It has been a cold January, and the last few days have plunged us into a deep freeze in Ohio, where I live. So there is no better time to think about summer and to begin making plans to attend Literature Cambridge’s Virginia Woolf Summer Course 2025 with its theme of “Virginia Woolf: Writing Life.”
Register for this summer’s Literature Cambridge course on Virginia Woolf: Writing Life, either live online or in person in Cambridge.
The course will run twice — live online first, then in person in Cambridge, England, later. Here are the details from Trudi Tate of Lit Cambridge.
About the course
How does one write a life — a fictional life or a real life? The 2025 summer course will look at the real and imaginary lives in five of Woolf’s most brilliant novels.
Literature Cambridge summer students at a lecture.
We will explore how Woolf writes the lives of her great fictional characters: Clarissa Dalloway, Septimus Smith, Mrs. Ramsay, the six characters in The Waves (1931). We will study how she uses, and challenges, the traditions of biography in Orlando (1928) and Flush (1933). We will think about Woolf’s own life as a writer, and what that meant. And we will do a reading of her only play, Freshwater, which takes a comical look at the lives of her Victorian forebears.
The course is based on five books which we will study in close detail, one book per day. Each day, there is a lecture and a supervision (tutorial), plus talks and discussions. In Cambridge there are also visits to colleges, two communal dinners, and more.
Lectures
• Trudi Tate, Life and Death in Mrs. Dalloway (1925)
• Ellie Mitchell, To the Lighthouse (1927): Writing from Life, Writing to Life
• Karina Jakubowicz, The Life of Orlando (1928)
• Claire Davison, The Ripple of Life in The Waves (1931)
• Alison Hennegan, Writing Flush (1933)
Talks and readings
- Marielle O’Neill on Leonard Woolf: Reflections on a Political Life
- Claire Davison on Leslie Stephen: Life Force, Life Writer
- Group reading of Woolf’s only play, Freshwater, led by Ellie Mitchell
- Karina Jakubowicz, reading aloud from Woolf’s writing
- Beth Rigel Daugherty on Woolf’s essays on biography (tbc)
- Ann Kennedy Smith on the life and memoir of Jane Harrison, Fellow of Newnham College and friend of Virginia Woolf
Visits
In Cambridge, students will visit Newnham College (est. 1871) and Trinity Hall (est. 1350), with a talk and tour of both colleges.
Live and in-person course dates
- Live online summer course: Thursday, 10 July to Monday 14 July 2025. Get the details and register.
- Summer course in person in Cambridge: Sunday 20 July to Friday 25 July 2025. Get the details and register.
