of “25 girl-powered projects to smash the patriarchy” and/or the Feminist Activity Book.

Catherine Paul (standing) shows Alice Lowe, Amy Smith, and Lisa Coleman how to use simple embroidery techniques to create a new expression of their feminism, as well as their love of literature, during the craft workshop at the 32nd Annual International Conference on Virginia Woolf.

Craft workshop participants at the 32nd Annual International Conference on Virginia Woolf used manual typewriters to type new and meaningful verbiage on old cards from library card catalogues.

This was the old card catalogue entry that Woolf scholar Mark Hussey chose at the craft workshop at the 32nd Annual International Conference on Virginia Woolf.

Hussey chose to add this wording to the back side of the card above, using a vintage typewriter.

Workshop participants at the 32nd Annual International Conference on Virginia Woolf also cut up text, which they threaded through a page with an image of their choice to create interesting juxtapositions.

This was Alice Lowe’s finished project at the craft workshop during day two of the 32nd Annual International Conference on Virginia Woolf, held June 8-11 at Florida Gulf Coast University.

 

 

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From the Virginia Woolf Podcast comes a new broadcast. This one features a discussion between Marielle O’Neill and Prof. Peter Stansky regarding the many legacies of Leonard Woolf — notably his anti-imperialism, socialism, and work in international politics. Karina Jakubowicz conducts the interview.

Karina Jacubowicz

Listen to Leonard Woolf’s Legacies.

About the podcast

The 17 episodes currently available online and on the podcast app as “The Virginia Woolf Podcast” features Jakubowicz’s interviews with writer, artists, and academics whose work has been influenced by Woolf.

The podcast is made in association with Literature Cambridge, an independent educational organisation that provides university-style lectures on a wide range of literary subjects.

About the experts

Peter Stansky is emeritus professor of history at Stanford University and the author of Leonard Woolf, Bloomsbury Socialist. His most recent publication is The Socialist Patriot: George Orwell and War.

As a distinguished historian, he has judged the Pulitzer Prize, among other book awards. Stansky was a finalist for the National Book Awards in 1967, 1973, and 1981. He has also served as a member of the Executive Council of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and has lectured in various parts of North America, Europe and Australia.

Marielle O’Neill is a PhD. candidate at Leeds Trinity University. Her research explores the political activism and partnership of Leonard and Virginia Woolf.

She serves on the Executive Committee of the Virginia Woolf Society of Great Britain. She has been active in politics on both sides of the Atlantic, working on Capitol Hill, Washington, DC and in the Houses of Parliament, London.

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Register to attend the three-day follow-up to the 32nd Annual International Conference on Virginia Woolf: Virginia Woolf and Ecologies II, set for Oct. 20-22 on Zoom.

The event, sponsored by the International Virginia Woolf Society, includes 12 panel sessions and a keynote by Derek Ryan of the University of Kent and continues the theme of the 2023 conference: “Virginia Woolf and Ecologies.” Ryan’s keynote is titled “Virginia Woolf and the Pyrocene: Fire Ecologies.”

Dates and times

The conference begins at 11:30 a.m. EDT Oct. 20 and ends at 4 p.m. EDT Oct. 22. Please remember to check local times.

What it costs

Registration costs $20, plus a small transaction fee, with proceeds going towards the Suzanne Bellamy Travel Fund, which supports travel to the Annual Conference on Virginia Woolf next June.

How to register

Register via Eventbrite. You will find an outline of the symposium schedule on the registration page, where the full program schedule will be made available soon.

You should receive a confirmation message upon registering, and you will be added to an email list to which organizers will send the requisite Zoom links as the dates of the symposium draw near.

Get more information

If you have any questions about registration or other IVWS business, write to  vwoolfsociety@gmail.com. Direct other questions about the symposium program to woolfecologies@gmail.com.

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Famous Writers Dramatic Company has produced a 92-minute audio adaptation of Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway that is available free online.

Its cast of six is led by Abigail Thaw, Robert Bathurst, Deborah Findlay and Tim McInnerny.

Please note that it is an adaptation, going from a 63,000 word novel to a 19,500 word adaptation. Thus, it does not begin with the famous first line of the novel but jumps into Clarissa’s walk through Westminster and uses several actresses to play the lead.

Katie Mitchell’s recent London stage production of Rebecca Watson’s Little Scratch inspired the work.

“I know the BBC has done several radio adaptations of the novel, but as far I know Mrs Dalloway has never been done like this and I am very happy with how it has turned out,” explained James Garner, who notified Blogging Woolf of the production, his company’s second.

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Screenshot of the Woolf-inspired Instagram account, “Kendine Ait Bir Oda”

A new writing platform for budding writers interested in Virginia Woolf aims to be a beacon for Woolfian writing in a language other than English. “Kendine Ait Bir Köşe” (“A Corner of One’s Own”) calls for writers, junior scholars, journalists and artists to submit their Woolf-inspired essays, stories, poems, letters, and memoirs in Turkish.

Drawing on the idea Woolf shares in Three Guineas (1938):  “As a woman I have no country. As a woman I want no country. As a woman, my country is the whole world,” “A Corner of One’s Own” serves as an archive for Woolfian writing in the Turkish language, according to founding editor Professor Mine Özyurt Kılıç.

Submissions should be on the current theme offered by the platform and are limited to about 500 words. For more information, contact Mine Özyurt Kılıç at mozyurtkilic@gmail.com.

The platform was launched following the “Virginia Woolf in Turkey” project in January, which was supported by the British Council.

Where to find it

You can find the project on host Yasemin Bahloul Nirun’s  Woolf-inspired Instagram account. The podcast itself, “Kendine Ait Bir Oda” (“A Room of One’s Own”), can be found at @kendineaitbirodapodcast via Substack on social media and in audio format on Spotify, Apple and Google podcasts.

The project offers a “room” for writers by sharing the best essay in text. Previous winners who wrote Woolfian essays inspired by A Rooms of One’s Own (1929) and To the Lighhouse (1927) are available on these platforms. The writer of the first essay, Tuğba Duzak, has translated her piece and shares it here with the international Woolf community.

Pursuit

By Tuğba Duzak

Before reading Virginia Woolf’s novel, lighthouses, for me, have been the symbol of hope and new opportunities. Considering the generic function of the lighthouses, it was second nature to think of them as a light of life. The light emanating from the lighthouse, connecting a sailor, who was desperately trying to find their way, to life has always filled me with an indescribable joy. That is why, for me, the symbol of hope has always been lighthouses. Nevertheless, when I read Woolf’s To The Lighthouse, that belief turned upside down. The lighthouse, which is used as a symbol of unattainability in the book, destroyed the symbolism I had built in my mind with what can be called a childish naivety, and left a huge disappointment in its place. I had no light to lead my sailor home safe and sound anymore. I lost the way home, and to myself.

My thoughts might sound a bit sombre, given that nobody likes losses. But, are they really that bad, just because we do not like them?

Lately, losing is a notion that I have been pondering over a lot. It is an action that happens independently of the person, with our hands tied. We cannot lose something on purpose, actually, the ignorance of the person creates the state of being lost, for that reason, it is as if it always evokes despair in humans.

Sometimes we lose someone we love. Rather than saying “She died.” we say, “We lost B.” I wonder why we do that. Whose feelings do we take into consideration when we say, “lost”? We lost her, yeah. Traffic accident. Yeah, it’s hard, she was married. No kids, no. Yeah, we lost her.

Lost, as if we could find them, if we look for them, flesh and blood. As if not dead but hidden. Here you have humans, people who cannot give up on their hopes even in death. This persistent disregard of death, an inevitable part of our lives, makes me feel bitter inside. I think I find the saying “losing time” interesting the most. How do we lose time? Let’s say we did, how do we get back the lost time? Can we do it? It is hard to give an answer. Even though we are aware that time cannot be regained, why can’t we accept this and find proper expressions? The hollow denial we have saddled this remark with astounds me greatly. It is comical to lay the responsibility of our self-deception on these two words.

Nevertheless, I still like this term, losing, as it is an indication of the expectation in humans; and because the act of losing harbours the possibility of finding as well. We lose our way, our belongings, and sometimes ourselves. Then our pursuit begins. Even if we know we cannot find it, we tediously rummage around everywhere, in the hope of finding it. We find our pen, which got lost two weeks ago, under the bed; somehow, it rolled over there. Then we sit down, and continue to find ourselves from where we left off in empty pages. We write. Finding the words buried in hidden depths again, we embrace them. We catch them as if playing hide-and-seek, tagging them triumphantly. We continue to advance in the hope of reaching the meagre light spreading from the lighthouse on the corner of our minds.

April, 2023

Editor’s Note:

Mine Özyurt Kılıç is the co-creator and organizer of the Woolf-related event series, “A Press of Ones’ Own: Celebrating 100 Years of Hogarth Press (Harvard U)  and Virginia Woolf in Turkey and 100 Years of Literary Modernism (1922-2022),” which included translation and printing workshops, a Woolf inspired exhibition of Turkish contemporary art, and author meetings. She has designed and taught the first all-Woolf BA and MA course in Turkey, and she organized the first-ever Dalloway Day in Turkey in June 2021 where she commemorated and introduced Suzanne Bellamy and Susan Stanford Friedman to the Turkish speaking Woolf community.

Yasemin Bahloul Nirun’s podcast series has created an inspiring room by promoting young women who make their living through producing works in arts and culture. Since its debut in 2021, there have been nearly 30 interviews with young musicians, curators, artists, filmmakers, journalists, businesswomen, all of which are available on social media platforms. She has recently organised a writing workshop series in the footsteps of Julia Cameron’s The Artists’ Way.

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