Feeds:
Posts
Comments

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.

Among other intriguing rare finds, Jon S. Richardson Rare Books is offering a previously unknown version of Virginia Woolf’s short story “The Mark on the Wall” in French.

According to the Fall 2023 “Virginia Woolf and the Bloomsbury Group” catalogue, “La Tache Sur le Mur” was published in the March 1923 issue of EUROPE, Revue Mensuelle, with Woolf’s story translated by Louis Mende at pp. 164-174.

“The piece is accompanied by a short essay on Woolf’s breakthrough style and a review of  her novels through her short story collection Monday or Tuesday by one P.C. [presumably Paul Colin, one of the editors).”

The catalogue explains that “this translation is not noted in Kirkpatrick, it is three years earlier than the earliest known appearance of Woolf in the French language” and there is “no mention in Leonard’s autobiography of this translation or Mende.”

More about the volume

As for the volume’s condition, the “book is bright, solid and VG for age with minor wear from age and soil, unusual to be in this condition because paper has acidified slightly.” The price is $275.

The Jon S. Richardson Rare Books offerings are available via AbeBooks. You can also reach the shop at yorkharborbooks@aol.com or at 207-752-1569.

More about the Richardsons

Jon and Margaret Richardson are not newcomers to the world of Woolf. They have made hunting down the works of Virginia Woolf and the Bloomsbury group their mission since opening York Harbor Books in Maine more than 25 years ago.

The Richardson duo put out a list of “Virginia Woolf and the Bloomsbury Group” offerings quarterly. They issued their previous list in the summer.

More French connections to Woolf’s “Mark on the Wall”

For more on the French connections to Woolf’s “Mark on the Wall,” read Blogging Woolf’s post from Oct. 20, 2010, “The French connection to ‘The Mark on the Wall.'” It explores similarities, parallels, and differences between Woolf’s short story and novels by Marguerite Dumas and Alain Robbe-Grillet.

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.

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.

Virginia Woolf is becoming ever more popular in Turkey. Tuesday, we posted about a new platform for budding Turkish writers who have an interest in Woolf. Today, we share news of a free online event focused on Woolf and literary history that is part of the Virginia Woolf Society Turkey’s Woolf Seminar series.

What: A free online talk on “Unwriting and Rewriting History and Literary History: Woolf’s Fictions and Essays,” as part of the Woolf Seminars series of the Virginia Woolf Society Turkey.

Who: Anne Besnault, senior lecturer in English literature at the University of Rouen – Normandy, France, will be the speaker.

Date: Friday, September 29
Time: 7 p.m. Turkey time or noon EST.  (Please check your local time.)
Cost: Free.
Registration: Everyone is welcome to register and attend, using this Eventbrite link:
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/…/unwriting-and-rewriting…

About the talk

The aims of Besnault’s talk are:

  • to introduce the audience to Woolf’s historical thought, as seen from the vantage point of the past and contemporary historiographical discourses;
  • to offer a new vision of Woolf as a literary historian essentially interested in the textuality of history;
  • and to uncover the specific coherence of her history of nineteenth-century women’s literature beyond its apparent heterogeneity and contradictory impulses.

About Besnault

Besnault’s research focuses on modernist fiction and criticism, short story theory, genre and gender studies in nineteenth- and twentieth century British literature, literary history, Katherine Mansfield, and Virginia Woolf’s essays and fiction.

With Anne-Florence Gillard-Estrada, she is the co-editor of Beyond the Victorian and Modernist Divide: Remapping the Turn-of-the-Century Break in Literature, Culture and the Visual Arts (Routledge, 2018). She is also the author of Virginia Woolf’s Unwritten Histories: Conversations with the Nineteenth Century (Routledge: 2022).