Literature Cambridge has scheduled interesting summer courses that have connections to Virginia Woolf and include fascinating excursions connected to her as well.
Woolf and Politics
Dates: 1-6 July 2018
Explores Woolf’s interest in the important issues of her day: women’s rights, education, the Spanish Civil War, the power of the newspapers, as well as her playful look at gender politics in Orlando.
Each day there is a lecture followed by a seminar or Cambridge supervision (tutorial). Some meals will be taken together as a group and the group will visit places around Cambridge of interest to Woolfians.
Excursions
- King’s College: Woolf knew King’s well and had close friends there, including Dadie Rylands and E. M. Forster. She was appreciated for her wonderful conversation at college lunches. We will visit rooms with Woolf connections which are not usually open to the public. Guided by the lecturer and King’s Fellow Peter Jones, the group will also visit the marvellous chapel, built 1446-1547.
- Fitzwilliam Museum: A rare opportunity to see the manuscript of A Room of One’s Own, one of Woolf’s most influential books. This is the only Woolf manuscript held in Cambridge. There will be a talk about the history of the manuscript, a chance to look closely at some pages, followed by a slap-up tea at Fitzbillies.
- Wren Library, Trinity College: A visit to the Wren Library to see some of its remarkable manuscripts – Milton’s ‘Lycidas’; letters from Charlotte Bronte, George Eliot, and others; many first editions of classic works; and the manuscript of Winnie the Pooh. There will be a display about the Pethick-Lawrences, activists in the women’s suffrage movement. The group will also learn about women at Trinity and about the history of the library, once mockingly cursed by Woolf in A Room of One’s Own, now much used by women scholars and students.
Women Writers: Emily Bronte to Elizabeth Bowen
Dates: 8-13 July 2018.
Will study: Bronte, Wuthering Heights; Eliot, The Mill on the Floss; Woolf, To the Lighthouse; Mansfield, The Garden Party; Bowen, To the North
Excursions
- Girton College: Girton College, established in 1869, was the first residential university college for women. Clare Walker Gore will talk about George Eliot’s support for women’s education, and Alison Hennegan will discuss the remarkable history of Girton. The group will visit the room in which Virginia Woolf gave a talk that became A Room of One’s Own (1929).
- Wren Library, Trinity College: As above; a rare treat.
- Orchard Tea Room, Grantchester: The group will take tea and scones in this famous old tea room, enjoyed in the early 20th century by Woolf, Bertrand Russell, Rupert Brooke, John Maynard Keynes, E. M. Forster, Wittgenstein, and many others.
Wren Library, Trinity College, Cambridge
Wren Library, Trinity College, Cambridge
Literature Cambridge lecture at Girton College in July 2017
