Virginia Woolf scholars from Brazil invite participants from all over the world to submit a proposal to the open forum Virginia Woolf: Sound and Rhythm in Translation, in preparation for the 35th Annual International Conference Virginia Woolf: Woolf and Sound, which will take place in Istanbul, Turkey, 24-28 June 2026.
About the forum
The forum aims to discuss the participants’ texts on sound and rhythm concerning the translation of Virginia Woolf’s oeuvre, with the prospect of having them published after the conference. Papers about all forms of translation, including intersemiotic translations and adaptations, are welcome.
Important notice: There will be a pre-conference meeting to discuss proposals on 22 May 2026, from 9-10 a.m. (GMT-3), pre-conference readings, and a post-conference follow-up to discuss publication ideas on a date to be determined. Both pre- and post-conference meetings will be held online. The number of participants is limited to 15.
As the forum follows a collaborative model, in which researchers share their works in progress and explore possible connections with other researchers’ work, participants are encouraged to take part in both the pre- and post-conference meetings even if they do not plan to attend the conference in person.
How to submit
Submit your proposals (200–300 words) by 30 March 2026. Should you have any questions or comments, please write to woolftranssound26@gmail.com
The organizers of the 34th Annual International Conference on Virginia Woolf, held in London and Sussex last July on the theme of “Woolf and Dissidence,” invite submissions for the upcoming volume in the Virginia Woolf: Selected Papers series.
The volume will add to the digital, open-access series published by Clemson University Press, and will add to the edited collections open to scholars and readers of Woolf from around the world.
The collection will focus on the theme of the 34th annual conference — “Woolf and Dissidence” — and will explore the many forms that dissent takes in Woolf’s work, continuing a conversation about the nature and context of Woolf’s dissidence, while also exploring dissident approaches and responses to Woolf’s writing.
As with previous volumes, between 25 and 30 of the hundreds of papers presented at the conference will be selected for inclusion in the volume.
Submission guidelines and deadline
Submissions should be approximately 2,000-3,500 words, including notes. All submissions must be in Word and follow the Chicago Manual Style Guide. (See further style and formatting guidance here). Authors must secure permissions for quotations or images.
Please send complete, edited papers by March 31 to H.Tyson@sussex.ac.uk.
Please note that submission does not guarantee acceptance; there will be a selection process. Any questions can be sent to Helen Tyson at H.Tyson@sussex.ac.uk.
At the 34th Annual International Conference on Virginia Woolf: Woolf and Dissidence, Anne Fernald gives a keynote address, “Dangerous Days: A Century with Clarissa Dalloway.”
The hellos were said July 4 at King’s College London. The goodbyes were said July 11 at the University of Sussex as the five-day conference came to a close. Under the sunny skies of London and Brighton, both were marked by smiles, laughter, hugs, and promises to meet again.
Here are some photos from the occasions.
Opening reception at King’s College London
Closing reception at the University of Sussex, Brighton
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Conference goers enjoy the fine weather at Charleston before the banquet for the 34th Annual Virginia Woolf Conference, held July 4-8 at King’s College London and the University of Sussex.
Not in the home’s dining room, where every surface is decorated and everyone from Virginia and Leonard Woolf to Roger Fry to Maynard Keynes to Desmond and Molly MacCarthy to T.S. Eliot to Jean Renoir once shared meals and drinks.
That room, with a large round table painted by Vanessa Bell, seats six and would be exceedingly small for the 150 of us who attended the traditional banquet celebrating the 34th Annual International Conference on Virginia Woolf: Woolf and Dissidence.
Gathering in the Hay Barn
Instead, on July 7 we gathered at long tables, beautifully set, in the nearby Hay Barn. I could hardly imagine a more magical, charming site for a meal with so many Woolfians.
We had piled onto buses and rode the 11 miles from the University of Sussex conference site to Charleston, the longtime home of Vanessa and Clive Bell that hosted frequent guests from the Bloomsbury group and beyond.
Our tour of the house and the garden ended with a cocktail reception in the garden before a dinner of boeuf en daube or a vegetarian option in the Hay Barn, located across a short gravel path from the house.
I was also curious about her memories. As the daughter of Quentin Bell, the granddaughter of Vanessa Bell, and the great-niece of Virginia Woolf, who died 14 years before she was born — she had many to share.
Nicholson recalled that the children slept in the attic (now off limits to visitors) when they stayed at Charleston, and she described the atmosphere of the home as “uninhibited and sort of liberated.”
She remembered wearing a mauve dress at the age of five as Vanessa and Duncan Grant painted her portrait, earning a six-pence bribe to sit for them. She owns the painting by Grant but laments the fact that Vanessa’s portrait has never been located.
Nicholson spoke of visiting Monk’s House while Leonard Woolf was alive, and she emphasized his thoughtfulness. When talking to him, “he stopped to think of what he’d say, then he would say it.”
Over the years, Charleston fell into disrepair, and when an effort was made to save it, the Charleston Trust was formed. That work began at Nicholson’s kitchen table, with notes taken on the backs of envelopes. Since 2018, she has served as the president of the Charleston Trust, and Charleston is an internationally renowned museum.
Today, she said, she is “thrilled, amazed and delighted” that the Bloomsbury summer home survives.
It even smells the same. The treasure I grew up with hasn’t changed. I think Vanessa would also recognize that her spirit is still alive here.
Here are some photos from our once-in-a-lifetime evening at Charleston.
Gathering in the Charleston garden for cocktails before dinner.
Long tables, beautifully set, filled the Hay Barn for the conference banquet at Charleston as Vara Neverow, one of the traditional Woolf Players, reads a passage from Woolf’s work.
Banquet goers filled the Hay Barn at Charleston
Jane Goldman of Scotland and Davi Pino of Brazil are engrossed in conversation at the banquet.
Artists Kabe Wilson of England and Ane Thon Knutsen of Norway
Cecilia Servatius of Austria and AnneMarie Bantzinger of the Netherlands
Conference organizers Anna Snaith, Helen Tyson, and Clara Jones react with surprise and glee as they open their thank you gifts presented by Amy Smith, vice president of the International Virginia Woolf Society.
Conference organizers Anna Snaith, Helen Tyson, and Clara Jones happily show off their thank you gifts presented by Amy Smith, vice president of the International Virginia Woolf Society. They received first American editions of Virginia Woolf’s Orlando, The Years, and The Captain’s Death Bed, and Other Essays.
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July 4 pre-conference events at King’s College include a visit to the King’s Archives and a panel discussion on ‘Virginia Woolf: Creative Engagements’ with contemporary writers and artists speaking about their multi-media engagements with Woolf’s writing. The conference itself runs July 5-8 and will be held at the University of Sussex.
Co-organisers are Helen Tyson (Sussex), Clara Jones (King’s) and Anna Snaith (King’s).
We are delighted to bring the Annual Virginia Woolf Conference back to the UK and to two sites – King’s College London and the University of Sussex – with such strong Woolfian connections. – Helen, Clara and Anna
Overview
Virginia Woolf practised a politics of dissent. From her pacifism, deeply held through two World Wars, to her feminism, Woolf continually wrote back to power. She urged transgression and trespass and ‘thinking against the current’, as she wrote in ‘Thoughts on Peace in an Air Raid‘).
Dissent takes many forms in her oeuvre from the overt politics of her major essays to her novelistic defamiliarizing of patriarchal, capitalist, imperialist society. Narratologically, too, her writing swerves and undercuts: its experimentation a form of dissident aesthetics.
The organisers of the 34th Annual Virginia Woolf Conference invite paper, panel, workshop and exhibitions proposals that engage with the theme of ‘Woolf and Dissidence’. They seek to foster conversations about the nature and contexts of Woolf’s
Monk’s House sitting room
dissidence or that of her predecessors, contemporaries and inheritors. What are the limitations of her politics? In what ways did she conform?
In the centenary year of the publication of Mrs Dalloway it is fitting that the 34th Annual Virginia Woolf Conference returns to the UK and to two locations with strong Woolfian connections: King’s College London, where Woolf studied as a teenager, and to Sussex, home to Monk’s House and Charleston.
The conference theme also honours the history of the Centre for the Study of Sexual Dissidence, founded by Alan Sinfield and Jonathan Dollimore, at the University of Sussex. The Centre’s pioneering work in sexuality and queer studies provides a fitting context for the Woolf conference.
Possible topics
Possible topics could include exploration of Woolf, her contemporaries and the following:
political, sexual, gender dissidence: then and now
organisational, institutional or networks of dissent
aesthetic or artistic dissent
religious dissent
radical, activist or mainstream publishing
revolution and activism (in relation to race, gender, sexuality, ecology)
convention, orthodoxy or conformity (political, social, literary, aesthetic)
dissident readings of Woolf
This list is only a starting point, and organizers encourage all ideas and approaches including transdisciplinary, transhistorical and collaborative work.
Who can submit and possible formats
Organizers welcome submissions from academics, readers, students of Woolf and for:
individual papers (1500-characters abstract)
panels or roundtables (3000-characters abstract)
interactive workshops (3000-characters abstract)
exhibits or posters (including digital and material) (3000-characters abstract)
a non-traditional (dissident?) form of presentation (3000-characters abstract)
How to apply
Please apply via the submission form on the conference website at:. https://woolf2025uk/cfp/Deadline: 29 November 2024.
Questions?
Please direct queries to: virginiawoolf2025@gmail.com
Stairway in the Virginia Woolf Building at King’s College, London. In 2017, a Virginia Woolf exhibit was at the top of the stairs, complete with a life-sized wax statue of Woolf. Read more.
