Penelope: What is Molly saying "yes" to at the end of this work. In what tone does she say it?
(letter from Joyce to Frank Budgen, 16 August 1921,
Letters 1:170, Selected Letters, p. 285)
"Penelope is the clou* of the book. The first sentence contains 2500 words. There are eight sentences in the episode. It begins and ends with the female word yes. It turns like the huge earth ball slowly surely and evenly round and round spinning, its four cardinal points being the female breasts, arse, womb and cunt expressed by the words because, bottom (in all senses bottom button, bottom of the class, bottom of the sea, bottom of his heart), woman, yes. Though probably more obscene than any preceding episode it seems to me to be perfectly sane full amoral fertilisable untrustworthy engaging shrewd limited prudent indifferent Weib.** Ich bin der Fleisch der stets bejaht.***"
* the "star turn," or topper
** woman
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Yeats Plays: May 6-April
THE IRISH REPERTORY THEATRE presents
The Irish Repertory Theatre presents The Yeats Project.
Charlotte Moore and Ciarán O'Reilly, directors
This month-long festival will present all 26 plays written by William Butler Yeats
performed in repertory. In addition, the festival includes special evenings of dance, poetry,
films, lectures, and more, with some very special guests.
Monday, 7-8 p.m. April 6 Readings marking Poetry Month & presentation of our poetry awards by competition judge Alice Quinn, executive director of the Poetry Society of America and former poetry editor of The New Yorker and poets Greg Delanty and Bill Zavatsky. At Barnes & Noble Union Square, 33 East 17 Street at Park Avenue South. Free.
April 8- May 3. The Yeats Project The Irish Repertory Theatre, 132 West 22 Street, presents all 26 Yeats plays. Cycle A The Countess Cathleen, The Cat and the Moon, and On Baile’s Strand; Cycle B The Land of Heart’s Desire, The Pot of Broth, Purgatory, A Full Moon in March, and Cathleen Ni Houlihan; on their Main Stage and the rest concert readings in their downstairs Studio Theatre. Single tickets to Cycle A or B performances $65 and $55, to all other events at the Rep $20; Yeats Society members get a 20% discount; a Festival Pass for on admission to all Yeats Project events is $100, no discounts. Tickets may be purchased at the box office or a 212-727-2737.
Wed, Apr 8, 3 p.m. Main: Cycle A; 8 p.m. Main: Cycle B. Thur, Apr 9, 8 p.m. Main: Cycle A. Fri, Apr 10, 8 p.m. Main: Cycle B; Studio: Readings of Calvary, The Resurrection, The Hour Glass, and screening of “Yeats and the Theatre.” Sat, Apr 11, 3 p.m. Main: Cycle A; Studio: Readings of Deirdre, The Death of Cuchulain, The Dreaming of the Bones; 8 p.m. Main: Cycle B; Studio: Readings of The Shadowy Waters, The Only Jealousy of Emer, The King’s Threshold. Sun, Apr 12, 3 p.m. Main: Cycle A; Studio: Readings of Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex, Sophocles’ Oedipus at Colonus. Tue, Apr 14, 8 p.m. Main: “The Fiddle and the Pen”-Frank McCourt, Colm McCann, Ciaran Sheehan and musicians read Yeats and discuss his influence on their work. Wed, Apr 15, 3 p.m. Main: Cycle A; 8 p.m. Main: Opening night-Cycle B. Thur, Apr 16, 8 p.m. Main: Cycle B; Studio: Readings of The King of the Great Clock Tower, The Unicorn from the Stars, The Herne’s Egg. Fri, Apr 17, 8 p.m. Main: Cycle A; Studio: Screening of the 1994 film Words Upon the Window Pane starring Geraldine Chaplin. Sat, Apr 18, 3 p.m. Main: Cycle A; Studio: “The Pilgrim Soul: the Love Poems,” music, song and the documentary Affairs of the Heart about Yeats and the women in his life; 8 p.m. Main: Cycle A; Studio: “The Pilgrim Soul: the Love Poems,” (see 3 p.m.). Sun, Apr 19, 3 p.m. Main: Cycle A: “The Pilgrim Soul...” (See Apr 18). Tue, Apr 21, 8 p.m. I Darrah Carr Dance Recital, Yeats poems introduce a blend of traditional Irish step and modern dance. Wed, Apr 22, 3 p.m. Main: Cycle B; 8 p.m. Main: Cycle A; Studio: Reading of Sandra Deer’s play Sailing to Byzantium about Yeats, Pound and the Shakespear women. Thur, Apr 23, 8 p.m. Main: Cycle A. Fri, Apr 24, 8 p.m. Main: Cycle A, then discussion led by James Flannery; Studio: Readings of At Hawk’s Well, The Green Helmet, and The Player Queen, screening of “Players and the Painted Stage.” Sat, Apr 25, 3 p.m. Main: Cycle B; Studio: Panel on form and ideas in the theater of Yeats; 8 p.m. Main: Cycle A. Sun, Apr 26, 3 p.m. Main: Cycle B; Studio: “A Terrible Beauty: Politics and Passion,” Yeats’s writings in response to tumultuous times and screening of “The Mask” about his later years. Tue, Apr 28, 8 p.m. Main: Music and song, audience members join Marian Seldes, John McMartin, Christina Price, David Staller in reading Yeats poems (if you intend to participate, title of your chosen Yeats poem must accompany reservation). Wed, Apr 29, 3 p.m. Main: Cycle B; 8 p.m. Main: Cycle A. Thur, Apr 30, 7 p.m. at American Irish Historical Society, 991 Fifth Ave., reading of The Words upon the Window-Pane; 8 p.m. Main: Cycle B. Fri, May 1, 8 p.m. Main: Cycle B. Sat, May 2, 3 p.m. Main: Cycle B; 8 p.m. Main: Cycle A; Studio: “The Waters and the Wild: Early Poems and Folk Stories,” reading of Yeats poems and tales of Sligo and early folk discoveries, and screening of “The Life and Works of W.B. Yeats.” Sun, May 3, 3 p.m. Main: Cycle A.
Performance Schedule
See the Schedule of Events on our home page or contact our Box Office at (212) 727-2737
for the complete schedule.
[top]
How to Buy Tickets
Tickets can be purchased by calling (212) 727-2737 or at the Box Office.
The Irish Repertory Theatre is located at 132 West 22nd Street, between 6th and 7th Avenues.
[top]
Ticket Prices
Student ticket price is $20, with valid student ID. One ticket per ID.
The Irish Repertory Theatre presents The Yeats Project.
Charlotte Moore and Ciarán O'Reilly, directors
This month-long festival will present all 26 plays written by William Butler Yeats
performed in repertory. In addition, the festival includes special evenings of dance, poetry,
films, lectures, and more, with some very special guests.
Monday, 7-8 p.m. April 6 Readings marking Poetry Month & presentation of our poetry awards by competition judge Alice Quinn, executive director of the Poetry Society of America and former poetry editor of The New Yorker and poets Greg Delanty and Bill Zavatsky. At Barnes & Noble Union Square, 33 East 17 Street at Park Avenue South. Free.
April 8- May 3. The Yeats Project The Irish Repertory Theatre, 132 West 22 Street, presents all 26 Yeats plays. Cycle A The Countess Cathleen, The Cat and the Moon, and On Baile’s Strand; Cycle B The Land of Heart’s Desire, The Pot of Broth, Purgatory, A Full Moon in March, and Cathleen Ni Houlihan; on their Main Stage and the rest concert readings in their downstairs Studio Theatre. Single tickets to Cycle A or B performances $65 and $55, to all other events at the Rep $20; Yeats Society members get a 20% discount; a Festival Pass for on admission to all Yeats Project events is $100, no discounts. Tickets may be purchased at the box office or a 212-727-2737.
Wed, Apr 8, 3 p.m. Main: Cycle A; 8 p.m. Main: Cycle B. Thur, Apr 9, 8 p.m. Main: Cycle A. Fri, Apr 10, 8 p.m. Main: Cycle B; Studio: Readings of Calvary, The Resurrection, The Hour Glass, and screening of “Yeats and the Theatre.” Sat, Apr 11, 3 p.m. Main: Cycle A; Studio: Readings of Deirdre, The Death of Cuchulain, The Dreaming of the Bones; 8 p.m. Main: Cycle B; Studio: Readings of The Shadowy Waters, The Only Jealousy of Emer, The King’s Threshold. Sun, Apr 12, 3 p.m. Main: Cycle A; Studio: Readings of Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex, Sophocles’ Oedipus at Colonus. Tue, Apr 14, 8 p.m. Main: “The Fiddle and the Pen”-Frank McCourt, Colm McCann, Ciaran Sheehan and musicians read Yeats and discuss his influence on their work. Wed, Apr 15, 3 p.m. Main: Cycle A; 8 p.m. Main: Opening night-Cycle B. Thur, Apr 16, 8 p.m. Main: Cycle B; Studio: Readings of The King of the Great Clock Tower, The Unicorn from the Stars, The Herne’s Egg. Fri, Apr 17, 8 p.m. Main: Cycle A; Studio: Screening of the 1994 film Words Upon the Window Pane starring Geraldine Chaplin. Sat, Apr 18, 3 p.m. Main: Cycle A; Studio: “The Pilgrim Soul: the Love Poems,” music, song and the documentary Affairs of the Heart about Yeats and the women in his life; 8 p.m. Main: Cycle A; Studio: “The Pilgrim Soul: the Love Poems,” (see 3 p.m.). Sun, Apr 19, 3 p.m. Main: Cycle A: “The Pilgrim Soul...” (See Apr 18). Tue, Apr 21, 8 p.m. I Darrah Carr Dance Recital, Yeats poems introduce a blend of traditional Irish step and modern dance. Wed, Apr 22, 3 p.m. Main: Cycle B; 8 p.m. Main: Cycle A; Studio: Reading of Sandra Deer’s play Sailing to Byzantium about Yeats, Pound and the Shakespear women. Thur, Apr 23, 8 p.m. Main: Cycle A. Fri, Apr 24, 8 p.m. Main: Cycle A, then discussion led by James Flannery; Studio: Readings of At Hawk’s Well, The Green Helmet, and The Player Queen, screening of “Players and the Painted Stage.” Sat, Apr 25, 3 p.m. Main: Cycle B; Studio: Panel on form and ideas in the theater of Yeats; 8 p.m. Main: Cycle A. Sun, Apr 26, 3 p.m. Main: Cycle B; Studio: “A Terrible Beauty: Politics and Passion,” Yeats’s writings in response to tumultuous times and screening of “The Mask” about his later years. Tue, Apr 28, 8 p.m. Main: Music and song, audience members join Marian Seldes, John McMartin, Christina Price, David Staller in reading Yeats poems (if you intend to participate, title of your chosen Yeats poem must accompany reservation). Wed, Apr 29, 3 p.m. Main: Cycle B; 8 p.m. Main: Cycle A. Thur, Apr 30, 7 p.m. at American Irish Historical Society, 991 Fifth Ave., reading of The Words upon the Window-Pane; 8 p.m. Main: Cycle B. Fri, May 1, 8 p.m. Main: Cycle B. Sat, May 2, 3 p.m. Main: Cycle B; 8 p.m. Main: Cycle A; Studio: “The Waters and the Wild: Early Poems and Folk Stories,” reading of Yeats poems and tales of Sligo and early folk discoveries, and screening of “The Life and Works of W.B. Yeats.” Sun, May 3, 3 p.m. Main: Cycle A.
Performance Schedule
See the Schedule of Events on our home page or contact our Box Office at (212) 727-2737
for the complete schedule.
[top]
How to Buy Tickets
Tickets can be purchased by calling (212) 727-2737 or at the Box Office.
The Irish Repertory Theatre is located at 132 West 22nd Street, between 6th and 7th Avenues.
[top]
Ticket Prices
Student ticket price is $20, with valid student ID. One ticket per ID.
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
American Lit Conference, Boston, May 21st-24th
Check it out on-line if interested in American Lit. Parts of the program are posted.
American Literature Association
A Coalition of Societies
Devoted to the Study of
American Authors
20th Annual Conference on American Literature
May 21-24, 2009
The Westin Copley Place
10 Huntington Avenue
Boston, MA 02116
(617) 262-9600
Grad Student registration: $50
American Literature Association
A Coalition of Societies
Devoted to the Study of
American Authors
20th Annual Conference on American Literature
May 21-24, 2009
The Westin Copley Place
10 Huntington Avenue
Boston, MA 02116
(617) 262-9600
Grad Student registration: $50
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Joyce: Response Paper
Please describe your reading experience of the first three chapters of Joyce's Ulysses.
Bibliography: Joyce
Just came across this book:
James Joyce’s Judaic Other,
Marilyn Reizbaum
1999
208 pp.
Reviews
“James Joyce’s Judaic Other constitutes a major contribution to Joyce scholarship.”—Shofar
“[An] important contribution to Joyce studies . . . .a detailed . . . .account of the Jewish background to Ulysses, one that will challenge readers to pursue on their own the important connections with other contexts that she has left unexplored.”—Religion and the Arts
How does recent scholarship on ethnicity and race speak to the Jewish dimension of James Joyce’s writing? What light has Joyce himself already cast on the complex question of their relationship? This book poses these questions in terms of models of the other drawn from psychoanalytic and cultural studies and from Jewish cultural studies, arguing that in Joyce the emblematic figure of otherness is “the Jew.”
The work of Emmanuel Levinas, Sander Gilman, Gillian Rose, Homi Bhabha, among others, is brought to bear on the literature, by Jews and non-Jews alike, that has forged the representation of Jews and Judaism in this century. Joyce was familiar with this literature, like that of Theodor Herzl. Joyce sholarship has largely neglected even these sources, however, including Max Nordau, who contributed significantly to the philosophy of Zionism, and the literature on the “psychobiology” of race—so prominent in the fin de siècle—all of which circulates around and through Joyce’s depictions of Jews and Jewishness.
Several Joyce scholars have shown the significance of the concept of the other for Joyce’s work and, more recently, have employed a variety of approaches from within contemporary deliberations of the ideology of race, gender, and nationality to illuminate its impact. The author combines these approaches to demonstrate how any modern characterization of otherness must be informed by historical representations of “the Jew” and, consequently, by the history of anti-Semitism. She does so through a thematics and poetics of Jewishness that together form a discourse and method for Joyce’s novel.
James Joyce’s Judaic Other,
Marilyn Reizbaum
1999
208 pp.
Reviews
“James Joyce’s Judaic Other constitutes a major contribution to Joyce scholarship.”—Shofar
“[An] important contribution to Joyce studies . . . .a detailed . . . .account of the Jewish background to Ulysses, one that will challenge readers to pursue on their own the important connections with other contexts that she has left unexplored.”—Religion and the Arts
How does recent scholarship on ethnicity and race speak to the Jewish dimension of James Joyce’s writing? What light has Joyce himself already cast on the complex question of their relationship? This book poses these questions in terms of models of the other drawn from psychoanalytic and cultural studies and from Jewish cultural studies, arguing that in Joyce the emblematic figure of otherness is “the Jew.”
The work of Emmanuel Levinas, Sander Gilman, Gillian Rose, Homi Bhabha, among others, is brought to bear on the literature, by Jews and non-Jews alike, that has forged the representation of Jews and Judaism in this century. Joyce was familiar with this literature, like that of Theodor Herzl. Joyce sholarship has largely neglected even these sources, however, including Max Nordau, who contributed significantly to the philosophy of Zionism, and the literature on the “psychobiology” of race—so prominent in the fin de siècle—all of which circulates around and through Joyce’s depictions of Jews and Jewishness.
Several Joyce scholars have shown the significance of the concept of the other for Joyce’s work and, more recently, have employed a variety of approaches from within contemporary deliberations of the ideology of race, gender, and nationality to illuminate its impact. The author combines these approaches to demonstrate how any modern characterization of otherness must be informed by historical representations of “the Jew” and, consequently, by the history of anti-Semitism. She does so through a thematics and poetics of Jewishness that together form a discourse and method for Joyce’s novel.
Friday, February 27, 2009
Ulysses Readings
You will be expected to read through all of Joyce's Ulysses, but we will focus in class on the style and meaning of particular chapters. You won't "get" all of it but keep reading.
You can use the Gifford guide on Reserve in the library, and the rich material (Joyce's schemas, the directions for reading that Joyce gave to early scholars etc.) on each chapter that is on-line courtesy of the Joyce expert, Professor Michael Groden. He has generously allowed others to consult materials that he has organized over many years including his own notes. See the heading, Pages for Each Episode, on the web page below, and read the sections on Characters, Location; Thoughts and Questions, Comments by Joyce, Joyce's Schemas, Homerica Parallels, Details that Reoccur. This will ground you as you experience and explore Joyce's styles and themes.
http://publish.uwo.ca/~mgroden/92StY/
I will explain how you can use these materials in class.
However, the approach I will use is the following. Forget all the critics. Observe the language and style of the first few pages of each chapter carefully. What is the style of the chapter? What can happen in this style? What can't? And what can we learn about characters in this style (and, therefore, people)?
3/12 Telemachus, Nestor,
3/19 Calypso,Lotus Eaters, Aeolus
3/26 Nausicaa, Cyclops
4/2 Circe, Penelope
You can use the Gifford guide on Reserve in the library, and the rich material (Joyce's schemas, the directions for reading that Joyce gave to early scholars etc.) on each chapter that is on-line courtesy of the Joyce expert, Professor Michael Groden. He has generously allowed others to consult materials that he has organized over many years including his own notes. See the heading, Pages for Each Episode, on the web page below, and read the sections on Characters, Location; Thoughts and Questions, Comments by Joyce, Joyce's Schemas, Homerica Parallels, Details that Reoccur. This will ground you as you experience and explore Joyce's styles and themes.
http://publish.uwo.ca/~mgroden/92StY/
I will explain how you can use these materials in class.
However, the approach I will use is the following. Forget all the critics. Observe the language and style of the first few pages of each chapter carefully. What is the style of the chapter? What can happen in this style? What can't? And what can we learn about characters in this style (and, therefore, people)?
3/12 Telemachus, Nestor,
3/19 Calypso,Lotus Eaters, Aeolus
3/26 Nausicaa, Cyclops
4/2 Circe, Penelope
Woolf Question 2/26-3/2
After reading the Diary entries about TL distributed last week, and in your own reading experience, which character do you think is the Center of the novel, and why? What does Woolf say in the diary? How does this fit with your sense of the novel?
Literary Societies
If you have an interest in Proust, Woolf or Joyce, you might want to join one of these literary groups. More information on each below:
1. Mercantile Library: Proust Reading Groups
(http://www.mercantilelibrary.org/groups/proust.php)
2. Virginia Woolf Society (annual meeting, this year at Fordham U in June, and on-line discussions (www.utoronto.ca.IVWS);
3. James Joyce Society (www.joycesociety.org)
1.The Mercantile Library Center for Fiction
Readings & Panels
Special Series
Annual Awards Dinner
Fiction Studio/Classes
Writing Classes
Gordon Lish
Writers' Studio
Application (PDF)
Fiction Awards
The John Sargent Sr.
First Novel Prize
The Clifton
Fadiman Medal
The Maxwell E.
Perkins Award
Reading Groups
The Proust Society:
About the Society
The Proust Society of America is a permanent program of The Mercantile Library Center for Fiction. Established in 1997, the Society's mission is to encourage the reading, study and enjoyment of the works of Marcel Proust (1871-1922), whose primary achievement, À la recherche du temps perdu, continues to be considered by most critics as one of the world's great works of fiction, almost a century after its composition was begun.
The Society presents several lectures for the public, which are free to Proust members, holds an annual dinner to commemorate Proust's birthday, and sends additional information through its regular e-mail list.
The Society now hosts three reading discussion groups at the Library. Group I is for people reading Proust for the first time. Group II is for people who have read Proust at least once, and Group III offers a much closer reading for those further advanced.
The Proust Society Discussion Group
The Mercantile Library Center for Fiction is pleased to announce the rebirth of Proust Reading Groups I and II. Starting in September of 2006 each group will start anew on their study of the Random House edition of Remembrance of Things Past. Both groups will follow the same reading schedule of approximately 100 pages per month, when the groups arrive at the last volume, the readings will slow down to 50 pages per month. The entire process will take four long delicious years.
Group I meets at 5:30pm the first Wednesday of every month.
Group II meets at 5:30pm the third Thursday of every month.
Group III meets at 5:30pm the first Tuesday of every month.
A Proust Society Membership is required for registration. Membership to the Proust Society includes full membership to the Mercantile Library Center for Fiction.
Click here to see the reading list for Proust Groups I and II
2. International Virginia Woolf Soceity (www.utoronto.ca.IVWS)
Conferences
Annual Virginia Woolf Conference | M.L.A. Convention | Other Announcements
International Annual Virginia Woolf Conference
2009
WOOLF AND THE CITY
The Nineteenth Annual Conference on Virginia Woolf
June 4-7, 2009
Fordham University
Lincoln Center, New York, NY, USA
As an Allied Organization of the Modern Language Association , the International Virginia Woolf Society sponsors two sessions at the annual MLA Convention. Sessions are organized and chaired by members of the Modern Language Association. The MLA requires all presenters to be active members of the Modern Language Association. The IVWS invites, but does not require, all presenters to join the Society.
About Us | Bibliography | Conferences | Links | CFPs
VW Listserv | MLA Info | Current News | Home
3. The James Joyce Society
Celebrate the 75 Anniversary of the American Publication of Ulysses on Monday, Feb, 2, 6:30 pm, at the Roger Smith Hotel, Lexington & 47th, NYC
Joyce Events Calendar for 2009
(Trieste, Bloomsday, Buffalo, Dublin) W h a t ' s n e w ?
Celebrate the 75 Anniversary of the 1934 Ulysses Monday, Feb. 2 at the Roger Smith Hotel
Michael Groden's Joyce Course Feb. 22- March 29, 2009 at the 92nd St. Y
New JJS Meeting Venues The Gotham is closed
Early days of the Joyce Society Zack Bowen's memoir
Table of Contents
The James Joyce Society, founded in 1947, is devoted to the appreciation of the life, works, and significance of the Irish author (1882-1941). Meetings take place several times a year in New York City as announced. (Formerly, meetings took place at the Gotham Book Mart, a landmark bookstore and writers' center, which unfortunately is now closed.) [more]
Programs: The 2008 program schedule [more] Membership: Print out the application form to join or renew The James Joyce Society for 2008 ....[more]
Gallery: View original art, illustrations, and photography from The James Joyce Society collection ©....[more] Gotham Book Mart: Now closed, this world-renowned haven for New York writers, founded in 1920, is remembered in this 1948 photograph...[more]
Archive: Past events in 2001-2007 included Bloomsday celebrations and Fall and Spring programs...[more] Links: Follow links to the Finnegans Wake Society of New York and selected Joyce web pages for text, criticism, media, and discussion....[more]
Browsers: The joycesociety.org pages are formatted for Internet Explorer, Firefox, Netscape, Opera and similar Windows and Macintosh browsers. For wireless/handheld/accessibility devices and printing, use plain text. For hints on optimizing viewing and printing, see help.
Email: Send email info@joycesociety.org
President: A. Nicholas Fargnoli, afargnoli@molloy.edu
1. Mercantile Library: Proust Reading Groups
(http://www.mercantilelibrary.org/groups/proust.php)
2. Virginia Woolf Society (annual meeting, this year at Fordham U in June, and on-line discussions (www.utoronto.ca.IVWS);
3. James Joyce Society (www.joycesociety.org)
1.The Mercantile Library Center for Fiction
Readings & Panels
Special Series
Annual Awards Dinner
Fiction Studio/Classes
Writing Classes
Gordon Lish
Writers' Studio
Application (PDF)
Fiction Awards
The John Sargent Sr.
First Novel Prize
The Clifton
Fadiman Medal
The Maxwell E.
Perkins Award
Reading Groups
The Proust Society:
About the Society
The Proust Society of America is a permanent program of The Mercantile Library Center for Fiction. Established in 1997, the Society's mission is to encourage the reading, study and enjoyment of the works of Marcel Proust (1871-1922), whose primary achievement, À la recherche du temps perdu, continues to be considered by most critics as one of the world's great works of fiction, almost a century after its composition was begun.
The Society presents several lectures for the public, which are free to Proust members, holds an annual dinner to commemorate Proust's birthday, and sends additional information through its regular e-mail list.
The Society now hosts three reading discussion groups at the Library. Group I is for people reading Proust for the first time. Group II is for people who have read Proust at least once, and Group III offers a much closer reading for those further advanced.
The Proust Society Discussion Group
The Mercantile Library Center for Fiction is pleased to announce the rebirth of Proust Reading Groups I and II. Starting in September of 2006 each group will start anew on their study of the Random House edition of Remembrance of Things Past. Both groups will follow the same reading schedule of approximately 100 pages per month, when the groups arrive at the last volume, the readings will slow down to 50 pages per month. The entire process will take four long delicious years.
Group I meets at 5:30pm the first Wednesday of every month.
Group II meets at 5:30pm the third Thursday of every month.
Group III meets at 5:30pm the first Tuesday of every month.
A Proust Society Membership is required for registration. Membership to the Proust Society includes full membership to the Mercantile Library Center for Fiction.
Click here to see the reading list for Proust Groups I and II
2. International Virginia Woolf Soceity (www.utoronto.ca.IVWS)
Conferences
Annual Virginia Woolf Conference | M.L.A. Convention | Other Announcements
International Annual Virginia Woolf Conference
2009
WOOLF AND THE CITY
The Nineteenth Annual Conference on Virginia Woolf
June 4-7, 2009
Fordham University
Lincoln Center, New York, NY, USA
As an Allied Organization of the Modern Language Association , the International Virginia Woolf Society sponsors two sessions at the annual MLA Convention. Sessions are organized and chaired by members of the Modern Language Association. The MLA requires all presenters to be active members of the Modern Language Association. The IVWS invites, but does not require, all presenters to join the Society.
About Us | Bibliography | Conferences | Links | CFPs
VW Listserv | MLA Info | Current News | Home
3. The James Joyce Society
Celebrate the 75 Anniversary of the American Publication of Ulysses on Monday, Feb, 2, 6:30 pm, at the Roger Smith Hotel, Lexington & 47th, NYC
Joyce Events Calendar for 2009
(Trieste, Bloomsday, Buffalo, Dublin) W h a t ' s n e w ?
Celebrate the 75 Anniversary of the 1934 Ulysses Monday, Feb. 2 at the Roger Smith Hotel
Michael Groden's Joyce Course Feb. 22- March 29, 2009 at the 92nd St. Y
New JJS Meeting Venues The Gotham is closed
Early days of the Joyce Society Zack Bowen's memoir
Table of Contents
The James Joyce Society, founded in 1947, is devoted to the appreciation of the life, works, and significance of the Irish author (1882-1941). Meetings take place several times a year in New York City as announced. (Formerly, meetings took place at the Gotham Book Mart, a landmark bookstore and writers' center, which unfortunately is now closed.) [more]
Programs: The 2008 program schedule [more] Membership: Print out the application form to join or renew The James Joyce Society for 2008 ....[more]
Gallery: View original art, illustrations, and photography from The James Joyce Society collection ©....[more] Gotham Book Mart: Now closed, this world-renowned haven for New York writers, founded in 1920, is remembered in this 1948 photograph...[more]
Archive: Past events in 2001-2007 included Bloomsday celebrations and Fall and Spring programs...[more] Links: Follow links to the Finnegans Wake Society of New York and selected Joyce web pages for text, criticism, media, and discussion....[more]
Browsers: The joycesociety.org pages are formatted for Internet Explorer, Firefox, Netscape, Opera and similar Windows and Macintosh browsers. For wireless/handheld/accessibility devices and printing, use plain text. For hints on optimizing viewing and printing, see help.
Email: Send email info@joycesociety.org
President: A. Nicholas Fargnoli, afargnoli@molloy.edu
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Virginia Woolf Blog
Student blog on Woolf. Join in the conversation if you like. Students at Fordham U have started this blog:
http://woolf3504.blogspot.com/
http://woolf3504.blogspot.com/
Friday, February 20, 2009
Virginia Woolf Talk, Fri.March 6th, Grad Center
As part of Women's History Month, Surrey historian David Taylor will be speaking at the CUNY Grad Center on "Mrs. Dalloway Goes to the Lighthouse." Vernon Lushington, the subject whose biography he is writing, was the father of the woman Virginia Woolf based Mrs. Dalloway upon, Kitty Maxse.
His talk will be Friday March 6th, 4-6 p. m., room 4406 of the Grad. Center (365 5th Avenue, between 34th and 35th). It is being sponsored by the Women's Studies Certificate Program and the English Department.
(He will also be speaking on Thursday March 12, 6 p. m., at the Grolier Club, 47 East 60th St. Tickets there are $12 for members, $18 nonmembers - www.morrissociety.org The Grolier Club talk is entitled "Vernon Lushington: Pre-Raphaelite, Friend of William Morris, and Father of 'Mrs. Dalloway.'")
His talk will be Friday March 6th, 4-6 p. m., room 4406 of the Grad. Center (365 5th Avenue, between 34th and 35th). It is being sponsored by the Women's Studies Certificate Program and the English Department.
(He will also be speaking on Thursday March 12, 6 p. m., at the Grolier Club, 47 East 60th St. Tickets there are $12 for members, $18 nonmembers - www.morrissociety.org The Grolier Club talk is entitled "Vernon Lushington: Pre-Raphaelite, Friend of William Morris, and Father of 'Mrs. Dalloway.'")
Topics: Short Paper
English 753 Twentieth-Century Literature P.Laurence
Shorter Paper: Topics (focused on different types of literary criticism)
Length: 3 pp.
Expectations: A well-organized essay with attention to thoughtfulness, support of views with quotations from the text, correctness, proofreading. Please follow MLA guidelines for quotation. You are not expected to consult critical sources for this paper but rather reveal your own literary thinking and interpretation. The longer paper will require conversation with the critics.
Please consider the shorter paper as a preparation for or an exploration of a topic that may develop and continue into the longer essay.
1. Reader Response
F. R. Leavis posed the question, “why study literature?” He has argued that the study of literature makes us better people because it engages us in a discussion of human values and complexities, and refines our moral sense. Harold Bloom states that this is untrue. Great writers, he says, undermine important humanist values:
The Iliad teaches the surpassing glory of armed victory, while Dante rejoices in the eternal torments he visits upon his very personal enemies. ...Dostoevsky preaches anti-semitism, obscurantism and the necessity of human bondage…Milton’s ideas of free speech and free press do not preclude the imposition of all manner of social restraints. Spenser rejoices in the massacre of Irish rebels, while the egomania of Wordsworth exalts his own poetic mind over any other source of splendor. (The Western Canon)
Take a position for or against Leavis or Bloom’s position. “Why study literature?” Use the books read in the early part of the semester—Proust’s Combray or Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse—as part of your argument.
2. Narrative Techniques
The queen died. Story
The queen died of grief. Plot
The queen died; no one knew why. Mystery
Discuss either Proust’s Combray or Woolf’s To the Lighthouse in relation to the elements of plot, story and mystery as suggested above. Or you may explore notions of character development or narrative techniques for capturing consciousness.
Given that this is a short paper, it might be useful to focus on one or two elements of narration, and what you observe in Proust or Woolf’s writing.
3. Genetic Criticism: criticism that is based on sources like diaries, mss. drafts, holographs, and transcripts that precede the work.
A more open-ended topic, suitable to continue into the longer paper (or even a thesis). See www.woolfonline.com as well as class blog for this assignment: www.bc20thcenturylit.blogspot.com
What kinds of literary questions might you generate after reading on-line some of the Virginia Woolf diary entries and the historical information on the 1926 General Strike of Miners—written during the time she was writing To the Lighthouse? Relate any aspect (a few entries of the Diary or historical information) to the text of To the Lighthouse?
Focus on what interests you.
What are the connections between the private life of Virginia Woolf and public historical events that swirl around her? What is the relation between the private and public in the life and writing of an author?
This assignment is for those who feel comfortable working with materials on-line.
4. Defining Literary Terms
Define the terms “modernism” and “modernity” in terms of your reading of Proust’s Combray or Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse.
5. Textual Analysis
Compare the passage on the mother’s kiss in Proust’s Combray to the first 8-9 pages in “The Window” section of Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse (up to the passage “For they were making the great expedition…”)
Shorter Paper: Topics (focused on different types of literary criticism)
Length: 3 pp.
Expectations: A well-organized essay with attention to thoughtfulness, support of views with quotations from the text, correctness, proofreading. Please follow MLA guidelines for quotation. You are not expected to consult critical sources for this paper but rather reveal your own literary thinking and interpretation. The longer paper will require conversation with the critics.
Please consider the shorter paper as a preparation for or an exploration of a topic that may develop and continue into the longer essay.
1. Reader Response
F. R. Leavis posed the question, “why study literature?” He has argued that the study of literature makes us better people because it engages us in a discussion of human values and complexities, and refines our moral sense. Harold Bloom states that this is untrue. Great writers, he says, undermine important humanist values:
The Iliad teaches the surpassing glory of armed victory, while Dante rejoices in the eternal torments he visits upon his very personal enemies. ...Dostoevsky preaches anti-semitism, obscurantism and the necessity of human bondage…Milton’s ideas of free speech and free press do not preclude the imposition of all manner of social restraints. Spenser rejoices in the massacre of Irish rebels, while the egomania of Wordsworth exalts his own poetic mind over any other source of splendor. (The Western Canon)
Take a position for or against Leavis or Bloom’s position. “Why study literature?” Use the books read in the early part of the semester—Proust’s Combray or Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse—as part of your argument.
2. Narrative Techniques
The queen died. Story
The queen died of grief. Plot
The queen died; no one knew why. Mystery
Discuss either Proust’s Combray or Woolf’s To the Lighthouse in relation to the elements of plot, story and mystery as suggested above. Or you may explore notions of character development or narrative techniques for capturing consciousness.
Given that this is a short paper, it might be useful to focus on one or two elements of narration, and what you observe in Proust or Woolf’s writing.
3. Genetic Criticism: criticism that is based on sources like diaries, mss. drafts, holographs, and transcripts that precede the work.
A more open-ended topic, suitable to continue into the longer paper (or even a thesis). See www.woolfonline.com as well as class blog for this assignment: www.bc20thcenturylit.blogspot.com
What kinds of literary questions might you generate after reading on-line some of the Virginia Woolf diary entries and the historical information on the 1926 General Strike of Miners—written during the time she was writing To the Lighthouse? Relate any aspect (a few entries of the Diary or historical information) to the text of To the Lighthouse?
Focus on what interests you.
What are the connections between the private life of Virginia Woolf and public historical events that swirl around her? What is the relation between the private and public in the life and writing of an author?
This assignment is for those who feel comfortable working with materials on-line.
4. Defining Literary Terms
Define the terms “modernism” and “modernity” in terms of your reading of Proust’s Combray or Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse.
5. Textual Analysis
Compare the passage on the mother’s kiss in Proust’s Combray to the first 8-9 pages in “The Window” section of Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse (up to the passage “For they were making the great expedition…”)
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Proust Question 2/16-23
In what way is the magic lantern (p.9) a symbol that will radiate outward in Combray-- as well as the rest of the work that portrays, among other things, the growth of an artist. Discuss the meaning of the magic lantern.
Monday, February 9, 2009
So Ct. Grad Student Call for Papers:Deadline 3/1
Call for Papers
from Marika Georgiou
Tenth Annual Southern Connecticut State University Graduate English
Conference:
Reading. Teaching. Theorizing. Writing.
Southern Connecticut State University
Adanti Student Center
April 18, 2009
Panel:
Disillusion and Despair: How Modern British Writers Attempt to Define an Indefinable World
I am soliciting papers for a panel which seeks to examine the ways in which Modern British writers explored the changing politics of gender, faith, class and imperial power while coming to terms with the effects of the First World War and its aftermath. Of particular interest are papers which analyze theme, symbol and structure in one work or a comparison of works. I welcome papers on any literary genre written between the World Wars.
Papers should be 6-8 pages in length, which will be delivered in 15-20 minute presentations. Proposals should include the paper’s title, presenter’s name, and contact information (day and evening phone numbers, e-mail and surface mail address), along with a 250-word abstract of paper.
Deadline: March 1st, 2009. Early submissions requested.
Interested parties should contact:
Marika Georgiou
georgioum1@southernct.edu
or
Marika Georgiou
c/o Dr. Kenneth Florey
Department of English, SCSU,
501 Crescent Street,
New Haven, CT 06515
from Marika Georgiou
Tenth Annual Southern Connecticut State University Graduate English
Conference:
Reading. Teaching. Theorizing. Writing.
Southern Connecticut State University
Adanti Student Center
April 18, 2009
Panel:
Disillusion and Despair: How Modern British Writers Attempt to Define an Indefinable World
I am soliciting papers for a panel which seeks to examine the ways in which Modern British writers explored the changing politics of gender, faith, class and imperial power while coming to terms with the effects of the First World War and its aftermath. Of particular interest are papers which analyze theme, symbol and structure in one work or a comparison of works. I welcome papers on any literary genre written between the World Wars.
Papers should be 6-8 pages in length, which will be delivered in 15-20 minute presentations. Proposals should include the paper’s title, presenter’s name, and contact information (day and evening phone numbers, e-mail and surface mail address), along with a 250-word abstract of paper.
Deadline: March 1st, 2009. Early submissions requested.
Interested parties should contact:
Marika Georgiou
georgioum1@southernct.edu
or
Marika Georgiou
c/o Dr. Kenneth Florey
Department of English, SCSU,
501 Crescent Street,
New Haven, CT 06515
Shorter/Longer Paper: Potential Topic, Woolf On-Line
This is a potential topic among others that I will suggest. This contextual material may be used for the shorter paper (some small part of it) and then developed in the longer paper. This assignment is for those who feel comfortable working with materials on-line. Other more direct assignments will be given in class.
Woolf On-Line: Potential Paper Topics
Question: What kinds of literary questions might you generate after reading some of the diary entries and the historical information below as well as the text of To the Lighthouse? What are the connections between the private life and public historical events in the life and writings of an author?
Ways of developing a paper from the sources below will be discussed in class and in
Individual conferences
Julia Briggs, an eminent critic and biographer of Virginia Woolf, who died last year, created a wonderful Virginia Woolf resource on-line for the underlying aspects of To the Lighthouse (diaries, drafts of the “Time Passes” section, historical information on The General Strike of miners in 1926 during which time Woolf was writing “Time Passes,” images of St. Ives, the seaside village that entered into Woolf’s images in the book; and the Stephen family history.
Additional information and other sources besides those listed below:
www.woolfonline.com/?q=image/tid
Images of the General Stike, St. Ives, the Stephen Family.
Below you will find Virginia Woolf’s Diary entries during the writing of the “Time Passes” (middle section) of To the Lighthouse. To appreciate the context of the times—the public and historical context of this private diary about her writing and life, it is important to know that The General Strike of Miners was going on May 3-12, 1926. It is also important to know—given popular conceptions of Woolf—that she was involved in the cause of the coal miners, listening to daily reports on the strike, speaking with her husband, Leonard Woolf (who was a radical socialist) and friends about the events.
What was this strike about?
The British General Strike began on 3rd May 1926, and ended on 12th May 1926. Ten days of strike action that were to change the very nature of work relations in the country for years to come.
The strike was called by the Trades Union Congress (T.U.C.) on 1st May 1926, with action to begin on 3rd May 1926. It was precipitated in support of striking coal miners in the North of England, Scotland and Wales. The strike action was perceived as necessary to ensure current and future pay and work conditions would remain acceptable to the industry. In reality, it was the latest in a long series of industrial disputes that had crippled the coal industry since the end of the First World War, creating real hardship for mining families, and continuing political unrest and uncertainty for numerous governments. 'Not a minute on the day, not a penny off the pay', was the miners' slogan as they marched headlong in to Britain's one and only General Strike.
Despite commencing in the mining towns and Unions of the country, one of the flash points for the strike itself occurred in London, when the Daily Mail's Fleet Street printers refused to print a leading article criticising trade unions. Subsequently, other print workers joined the protest and the General Strike started to gain momentum. The TUC activated its strike plans, calling out all union members in essential industries. The strike had begun.
Woolf’s Diary
April 30, 1926
Yesterday I finished the first part of To the Lighthouse, & today
began the second. I cannot make it out—here is the most difficult abstract
piece of writing—I have to give an empty house, no people's characters,
the passage of time, all eyeless & featureless with nothing to cling to:
well, I rush at it, & at once scatter out two pages. Is it nonsense, is it
brilliance? Why am I so flown with words, & apparently free to do
exactly what I like? When I read a bit it seems spirited too; needs com-
pressing, but not much else. Compare this dashing fluency with the
excruciating hard wrung battles I had with Mrs Dalloway (save the end).
This is not made up: it is the literal fact.
May 5, 1926
An exact diary of the Strike would be interesting. For instance, it is
now a 1/4 to 2: there is a brown fog; nobody is building; it is drizzling.
The first thing in the morning we stand at the window & watch the
traffic in Southampton Row. This is incessant. Everyone is bicycling;
motor cars are huddled up with extra people. There are no buses. No
placards. no newspapers. The men are at work in the road; water, gas &
electricity are allowed; but at 11 the light was turned off. I sat in the
press in the brown fog, while L. wrote an article for the Herald. A very
revolutionary looking young man on a cycle arrived with the British
Gazette. L. is to answer an article in this. All was military stern a little
secret. Then Clive dropped in, the door being left open. He is offering
himself to the Government. Maynard excited, wants the H[ogarth].
P[ress]. to bring out a skeleton number of the Nation. It is all tedious &
depressing, rather like waiting in a train outside a station. Rumours are
passed round—that the gas wd. be cut off at 1—false of course. One
does not know what to do. And nature has laid it on thick today—fog,
rain, cold. A voice, rather commonplace & official, yet the only common
voice left, wishes us good morning at 10. This is the voice of Britain,
to wh. we can make no reply. The voice is very trivial, & only tells us
hat the Prince of Wales is coming back (from Biarritz), that the London
streets present an unprecedented spectacle.
May 6, 1926
(one of the curious effects of the Strike is that it is difficult to remember
the day of the week). Everything is the same, but unreasonably, or
because of the weather, or habit, we are more cheerful, take less notice,
& occasionally think of other things. The taxis are out today. There are
various skeleton papers being sold. One believes nothing. Clive dines in
Mayfair, & everyone is pro-men; I go to Harrison [dentist], & he shouts
me down with "Its red rag versus Union Jack, Mrs Woolf" & how
Thomas has 100,000. Frankie dines out, & finds everyone pro-
Government. Bob [Trevelyan] drops in & says Churchill is for peace,
but Baldwin wont budge. Clive says Churchill is for tear gas bombs,
fight to the death, & is at the bottom of it all. So we go on, turning in
our cage. I notice how frequently we break of[f] with "Well I don't
know." According to L. this open state of mind is due to the lack of
papers. It feels like a deadlock, on both sides; as if we could keep fixed
like this for weeks. What one prays for is God: the King or God; some
impartial person to say kiss & be friends—as apparently we all desire.
Just back from a walk to the Strand. Of course one notices lorries
full of elderly men & girls standing like passengers in the old 3rd class
carriages. Children swarm. They pick up bits of old wood paving.
Everything seems to be going fast, away, in business[?]. The shops are
open but empty. Over it all is some odd pale unnatural atmosphere—
great activity but no normal life. I think we shall become more in-
dependent & stoical as the days go on. And I am involved in dress
buying with Todd [editor of Vogue]; I tremble & shiver all over at the
appalling magnitude of the task have undertaken—to go to a dress-
maker recommended by Todd, even, she suggested, but here my blood
ran cold, with Todd. Perhaps this excites me more feverishly than the
Strike. It is a little like the early hours of the morning (this state of
things) when one has been up all night. Business improved today. We
sold a few books. Bob cycled from Leith Hill, getting up at 5 a.m. to
avoid the crowd. He punctured an hour later, met his tailor who mended
him, set forth again, was almost crushed in the crowd near London, &
has since been tramping London, from Chelsea to Bloomsbury to gather
gossip, & talk, incoherently about Desmond's essays & his own poetry.
He has secreted two more of these works which 'ought to be published'.
He is ravenous greedy, & apelike, but has a kind of russet surly charm;
like a dog one teases. He complained how Logan teased him. Clive calls
in to discuss bulletins—indeed, more than anything it is like a house
where someone is dangerously ill; & friends drop in to enquire, & one
has to wait for doctor's news—Quennel, the poet, came; a lean boy,
nervous, plaintive, rather pretty; on the look out for work, & come to
tap the Wolves—who are said, I suppose to be an authority on that
subject. We suggested Desmond's job. After an hour of this, he left,
— here Clive came in & interrupted. He has been shopping in the
West End with Mary. Nothing to report there. He & L. listened in at
7 & heard nothing. The look of the streets—how people "trek to work"
that is the stock phrase: that it will be cold & windy tomorrow (it is
shivering cold today) that there was a warm debate in the Commons—
Among the crowd of trampers in Kingsway were old Pritchard,
toothless, old wispy, benevolent; who tapped L. on the shoulder & said
he was "training to shoot him"; & old Miss Pritchard, equally frail,
dusty, rosy, shabby. "How long will it last Mrs Woolf?" "Four weeks"
"Ah dear!" Off they tramp, over the bridge to Kennington I think;
next in Kingsway comes the old battered clerk, who has 5 miles to walk.
Miss Talbot has an hours walk; Mrs Brown 2 hours walk. But they all
arrive, & clatter about as usual—Pritchard doing poor peoples work for
nothing, as I imagine his way is, & calling himself a Tory.
Then we are fighting the Square on the question of leading dogs.
Dogs must be led; but tennis can be played they say. L. is advancing to
the fight, & has enlisted the Pekinese in the Square. We get no news from
abroad; neither can send it. No parcels. Pence have been added to milk,
vegetables &c. And Karin has bought 4 joints.
It is now a chilly lightish evening; very quiet; the only sound a distant
barrel organ playing. The bricks stand piled on the building & there
remain. And Viola was about to make our fortune. She dined here,
Monday night, the night of the strike.
May 7, 1926
No change. "London calling the British Isles. Good morning every-
one". That is how it begins at 10. The only news that the archbishops
are conferring, & ask our prayers that they may be guided right. Whether
this means action, we know not. We know nothing. Mrs Cartwright
walked from Hampstead. She & L. got heated arguing, she being anti-
labour; because she does not see why they should be supported, &
observes men in the street loafing instead of working. Very little work
done by either of us today. A cold, wet day, with sunny moments. All
arrangements unchanged. Girl came to make chair covers, having walked
from Shoreditch, but enjoyed it. Times sent for 25 Violas. Question
whether to bring out a skeleton Roneo Nation. Leonard went to the
office, I to the Brit[ish] Mus[eum]; where all was chill serenity, dignity
& severity. Written up are the names of great men; & we all cower like
mice nibbling crumbs in our most official discreet impersonal mood
beneath. I like this dusty bookish atmosphere. Most of the readers
seemed to have rubbed their noses off & written their eyes out. Yet
they have a life they like—believe in the necessity of making books, I
suppose: verify, collate, make up other books, for ever. It must be
15 years since I read here. I came home & found L. & Hubert [Henderson]
arriving from the office—Hubert did what is now called "taking a cup
of tea", which means an hour & a halfs talk about the Strike. Here is his
prediction: if it is not settled, or in process, on Monday, it will last 5 weeks.
Today no wages are paid. Leonard said he minded this more than the war &
Hubert told us how he had travelled in Germany, & what brutes they were
in 1912. He thinks gas & electricity will go next; had been at a journal-
ists meeting where all were against labour (against the general strike that
is) & assumed Government victory. L. says if the state wins & smashes
T[rades]. U[nion]s he will devote his life to labour: if the archbishop
succeeds, he will be baptised. Now to dine at the Commercio to meet Clive.
May 9, 1926
There is no news of the strike. The broadcaster has just said that we
are praying today. And L. & I quarrelled last night. I dislike the tub
thumper in him; he the irrational Xtian in me. I will write it all out later—
my feelings about the Strike; but I am now writing to test my theory that
there is consolation in expression. Unthinkingly, I refused just now to
lunch with the Phil Bakers, who fetched L. in their car. Suddenly,
10 minutes ago, I began to regret this profoundly. How I should love the
talk, & seeing the house, & battling my wits against theirs. Now the
sensible thing to do is to provide some pleasure to balance this, which
I cd. not have had, if I had gone. I can only think of writing this, &
going round the Square. Obscurely, I have my clothes complex to deal
with. When I am asked out my first thought is, but I have no clothes to
go in. Todd has never sent me the address of the shop; & I may have
annoyed her by refusing to lunch with her. But the Virginia who refuses
is a very instinctive & therefore powerful person. The reflective &
sociable only comes to the surface later. Then the conflict.
Baldwin broadcast last night: he rolls his rs; tries to put more than
mortal strength into his words. "Have faith in me. You elected me
18 months ago. What have I done to forfeit your confidence? Can you
not trust me to see justice done between man & man?" Impressive as it
is to hear the very voice of the Prime Minister, descendant of Pitt &
Chatham, still I can't heat up my reverence to the right pitch. I picture
the stalwart oppressed man, bearing the world on his shoulders. And
suddenly his self assertiveness becomes a little ridiculous. He becomes
megalomaniac. No I dont trust him: I don't trust any human being,
however loud they bellow & roll their rs.
May 10, 1926
Quarrel with L. settled in studio. Oh, but how incessant the arguments
& interruptions are! As I write, L. is telephoning to Hubert. We are
getting up a petition. There was a distinct thaw (we thought) last night.
The Arch B. & Grey both conciliatory. So we went to bed happy.
Today ostensibly the same dead lock; beneath the surface all sorts of
currents, of which we get the most contradictory reports. Dear old
Frankie has a story (over the fire in the bookshop) of an interview
between Asquith & Reading which turned Reading hostile to the men.
Later, through Clive, through Desmond, Asquith is proved to be at the
Wharfe, 60 miles from Lord Reading. Lady Wimbore gave a party—
brought Thomas & Baldwin together. Meeting mysteriously called off
today. Otherwise strike wd. have been settled. I to H of Commons this
morning with L.'s article to serve as stuffing for Hugh Dalton in the
Commons this afternoon. All this humbug of police & marble statues
vaguely displeasing. But the Gvt. provided me with buses both ways, &
no stones thrown. Silver & crimson guard at Whitehall; the cenotaph,
& men bare heading themselves. Home to find Tom Marshall caballing
with L.; after lunch to [Birrell & Garnett's] bookshop, where the gossip
(too secret for the telephone) was imparted; to London Library where
Gooch—a tall, pale mule, affable & long winded, was seen, & Molly
dustily diligently reading the Dublin Review for 1840, walk home;
Clive, to refute gossip; James to get St Loe to sign; then Maynard
ringing up to command us to print the Nation as the N. Statesman is
printed; to wh. I agreed, & L. disagreed; then dinner; a motor car
collision—more telephones ringing at the moment 9.5.
May 11 , 1926
I may as well continue to write—this book is used to scandalous
mistreatment—while I wait—here interruptions began
which lasted till the present moment/ when I write from 12.30 to 3
with Gerald Brenan in the study composing with infinite difficulty a letter
to Mr Galsworthy. Arguing about the Ar[chbisho]p of Canterbury
with Jack Squire at 12 seems now normal, but not—how often do I
repeat—nearly as exciting as writing To the Lighthouse or about de
Q[uincey]. I believe it is false psychology to think that in after years
these details will be interesting. The war is now barren sand after all.
But one never knows: & waiting about, writing serves to liberate the
mind from the fret & itch of these innumerable details. Squire doesn't
want to "knuckle under". To kneel is the duty of the Church. The
Church has no connection with the nation. Events are that the Roneo
workers refuse to set up L.'s article in the Nation, in which he says
that the Strike is not illegal or unconstitutional. Presumably this is a
little clutch of the Government throttle. Mr Baldwin has been visiting
the Zoo. In the middle of lunch admirable Miss Bulley arrives, having
visited Conway unsuccessfully. St Loe has joined. So Rose Macaulay
& Lytton. Tonight the names are to be handed in; & then perhaps
silence will descend upon us. Ralph & Gerald are our emissaries. But
then everyone rings up—the most unlikely people—[Donald] Brace for
instance, Kahan; the woman comes with the new sofa cover. Yester-
day Ralph & Frances Marshall were in a railway accident. She had her
teeth jangled. One man was killed; another had his leg broken—the
result of driving a train without signals, by the efforts of ardent optimistic
undergraduates. Billing has been in to say he will print anything, all
his men being back & needing work. So, as poor MacDermott has been
dead since January, perhaps the Nation will be done by them. Come to
think of it, almost all our type is standing, so our printing was in any
case hardly feasible. Must I now ring up James? Day's Library boy was
set upon by roughs, had his cycle overturned, but kept his books & was
unhurt after calling here for 6 Tree. Tree dribbles along. There is an
occasional order. Mrs C[artwright]. arrives on Faith's bicycle which is
red with rust.
May 12, 1926
Strike settled. (ring at bell)
The Strike was settled about 1.15—or it was then broadcast. I was in
Tottenham Court Rd. at 1 & heard Bartholomew & Fletcher's megaphone
declaim that the T.U.C. leaders were at Downing Street; came home to
find that neither L. or Nelly had heard this: 5 minutes later, the wireless.
They told us to stand by & await important news. Then a piano played
a tune. Then the solemn broadcaster assuming incredible pomp & gloom
& speaking one word to the minute read out: Message from 10 Downing
Street. The T.U.C. leaders have agreed that Strike shall be withdrawn.
Instantly L. dashed off to telephone to the office, Nelly to tell Pritchard's
clerk, & I to Mrs C. (But N[elly]. was beforehand) then we finished
lunch; then I rang up Clive—who proposes that we should have a drink
tonight. I saw this morning 5 or 6 armoured cars slowly going along
Oxford Street; on each two soldiers sat in tin helmets, & one stood with
his hand at the gun which was pointed straight ahead ready to fire. But I
also noticed on one a policeman smoking a cigarette. Such sights I dare
say I shall never see again; & dont in the least wish to. Already (it is now
10 past 2) men have appeared at the hotel with drainpipes. Also Grizzle
has won her case against the Square.
May 13, 1926
I suppose all pages devoted to the Strike will be skipped, when I read
over this book. Oh that dull old chapter, I shall say. Excitements about
what are called real things are always unutterably transitory. Yet it is
gloomy—& L. is gloomy, & so am I unintelligibly—today because the
Strike continues—no railwaymen back: vindictiveness has now seized
our masters. Government shillyshallies. Apparently, the T.U.C. agreed
to terms wh. the miners now reject. Anyhow it will take a week to get
the machinery of England to run again. Trains are dotted about all over
England. Labour, it seems clear, will be effectively diddled again, &
perhaps rid of its power to make strikes in future. Printers still out at
the Nation. In short, the strain removed, we all fall out & bicker &
backbite. Such is human nature—& really I dont like human nature
unless all candied over with art. We dined with a strike party last night
& went back to Clive's. A good deal was said about art there. Good dull
Janet Vaughan, reminding me of Emma, joined us. I went to my
dressmaker, Miss Brooke, & found it the most quiet & friendly & even
enjoyable of proceedings. I have a great lust for lovely stuffs, & shapes;
wh. I have not gratified since Sally Young died. A bold move this, but
now I'm free of the fret of clothes, which is worth paying for, & need
not parade Oxford Street.
May 20, 1926
Waiting for L. to come back from chess with Roger: 11.25. I think
nothing need be said of the Strike. As tends to happen, one's mind slips
after the crisis, & what the settlement is, or will be, I know not.
We must now fan the books up again. Viola & Phil Baker were both
struck on the wing. Viola comes, very tactfully, as a friend, she says, to
consult after dinner. She is a flamboyant creature—much of an actress—
much abused by the Waleys & Marjories; but rather taking to me. She
has the great egotism, the magnification of self, which any bodily display,
I think, produces. She values women by their hips & ankles, like horses.
Easily reverts to the topic of her own charms: how she shd. have married
the D. of Rutland. "Lord — (his uncle) told me I was the woman
John really loved. The duchess said to me 'Do make love to John &
get him away from —. At any rate you're tall & beautiful—' And I
sometimes think if I'd married him—but he never asked me—Daddy
wouldn't have died. I'd have prevented that operation: Then how he'd
have loved a duke for a son in law! All his life was dressing up—that
sort of thing you know." So she runs on, in the best of clothes, easy &
familiar, but reserved too; with the wiles & warinesses of a woman of
the world, half sordid half splendid, not quite at her ease with us, yet
glad of a room where she can tell her stories, of listeners to whom she
is new & strange. She will run on by the hour—yet is very watchful not
to bore; a good business woman, & floating over considerable acuteness
on her charm. All this however, is not making her book move, as they say.
Eddy came in to tea. I like him—his flattery? his nobility? I dont
know—I find him easy & eager. And Vita comes to lunch tomorrow
which will be a great amusement & pleasure. I am amused at my relations
with her: left so ardent in January—& now what? Also I like her presence
& her beauty. Am I in love with her? But what is love? Her being 'in
love' (it must be comma'd thus) with me, excites & flatters; & interests.
What is this 'love'? Oh & then she gratifies my eternal curiosity: who's
she seen, whats she done—for I have no enormous opinion of her poetry.
How could I—I who have such delight in mitigating the works even of
my greatest friends. I should have been reading her poem tonight:
instead finished Sharon Turner—a prosy, simple, old man; the very spit
& image of Saxon. a boundless bore, I daresay, with the most intense zeal
for "improving myself", & the holiest affections, & 13 children, & no
character or impetus—a love of long walks, of music; modest, yet
conceited in an ant like way. I mean he has the industry & persistency in
recounting compliments of an ant, but so little character that one hardly
calls him vain!
May 25, 1926
The heat has come, bringing with it the inexplicably disagreeable
memories of parties, & George Duckworth; a fear haunts me even now,
as I drive past Park Lane on top of a bus, & think of Lady Arthur Russell
& so on. I become out of love with everything; but fall into love as the
bus reaches Holborn. A curious transition that, from tyranny to freedom.
Mixed with it is the usual "I thought that when you died last May,
Charles, there had died along with you"—death being hidden among
the leaves: & Nessa's birthday among the little hard pink rosettes of the
may, which we used to stop & smell on the pavement at the top of
Hyde Pk. Gate & I asked why, if it was may, it did not come out on
the 1st; it comes out now, & Nessa's birthday, which must be her 47th,
is in a few days. She is in Italy: Duncan is said to have "committed a
nuisance" for which he has been fined 10 lira.
Diary of Margaret Woods: day to day reactions to the General Strike
http://www.woolfonline.com/?q=diaries/mw/overview
Woolf On-Line: Potential Paper Topics
Question: What kinds of literary questions might you generate after reading some of the diary entries and the historical information below as well as the text of To the Lighthouse? What are the connections between the private life and public historical events in the life and writings of an author?
Ways of developing a paper from the sources below will be discussed in class and in
Individual conferences
Julia Briggs, an eminent critic and biographer of Virginia Woolf, who died last year, created a wonderful Virginia Woolf resource on-line for the underlying aspects of To the Lighthouse (diaries, drafts of the “Time Passes” section, historical information on The General Strike of miners in 1926 during which time Woolf was writing “Time Passes,” images of St. Ives, the seaside village that entered into Woolf’s images in the book; and the Stephen family history.
Additional information and other sources besides those listed below:
www.woolfonline.com/?q=image/tid
Images of the General Stike, St. Ives, the Stephen Family.
Below you will find Virginia Woolf’s Diary entries during the writing of the “Time Passes” (middle section) of To the Lighthouse. To appreciate the context of the times—the public and historical context of this private diary about her writing and life, it is important to know that The General Strike of Miners was going on May 3-12, 1926. It is also important to know—given popular conceptions of Woolf—that she was involved in the cause of the coal miners, listening to daily reports on the strike, speaking with her husband, Leonard Woolf (who was a radical socialist) and friends about the events.
What was this strike about?
The British General Strike began on 3rd May 1926, and ended on 12th May 1926. Ten days of strike action that were to change the very nature of work relations in the country for years to come.
The strike was called by the Trades Union Congress (T.U.C.) on 1st May 1926, with action to begin on 3rd May 1926. It was precipitated in support of striking coal miners in the North of England, Scotland and Wales. The strike action was perceived as necessary to ensure current and future pay and work conditions would remain acceptable to the industry. In reality, it was the latest in a long series of industrial disputes that had crippled the coal industry since the end of the First World War, creating real hardship for mining families, and continuing political unrest and uncertainty for numerous governments. 'Not a minute on the day, not a penny off the pay', was the miners' slogan as they marched headlong in to Britain's one and only General Strike.
Despite commencing in the mining towns and Unions of the country, one of the flash points for the strike itself occurred in London, when the Daily Mail's Fleet Street printers refused to print a leading article criticising trade unions. Subsequently, other print workers joined the protest and the General Strike started to gain momentum. The TUC activated its strike plans, calling out all union members in essential industries. The strike had begun.
Woolf’s Diary
April 30, 1926
Yesterday I finished the first part of To the Lighthouse, & today
began the second. I cannot make it out—here is the most difficult abstract
piece of writing—I have to give an empty house, no people's characters,
the passage of time, all eyeless & featureless with nothing to cling to:
well, I rush at it, & at once scatter out two pages. Is it nonsense, is it
brilliance? Why am I so flown with words, & apparently free to do
exactly what I like? When I read a bit it seems spirited too; needs com-
pressing, but not much else. Compare this dashing fluency with the
excruciating hard wrung battles I had with Mrs Dalloway (save the end).
This is not made up: it is the literal fact.
May 5, 1926
An exact diary of the Strike would be interesting. For instance, it is
now a 1/4 to 2: there is a brown fog; nobody is building; it is drizzling.
The first thing in the morning we stand at the window & watch the
traffic in Southampton Row. This is incessant. Everyone is bicycling;
motor cars are huddled up with extra people. There are no buses. No
placards. no newspapers. The men are at work in the road; water, gas &
electricity are allowed; but at 11 the light was turned off. I sat in the
press in the brown fog, while L. wrote an article for the Herald. A very
revolutionary looking young man on a cycle arrived with the British
Gazette. L. is to answer an article in this. All was military stern a little
secret. Then Clive dropped in, the door being left open. He is offering
himself to the Government. Maynard excited, wants the H[ogarth].
P[ress]. to bring out a skeleton number of the Nation. It is all tedious &
depressing, rather like waiting in a train outside a station. Rumours are
passed round—that the gas wd. be cut off at 1—false of course. One
does not know what to do. And nature has laid it on thick today—fog,
rain, cold. A voice, rather commonplace & official, yet the only common
voice left, wishes us good morning at 10. This is the voice of Britain,
to wh. we can make no reply. The voice is very trivial, & only tells us
hat the Prince of Wales is coming back (from Biarritz), that the London
streets present an unprecedented spectacle.
May 6, 1926
(one of the curious effects of the Strike is that it is difficult to remember
the day of the week). Everything is the same, but unreasonably, or
because of the weather, or habit, we are more cheerful, take less notice,
& occasionally think of other things. The taxis are out today. There are
various skeleton papers being sold. One believes nothing. Clive dines in
Mayfair, & everyone is pro-men; I go to Harrison [dentist], & he shouts
me down with "Its red rag versus Union Jack, Mrs Woolf" & how
Thomas has 100,000. Frankie dines out, & finds everyone pro-
Government. Bob [Trevelyan] drops in & says Churchill is for peace,
but Baldwin wont budge. Clive says Churchill is for tear gas bombs,
fight to the death, & is at the bottom of it all. So we go on, turning in
our cage. I notice how frequently we break of[f] with "Well I don't
know." According to L. this open state of mind is due to the lack of
papers. It feels like a deadlock, on both sides; as if we could keep fixed
like this for weeks. What one prays for is God: the King or God; some
impartial person to say kiss & be friends—as apparently we all desire.
Just back from a walk to the Strand. Of course one notices lorries
full of elderly men & girls standing like passengers in the old 3rd class
carriages. Children swarm. They pick up bits of old wood paving.
Everything seems to be going fast, away, in business[?]. The shops are
open but empty. Over it all is some odd pale unnatural atmosphere—
great activity but no normal life. I think we shall become more in-
dependent & stoical as the days go on. And I am involved in dress
buying with Todd [editor of Vogue]; I tremble & shiver all over at the
appalling magnitude of the task have undertaken—to go to a dress-
maker recommended by Todd, even, she suggested, but here my blood
ran cold, with Todd. Perhaps this excites me more feverishly than the
Strike. It is a little like the early hours of the morning (this state of
things) when one has been up all night. Business improved today. We
sold a few books. Bob cycled from Leith Hill, getting up at 5 a.m. to
avoid the crowd. He punctured an hour later, met his tailor who mended
him, set forth again, was almost crushed in the crowd near London, &
has since been tramping London, from Chelsea to Bloomsbury to gather
gossip, & talk, incoherently about Desmond's essays & his own poetry.
He has secreted two more of these works which 'ought to be published'.
He is ravenous greedy, & apelike, but has a kind of russet surly charm;
like a dog one teases. He complained how Logan teased him. Clive calls
in to discuss bulletins—indeed, more than anything it is like a house
where someone is dangerously ill; & friends drop in to enquire, & one
has to wait for doctor's news—Quennel, the poet, came; a lean boy,
nervous, plaintive, rather pretty; on the look out for work, & come to
tap the Wolves—who are said, I suppose to be an authority on that
subject. We suggested Desmond's job. After an hour of this, he left,
— here Clive came in & interrupted. He has been shopping in the
West End with Mary. Nothing to report there. He & L. listened in at
7 & heard nothing. The look of the streets—how people "trek to work"
that is the stock phrase: that it will be cold & windy tomorrow (it is
shivering cold today) that there was a warm debate in the Commons—
Among the crowd of trampers in Kingsway were old Pritchard,
toothless, old wispy, benevolent; who tapped L. on the shoulder & said
he was "training to shoot him"; & old Miss Pritchard, equally frail,
dusty, rosy, shabby. "How long will it last Mrs Woolf?" "Four weeks"
"Ah dear!" Off they tramp, over the bridge to Kennington I think;
next in Kingsway comes the old battered clerk, who has 5 miles to walk.
Miss Talbot has an hours walk; Mrs Brown 2 hours walk. But they all
arrive, & clatter about as usual—Pritchard doing poor peoples work for
nothing, as I imagine his way is, & calling himself a Tory.
Then we are fighting the Square on the question of leading dogs.
Dogs must be led; but tennis can be played they say. L. is advancing to
the fight, & has enlisted the Pekinese in the Square. We get no news from
abroad; neither can send it. No parcels. Pence have been added to milk,
vegetables &c. And Karin has bought 4 joints.
It is now a chilly lightish evening; very quiet; the only sound a distant
barrel organ playing. The bricks stand piled on the building & there
remain. And Viola was about to make our fortune. She dined here,
Monday night, the night of the strike.
May 7, 1926
No change. "London calling the British Isles. Good morning every-
one". That is how it begins at 10. The only news that the archbishops
are conferring, & ask our prayers that they may be guided right. Whether
this means action, we know not. We know nothing. Mrs Cartwright
walked from Hampstead. She & L. got heated arguing, she being anti-
labour; because she does not see why they should be supported, &
observes men in the street loafing instead of working. Very little work
done by either of us today. A cold, wet day, with sunny moments. All
arrangements unchanged. Girl came to make chair covers, having walked
from Shoreditch, but enjoyed it. Times sent for 25 Violas. Question
whether to bring out a skeleton Roneo Nation. Leonard went to the
office, I to the Brit[ish] Mus[eum]; where all was chill serenity, dignity
& severity. Written up are the names of great men; & we all cower like
mice nibbling crumbs in our most official discreet impersonal mood
beneath. I like this dusty bookish atmosphere. Most of the readers
seemed to have rubbed their noses off & written their eyes out. Yet
they have a life they like—believe in the necessity of making books, I
suppose: verify, collate, make up other books, for ever. It must be
15 years since I read here. I came home & found L. & Hubert [Henderson]
arriving from the office—Hubert did what is now called "taking a cup
of tea", which means an hour & a halfs talk about the Strike. Here is his
prediction: if it is not settled, or in process, on Monday, it will last 5 weeks.
Today no wages are paid. Leonard said he minded this more than the war &
Hubert told us how he had travelled in Germany, & what brutes they were
in 1912. He thinks gas & electricity will go next; had been at a journal-
ists meeting where all were against labour (against the general strike that
is) & assumed Government victory. L. says if the state wins & smashes
T[rades]. U[nion]s he will devote his life to labour: if the archbishop
succeeds, he will be baptised. Now to dine at the Commercio to meet Clive.
May 9, 1926
There is no news of the strike. The broadcaster has just said that we
are praying today. And L. & I quarrelled last night. I dislike the tub
thumper in him; he the irrational Xtian in me. I will write it all out later—
my feelings about the Strike; but I am now writing to test my theory that
there is consolation in expression. Unthinkingly, I refused just now to
lunch with the Phil Bakers, who fetched L. in their car. Suddenly,
10 minutes ago, I began to regret this profoundly. How I should love the
talk, & seeing the house, & battling my wits against theirs. Now the
sensible thing to do is to provide some pleasure to balance this, which
I cd. not have had, if I had gone. I can only think of writing this, &
going round the Square. Obscurely, I have my clothes complex to deal
with. When I am asked out my first thought is, but I have no clothes to
go in. Todd has never sent me the address of the shop; & I may have
annoyed her by refusing to lunch with her. But the Virginia who refuses
is a very instinctive & therefore powerful person. The reflective &
sociable only comes to the surface later. Then the conflict.
Baldwin broadcast last night: he rolls his rs; tries to put more than
mortal strength into his words. "Have faith in me. You elected me
18 months ago. What have I done to forfeit your confidence? Can you
not trust me to see justice done between man & man?" Impressive as it
is to hear the very voice of the Prime Minister, descendant of Pitt &
Chatham, still I can't heat up my reverence to the right pitch. I picture
the stalwart oppressed man, bearing the world on his shoulders. And
suddenly his self assertiveness becomes a little ridiculous. He becomes
megalomaniac. No I dont trust him: I don't trust any human being,
however loud they bellow & roll their rs.
May 10, 1926
Quarrel with L. settled in studio. Oh, but how incessant the arguments
& interruptions are! As I write, L. is telephoning to Hubert. We are
getting up a petition. There was a distinct thaw (we thought) last night.
The Arch B. & Grey both conciliatory. So we went to bed happy.
Today ostensibly the same dead lock; beneath the surface all sorts of
currents, of which we get the most contradictory reports. Dear old
Frankie has a story (over the fire in the bookshop) of an interview
between Asquith & Reading which turned Reading hostile to the men.
Later, through Clive, through Desmond, Asquith is proved to be at the
Wharfe, 60 miles from Lord Reading. Lady Wimbore gave a party—
brought Thomas & Baldwin together. Meeting mysteriously called off
today. Otherwise strike wd. have been settled. I to H of Commons this
morning with L.'s article to serve as stuffing for Hugh Dalton in the
Commons this afternoon. All this humbug of police & marble statues
vaguely displeasing. But the Gvt. provided me with buses both ways, &
no stones thrown. Silver & crimson guard at Whitehall; the cenotaph,
& men bare heading themselves. Home to find Tom Marshall caballing
with L.; after lunch to [Birrell & Garnett's] bookshop, where the gossip
(too secret for the telephone) was imparted; to London Library where
Gooch—a tall, pale mule, affable & long winded, was seen, & Molly
dustily diligently reading the Dublin Review for 1840, walk home;
Clive, to refute gossip; James to get St Loe to sign; then Maynard
ringing up to command us to print the Nation as the N. Statesman is
printed; to wh. I agreed, & L. disagreed; then dinner; a motor car
collision—more telephones ringing at the moment 9.5.
May 11 , 1926
I may as well continue to write—this book is used to scandalous
mistreatment—while I wait—here interruptions began
which lasted till the present moment/ when I write from 12.30 to 3
with Gerald Brenan in the study composing with infinite difficulty a letter
to Mr Galsworthy. Arguing about the Ar[chbisho]p of Canterbury
with Jack Squire at 12 seems now normal, but not—how often do I
repeat—nearly as exciting as writing To the Lighthouse or about de
Q[uincey]. I believe it is false psychology to think that in after years
these details will be interesting. The war is now barren sand after all.
But one never knows: & waiting about, writing serves to liberate the
mind from the fret & itch of these innumerable details. Squire doesn't
want to "knuckle under". To kneel is the duty of the Church. The
Church has no connection with the nation. Events are that the Roneo
workers refuse to set up L.'s article in the Nation, in which he says
that the Strike is not illegal or unconstitutional. Presumably this is a
little clutch of the Government throttle. Mr Baldwin has been visiting
the Zoo. In the middle of lunch admirable Miss Bulley arrives, having
visited Conway unsuccessfully. St Loe has joined. So Rose Macaulay
& Lytton. Tonight the names are to be handed in; & then perhaps
silence will descend upon us. Ralph & Gerald are our emissaries. But
then everyone rings up—the most unlikely people—[Donald] Brace for
instance, Kahan; the woman comes with the new sofa cover. Yester-
day Ralph & Frances Marshall were in a railway accident. She had her
teeth jangled. One man was killed; another had his leg broken—the
result of driving a train without signals, by the efforts of ardent optimistic
undergraduates. Billing has been in to say he will print anything, all
his men being back & needing work. So, as poor MacDermott has been
dead since January, perhaps the Nation will be done by them. Come to
think of it, almost all our type is standing, so our printing was in any
case hardly feasible. Must I now ring up James? Day's Library boy was
set upon by roughs, had his cycle overturned, but kept his books & was
unhurt after calling here for 6 Tree. Tree dribbles along. There is an
occasional order. Mrs C[artwright]. arrives on Faith's bicycle which is
red with rust.
May 12, 1926
Strike settled. (ring at bell)
The Strike was settled about 1.15—or it was then broadcast. I was in
Tottenham Court Rd. at 1 & heard Bartholomew & Fletcher's megaphone
declaim that the T.U.C. leaders were at Downing Street; came home to
find that neither L. or Nelly had heard this: 5 minutes later, the wireless.
They told us to stand by & await important news. Then a piano played
a tune. Then the solemn broadcaster assuming incredible pomp & gloom
& speaking one word to the minute read out: Message from 10 Downing
Street. The T.U.C. leaders have agreed that Strike shall be withdrawn.
Instantly L. dashed off to telephone to the office, Nelly to tell Pritchard's
clerk, & I to Mrs C. (But N[elly]. was beforehand) then we finished
lunch; then I rang up Clive—who proposes that we should have a drink
tonight. I saw this morning 5 or 6 armoured cars slowly going along
Oxford Street; on each two soldiers sat in tin helmets, & one stood with
his hand at the gun which was pointed straight ahead ready to fire. But I
also noticed on one a policeman smoking a cigarette. Such sights I dare
say I shall never see again; & dont in the least wish to. Already (it is now
10 past 2) men have appeared at the hotel with drainpipes. Also Grizzle
has won her case against the Square.
May 13, 1926
I suppose all pages devoted to the Strike will be skipped, when I read
over this book. Oh that dull old chapter, I shall say. Excitements about
what are called real things are always unutterably transitory. Yet it is
gloomy—& L. is gloomy, & so am I unintelligibly—today because the
Strike continues—no railwaymen back: vindictiveness has now seized
our masters. Government shillyshallies. Apparently, the T.U.C. agreed
to terms wh. the miners now reject. Anyhow it will take a week to get
the machinery of England to run again. Trains are dotted about all over
England. Labour, it seems clear, will be effectively diddled again, &
perhaps rid of its power to make strikes in future. Printers still out at
the Nation. In short, the strain removed, we all fall out & bicker &
backbite. Such is human nature—& really I dont like human nature
unless all candied over with art. We dined with a strike party last night
& went back to Clive's. A good deal was said about art there. Good dull
Janet Vaughan, reminding me of Emma, joined us. I went to my
dressmaker, Miss Brooke, & found it the most quiet & friendly & even
enjoyable of proceedings. I have a great lust for lovely stuffs, & shapes;
wh. I have not gratified since Sally Young died. A bold move this, but
now I'm free of the fret of clothes, which is worth paying for, & need
not parade Oxford Street.
May 20, 1926
Waiting for L. to come back from chess with Roger: 11.25. I think
nothing need be said of the Strike. As tends to happen, one's mind slips
after the crisis, & what the settlement is, or will be, I know not.
We must now fan the books up again. Viola & Phil Baker were both
struck on the wing. Viola comes, very tactfully, as a friend, she says, to
consult after dinner. She is a flamboyant creature—much of an actress—
much abused by the Waleys & Marjories; but rather taking to me. She
has the great egotism, the magnification of self, which any bodily display,
I think, produces. She values women by their hips & ankles, like horses.
Easily reverts to the topic of her own charms: how she shd. have married
the D. of Rutland. "Lord — (his uncle) told me I was the woman
John really loved. The duchess said to me 'Do make love to John &
get him away from —. At any rate you're tall & beautiful—' And I
sometimes think if I'd married him—but he never asked me—Daddy
wouldn't have died. I'd have prevented that operation: Then how he'd
have loved a duke for a son in law! All his life was dressing up—that
sort of thing you know." So she runs on, in the best of clothes, easy &
familiar, but reserved too; with the wiles & warinesses of a woman of
the world, half sordid half splendid, not quite at her ease with us, yet
glad of a room where she can tell her stories, of listeners to whom she
is new & strange. She will run on by the hour—yet is very watchful not
to bore; a good business woman, & floating over considerable acuteness
on her charm. All this however, is not making her book move, as they say.
Eddy came in to tea. I like him—his flattery? his nobility? I dont
know—I find him easy & eager. And Vita comes to lunch tomorrow
which will be a great amusement & pleasure. I am amused at my relations
with her: left so ardent in January—& now what? Also I like her presence
& her beauty. Am I in love with her? But what is love? Her being 'in
love' (it must be comma'd thus) with me, excites & flatters; & interests.
What is this 'love'? Oh & then she gratifies my eternal curiosity: who's
she seen, whats she done—for I have no enormous opinion of her poetry.
How could I—I who have such delight in mitigating the works even of
my greatest friends. I should have been reading her poem tonight:
instead finished Sharon Turner—a prosy, simple, old man; the very spit
& image of Saxon. a boundless bore, I daresay, with the most intense zeal
for "improving myself", & the holiest affections, & 13 children, & no
character or impetus—a love of long walks, of music; modest, yet
conceited in an ant like way. I mean he has the industry & persistency in
recounting compliments of an ant, but so little character that one hardly
calls him vain!
May 25, 1926
The heat has come, bringing with it the inexplicably disagreeable
memories of parties, & George Duckworth; a fear haunts me even now,
as I drive past Park Lane on top of a bus, & think of Lady Arthur Russell
& so on. I become out of love with everything; but fall into love as the
bus reaches Holborn. A curious transition that, from tyranny to freedom.
Mixed with it is the usual "I thought that when you died last May,
Charles, there had died along with you"—death being hidden among
the leaves: & Nessa's birthday among the little hard pink rosettes of the
may, which we used to stop & smell on the pavement at the top of
Hyde Pk. Gate & I asked why, if it was may, it did not come out on
the 1st; it comes out now, & Nessa's birthday, which must be her 47th,
is in a few days. She is in Italy: Duncan is said to have "committed a
nuisance" for which he has been fined 10 lira.
Diary of Margaret Woods: day to day reactions to the General Strike
http://www.woolfonline.com/?q=diaries/mw/overview
Virginia Woolf Talk, Fri. March 6th
As part of Women's History Month, Surrey historian David Taylor will be speaking at the CUNY Grad Center on "Mrs. Dalloway Goes to the Lighthouse." Vernon Lushington, the subject whose biography he is writing, was the father of the woman Virginia Woolf based Mrs. Dalloway upon, Kitty Maxse.
His talk will be Friday March 6th, 4-6 p. m., room 4406 of the Grad. Center (365 5th Avenue, between 34th and 35th). It is being sponsored by the Women's Studies Certificate Program and the English Department.
(He will also be speaking on Thursday March 12, 6 p. m., at the Grolier Club, 47 East 60th St. Tickets there are $12 for members, $18 nonmembers - www.morrissociety.org The Grolier Club talk is entitled "Vernon Lushington: Pre-Raphaelite, Friend of William Morris, and Father of 'Mrs. Dalloway.'")
His talk will be Friday March 6th, 4-6 p. m., room 4406 of the Grad. Center (365 5th Avenue, between 34th and 35th). It is being sponsored by the Women's Studies Certificate Program and the English Department.
(He will also be speaking on Thursday March 12, 6 p. m., at the Grolier Club, 47 East 60th St. Tickets there are $12 for members, $18 nonmembers - www.morrissociety.org The Grolier Club talk is entitled "Vernon Lushington: Pre-Raphaelite, Friend of William Morris, and Father of 'Mrs. Dalloway.'")
Proust Question: 2/9-2/16
"Who is speaking" is one of the most important questions to consider when reading twentieth-century literature. Who is speaking in the first part of Proust's "Combray" (to about p. 130). Find the clues to narration and support your position with quotes from the text.
Write about a paragraph or two expressing your views. Check the website again to see what other students say, and then join in the conversation again, if you wish.
Write about a paragraph or two expressing your views. Check the website again to see what other students say, and then join in the conversation again, if you wish.
Thursday, February 5, 2009
Metropolitan Museum of Art
If you visit Bonnard show at Metropolitan Museum of Art, 82nd & 5th Ave., see other collection in the Museum.
Modern art
With more than 10,000 artworks, primarily by European and American artists, the modern art collection occupies 60,000 square feet (6,000 m2), of gallery space and contains many iconic modern works. Cornerstones of the collection include Picasso's portrait of Gertrude Stein, Jasper Johns's White Flag, Jackson Pollock's Autumn Rhythm (Number 30), and Max Beckmann's triptych Beginning. Certain artists are represented in remarkable depth, for a museum whose focus is not exclusively on modern art: for example, the collection contains forty paintings by Paul Klee, spanning his entire career. Due to the Met's long history, "contemporary" paintings acquired in years past have often migrated to other collections at the museum, particularly to the American and European Paintings departments.
Bonnard show at Metropolitian Museum of Art
Metropolitan Museum of Art, until April 19th
What is the subject of his paintings? What takes center stage? What is "modernist" about his eye? Of what other modern painter does he remind you?Bonnard's Haunting Domesticity
Raquel Laneri, 02.02.09, 04:00 PM ESTThe maligned French painter gets his due at the Met.
Pierre Bonnard: The Late Interiors
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City, Jan. 27-April 19
Ten years ago, an art exhibit with the words "interior" or "still life" in the title would have had me running away to the nearest modern art wing. Breakfast rooms? Baskets of apples? Yawn--give me drip paintings and amorphous blobs! The less a painting resembled something concrete I could identify--and the less conventionally pretty it was--the more I was convinced of its depth, and the more I liked it.
I imagine, then, I would have found "Pierre Bonnard: The Late Interiors," on view at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, a bore: post-impressionistic bowls of bright red cherries, vases of mimosas and sunlit rooms.
And while the French painter was painting these happy, pretty pictures, his contemporaries were dismantling art and inventing cubism. Indeed, the cubists did not take kindly to Bonnard's retrograde aesthetic. "That is not painting, what he does," Pablo Picasso said of his contemporary's work, calling it "a potpourri of indecision."
But how things change. Often what once seemed simple reveals itself over time to be infinitely complex. Wolfgang Mozart didn't just write pretty incidental music for the court, Jane Austen didn't just write love stories and Bonnard didn't just paint pretty flowers, bowls of fruit and tabletops.
In Pictures: Bonnard's Haunting Domesticity
"The Late Interiors" is the first show dedicated solely to Bonnard's late interiors and still lifes, spanning the artist's last 25 years, from 1923 (when he was 57) to 1947 (a month or so before his death). The 80 works on display demonstrate not only the artist's radiant use of light and color but also the extraordinary complexity of his work.
Sunday, February 1, 2009
Book List/Expectations
Book List
Available in Shakespeare & Co.
Proust, Swann’s Way, trans. Lydia Davis (Penguin)
Woolf, Virginia. To the Lighthouse (Harcourt)
Joyce, James. Ulysses, Gabler ed. (Random House)
Eliot, T.S. Wasteland and other Poems (Dover)
Beckett, Samuel. Molloy, Malone Dies, The Unnamable (Grove)
Smith, Zadie. White Teeth (Vintage)
Other shorter readings to be distributed in class.
Course Expectations:
Papers: Two papers (3pp., 15pp.)
Oral Presentations: One short presentation on critical views of works being read.
Final Exam
Absences: Two absences allowed. Upon the third absence, you will be dropped from the course.
Office Hours: Thursday, 2:00-3:30. You will be expected to have a conference with me on the subject of your longer paper in Feb.-April. Final paper due, April 30th.
Office: Boylan, 2/157
E-mail: plaurence@rcn.com
Reserve Books in the Library: for consultation for papers and class presentations.
Available in Shakespeare & Co.
Proust, Swann’s Way, trans. Lydia Davis (Penguin)
Woolf, Virginia. To the Lighthouse (Harcourt)
Joyce, James. Ulysses, Gabler ed. (Random House)
Eliot, T.S. Wasteland and other Poems (Dover)
Beckett, Samuel. Molloy, Malone Dies, The Unnamable (Grove)
Smith, Zadie. White Teeth (Vintage)
Other shorter readings to be distributed in class.
Course Expectations:
Papers: Two papers (3pp., 15pp.)
Oral Presentations: One short presentation on critical views of works being read.
Final Exam
Absences: Two absences allowed. Upon the third absence, you will be dropped from the course.
Office Hours: Thursday, 2:00-3:30. You will be expected to have a conference with me on the subject of your longer paper in Feb.-April. Final paper due, April 30th.
Office: Boylan, 2/157
E-mail: plaurence@rcn.com
Reserve Books in the Library: for consultation for papers and class presentations.
Bibliography (Selected)
Twentieth-Century Literature:Selected Works in Criticism-P. Laurence Spring ‘09
Avery, Todd. Radio Modernism: Literature, Ethics, and the BBC, 1922-38 (2006).
Bachelard, Gaston. The Poetics of Space (1964).
Bakhtin, Mikhail, The Dialogic Imagination (1981).
Benjamin, Walter, “The Work of Art in an Age of Mechanical Reproduction,” in
Illuminations, ed. Hannah Arendt (1968).
Brooker, Peter and Andrew Thacker. Geographies of Modernism: Literatures, Cultures
and Spaces (2005).
Brown, Nicholas. Utopian Generations (2005).
Butler, Judith. Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (1990).
Mazei. Domestic Modernism and Inter-War Novel (2006).
Calinescu, Matei. Five Faces of Modernity (1987).
Carey, John. The Intellectuals and the Masses: Pride and Prejudice among the Literary
Intelligentsia, 1880-1939 (1992).
Collier, Patrick. Modernism on Fleet Street [relation of press to early 20c British lit] (2006).
Dettmar, Kevin & Stephen Watt (eds.) Marketing Modernism: Self-Promotion,
Canonization and Reading (1996).
Doyle, Laura & Laura Winkiel. Geomodernism: Race, Modernims and Modernity (2005)
[modernist art in Brazil, Lebanon, India, Taiwan, Dublin, Native American].
Eagleton, Terry. After Theory (2003).
Friedman, Susan, “Periodizing Modernisms: Postcolonial Modernities and the Space
Time Borders of Modernist Studies” Modernism/Modernity 13 (2006).
Gifford. Don. Ulysses Annotated: Guide to Reading Ulysses (1989).
Hamner, Robert. Epic of the Dispossessed: Derek Walcott’s Omeros (1992).
Humm, Maggie. Modernist Women: Virginia Woolf, Vanessa Bell and Visual Cultures (2002).
Huyssen, Andreas. After the Great Divide: Modernism, Mass Culture and Postmodernism (1986).
Joshi, Priya. In Another Culture: Colonialism, Culture, and the English Novel in India (2002).
Kenner, Hugh. Joyce’s Voices (1978).
King, Bruce Alvin. Derek Walcott: A Carribean Life (biography) (2001).
Lassner, Phyllis. British Women Novelists (includes Indian authors) & Anglo-Jewish Women Writing the Holocaust: Displaced Witnesses (2008).
Laurence, Patricia. The Reading of Silence (1992), Lily Briscoe’s Chinese Eyes: Bloomsbury, Modernism and China (2003).
Lawrence, Karen. The Odyssey of Style in Ulysses (1981) and De-Colonizing Tradition.
Levenson, Michael. A Geneology of Modernism (1984).
Lukacs, Geog. Realism in Our Time: Literature and the Class Struggle (chapter on “The
Ideology of Modernism”) (1971).
MacKay, Marina. Modernism and World War II (2007).
Marek, Jane E. Women Editing Modernism: Literary Magazines and Literary History
(1995).
Mazei. Domestic Modernism and Inter-War Novel (2006).
Nelson, Cary & Laurence Grossberg. Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture (see
Spivak, “Can the Subaltern Speak?”) ( 1988).
Nicholls, Peter. Modernisms: A Literary Guide (1995).
Rainey, Lawrence. Institutions of Modernism: Literary Elites and Public Culture (1998).
Ricoeur, Paul. Time and Narrative (Essay on Mrs. Dalloway, vol. II) (1984.
Said, Edward. Orientalism and Culture and Imperialism (1993).
Scott, Bonnie Kime. The Gender of Modernism (1990) and Refiguring Modernism:
Postmodern Feminst Readings of Woolf, West and Barnes (1995).
Walkowitz, Rebecca and Douglas Mao. Bad Modernisms (2006).
Williams, Patrick, ed. Colonial Discourse and Post-Colonial Theory: A Reader (1994).
Wollaeger, Mark. Modernism, Media and Propaganda (2006).
Avery, Todd. Radio Modernism: Literature, Ethics, and the BBC, 1922-38 (2006).
Bachelard, Gaston. The Poetics of Space (1964).
Bakhtin, Mikhail, The Dialogic Imagination (1981).
Benjamin, Walter, “The Work of Art in an Age of Mechanical Reproduction,” in
Illuminations, ed. Hannah Arendt (1968).
Brooker, Peter and Andrew Thacker. Geographies of Modernism: Literatures, Cultures
and Spaces (2005).
Brown, Nicholas. Utopian Generations (2005).
Butler, Judith. Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (1990).
Mazei. Domestic Modernism and Inter-War Novel (2006).
Calinescu, Matei. Five Faces of Modernity (1987).
Carey, John. The Intellectuals and the Masses: Pride and Prejudice among the Literary
Intelligentsia, 1880-1939 (1992).
Collier, Patrick. Modernism on Fleet Street [relation of press to early 20c British lit] (2006).
Dettmar, Kevin & Stephen Watt (eds.) Marketing Modernism: Self-Promotion,
Canonization and Reading (1996).
Doyle, Laura & Laura Winkiel. Geomodernism: Race, Modernims and Modernity (2005)
[modernist art in Brazil, Lebanon, India, Taiwan, Dublin, Native American].
Eagleton, Terry. After Theory (2003).
Friedman, Susan, “Periodizing Modernisms: Postcolonial Modernities and the Space
Time Borders of Modernist Studies” Modernism/Modernity 13 (2006).
Gifford. Don. Ulysses Annotated: Guide to Reading Ulysses (1989).
Hamner, Robert. Epic of the Dispossessed: Derek Walcott’s Omeros (1992).
Humm, Maggie. Modernist Women: Virginia Woolf, Vanessa Bell and Visual Cultures (2002).
Huyssen, Andreas. After the Great Divide: Modernism, Mass Culture and Postmodernism (1986).
Joshi, Priya. In Another Culture: Colonialism, Culture, and the English Novel in India (2002).
Kenner, Hugh. Joyce’s Voices (1978).
King, Bruce Alvin. Derek Walcott: A Carribean Life (biography) (2001).
Lassner, Phyllis. British Women Novelists (includes Indian authors) & Anglo-Jewish Women Writing the Holocaust: Displaced Witnesses (2008).
Laurence, Patricia. The Reading of Silence (1992), Lily Briscoe’s Chinese Eyes: Bloomsbury, Modernism and China (2003).
Lawrence, Karen. The Odyssey of Style in Ulysses (1981) and De-Colonizing Tradition.
Levenson, Michael. A Geneology of Modernism (1984).
Lukacs, Geog. Realism in Our Time: Literature and the Class Struggle (chapter on “The
Ideology of Modernism”) (1971).
MacKay, Marina. Modernism and World War II (2007).
Marek, Jane E. Women Editing Modernism: Literary Magazines and Literary History
(1995).
Mazei. Domestic Modernism and Inter-War Novel (2006).
Nelson, Cary & Laurence Grossberg. Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture (see
Spivak, “Can the Subaltern Speak?”) ( 1988).
Nicholls, Peter. Modernisms: A Literary Guide (1995).
Rainey, Lawrence. Institutions of Modernism: Literary Elites and Public Culture (1998).
Ricoeur, Paul. Time and Narrative (Essay on Mrs. Dalloway, vol. II) (1984.
Said, Edward. Orientalism and Culture and Imperialism (1993).
Scott, Bonnie Kime. The Gender of Modernism (1990) and Refiguring Modernism:
Postmodern Feminst Readings of Woolf, West and Barnes (1995).
Walkowitz, Rebecca and Douglas Mao. Bad Modernisms (2006).
Williams, Patrick, ed. Colonial Discourse and Post-Colonial Theory: A Reader (1994).
Wollaeger, Mark. Modernism, Media and Propaganda (2006).
Saturday, January 31, 2009
Woolf's play, "FRESHWATER" till 2/15
"A LAUGH RIOT"
- The New York Times
Freshwater
by Virginia Woolf
SPECIAL PRICES! * SAVE 25%
Now through Feb 15 ONLY
STRICTLY LIMITED RUN
Tickets just $31.50 with code FWSMT26
Regular $42 Price
Click here for TIX
BE AMONG THE FIRST TO SEE VIRGINIA WOOLF'S ONE AND ONLY PLAY...Freshwater. The play has never enjoyed a professional production in the United States. Now, in a landmark collaboration between the Women's Project and SITI Company, the play is finally having its day. This delightful comedy creates a deliberately witty and charming universe peopled by a tribe of artists, friends, and lovers in a lighthearted mood. Legendary director Anne Bogart is at the helm of this theatrical escapade-the perfect diversion for audiences during the winter of 2009.
STRICTLY LIMITED RUN
Now Through February 15 ONLY
Tuesdays & Wednesdays at 7:00pm,
Thursdays-Saturdays at 8:00pm,
Sundays at 3:00pm & 7:00pm
Julia Miles Theater
424 West 55th Street
New York City
Three easy ways to get your $31.50 tickets*
1. Click www.broadwayoffers.com and enter code FWSMT26
2. Call 212-947-8844 and mention code FWSMT26
3. Print this page and visit the Julia Miles Theater box office (424 W. 55th Street, just west of 9th Avenue)
Use code: FWSMT26 and Buy your Freshwater tickets today!
Click Here to Order Now
- The New York Times
Freshwater
by Virginia Woolf
SPECIAL PRICES! * SAVE 25%
Now through Feb 15 ONLY
STRICTLY LIMITED RUN
Tickets just $31.50 with code FWSMT26
Regular $42 Price
Click here for TIX
BE AMONG THE FIRST TO SEE VIRGINIA WOOLF'S ONE AND ONLY PLAY...Freshwater. The play has never enjoyed a professional production in the United States. Now, in a landmark collaboration between the Women's Project and SITI Company, the play is finally having its day. This delightful comedy creates a deliberately witty and charming universe peopled by a tribe of artists, friends, and lovers in a lighthearted mood. Legendary director Anne Bogart is at the helm of this theatrical escapade-the perfect diversion for audiences during the winter of 2009.
STRICTLY LIMITED RUN
Now Through February 15 ONLY
Tuesdays & Wednesdays at 7:00pm,
Thursdays-Saturdays at 8:00pm,
Sundays at 3:00pm & 7:00pm
Julia Miles Theater
424 West 55th Street
New York City
Three easy ways to get your $31.50 tickets*
1. Click www.broadwayoffers.com and enter code FWSMT26
2. Call 212-947-8844 and mention code FWSMT26
3. Print this page and visit the Julia Miles Theater box office (424 W. 55th Street, just west of 9th Avenue)
Use code: FWSMT26 and Buy your Freshwater tickets today!
Click Here to Order Now
Joyce Talk, Feb.2, 6:30
1.
The James Joyce Society: 2 February 2009 Meeting
THE JAMES JOYCE SOCIETY
Invites you to its 2 February 2009 Program,
a Celebration of the 75th Anniversary of the American Publication of
Ulysses, at the Roger Smith Hotel, 501 Lexington Avenue at 47th Street, New
York, NY 10017.
The meeting will start promptly at 6:30 p.m.
Our program includes:
"a no uncertain quantity of obscene matter not protected by copriright
in the United Stars of Ourania":
Obscenity, Copyright, and the 1922 Ulysses
by
Paul Saint-Amour, Associate Professor of English, University of
Pennsylvania
and
Why I Love the ?34
by
Sebastian D. G. Knowles, Professor of English, Ohio State University,
and General Editor, University Press of Florida (James Joyce Series)
and
Joyce's Letter to Bennett Cerf
read by
Simon Loekle, Tyler
The James Joyce Society: 2 February 2009 Meeting
THE JAMES JOYCE SOCIETY
Invites you to its 2 February 2009 Program,
a Celebration of the 75th Anniversary of the American Publication of
Ulysses, at the Roger Smith Hotel, 501 Lexington Avenue at 47th Street, New
York, NY 10017.
The meeting will start promptly at 6:30 p.m.
Our program includes:
"a no uncertain quantity of obscene matter not protected by copriright
in the United Stars of Ourania":
Obscenity, Copyright, and the 1922 Ulysses
by
Paul Saint-Amour, Associate Professor of English, University of
Pennsylvania
and
Why I Love the ?34
by
Sebastian D. G. Knowles, Professor of English, Ohio State University,
and General Editor, University Press of Florida (James Joyce Series)
and
Joyce's Letter to Bennett Cerf
read by
Simon Loekle, Tyler
Woolf Conference, NYC, June4th-7th
Woolf in the City conference abstracts due Feb. 1
Friday 9 January 2009 by Paula Maggio
Feb. 1 is the deadline for abstract submissions to the 19th Annual Virginia Woolf Conference, Woolf and the City, to be held June 4 to 7 at Fordham University’s Lincoln Center campus in New York City. Woolfians are invited to submit an abstract for an individual or panel presentation.
For details, download the Call for Papers. Abstracts should be sent as a Word document to woolf@fordham.edu with a separate sheet indicating name(s), institutional affiliation(s) and e-mail address(es). Conference organizer Anne Fernald asks that you include your contact information in the body of your email.
Direct questions about the conference or the Call for Papers to her graduate assistant Sarah Cornish at sarahcornish@gmail.com.
For futher information on the conference:
http://www.fordham.edu/academics/programs_at_fordham_/english/news__events/2009_woolf_and_the_c_29890.asp
Registration will begin in February, 2009. Participants must register by mid-April to avoid a higher registration rate. Single day registration will be available on site.
We are currently finalizing our budget.
We anticipate a registration fee of approximately $150 for faculty with a reduced fee of approximately $100 for graduate students, retirees, part-time and unemployed workers. (This fee includes many, but not all, meals.)
The banquet on Saturday night will cost an additional $50 (est.).
Woolf Contest
JULIA BRIGGS MEMORIAL PRIZE
The Virginia Woolf Society of Great Britain is holding an essay competition
in memory of acclaimed Woolf scholar and VWSGB Executive Council member Julia Briggs, who died in August 2007.
The competition is open to members and non-members (except for the
Executive Council and Editorial Committee of the VWSGB, the judges, and
families of the above). Entries should be sent to Ruth Webb, 15 Southcote
Road, London SE25 4RG, to arrive by 10 January 2009.
The competition rules are provided below. Entrants should read these
carefully. If you have any queries or would like an entry form and
confirmation slip, please email Sarah M. Hall on:
smhall123@yahoo.co.uk
COMPETITION RULES
The essay, on the topic 'Virginia Woolf and the Common Reader', should be
between 2,000 and 2,500 words in length. It should be the original work of
the named entrant, and previously unpublished in print or any other medium.
Student coursework is acceptable.
Entrants should supply THREE typed copies of the essay on A4 paper, printed on one side only, double-spaced (or 1.5) and in a font size no smaller than 10-point. The VWSGB regrets that no emailed entries will be accepted,
because of printing costs.
The competition will be judged by acclaimed Woolf scholars Lyndall Gordon
and Maggie Humm, and VWSGB Vice-Chair and Woolf biographer Ruth Webb. The decision of the judges is final. The VWSGB reserves the right not to award the prize if, in the judges' opinion, none of the entries attains the
required standard. Otherwise the winner will be contacted in mid-March.
The winner will receive a cheque for £250, presented at the VWSGB's AGM in central London on 4 April 2009, and the winning essay will be published in
the Virginia Woolf Bulletin. If the winner is unable to attend the AGM, the
prize will be sent by secure mail.
PLEASE NOTE
No entry will be accepted without the signed entry form, which should be
attached to the first page of the first copy of the essay. There should be
no personal details on the essay pages themselves. The VWSGB cannot return entries. Acknowledgement of receipt can only be given if the entrant
supplies an SAE containing the confirmation slip. (Entrants from outside
the UK should email Sarah M. Hall as above for confirmation of receipt.)
The Virginia Woolf Society of Great Britain is holding an essay competition
in memory of acclaimed Woolf scholar and VWSGB Executive Council member Julia Briggs, who died in August 2007.
The competition is open to members and non-members (except for the
Executive Council and Editorial Committee of the VWSGB, the judges, and
families of the above). Entries should be sent to Ruth Webb, 15 Southcote
Road, London SE25 4RG, to arrive by 10 January 2009.
The competition rules are provided below. Entrants should read these
carefully. If you have any queries or would like an entry form and
confirmation slip, please email Sarah M. Hall on:
smhall123@yahoo.co.uk
COMPETITION RULES
The essay, on the topic 'Virginia Woolf and the Common Reader', should be
between 2,000 and 2,500 words in length. It should be the original work of
the named entrant, and previously unpublished in print or any other medium.
Student coursework is acceptable.
Entrants should supply THREE typed copies of the essay on A4 paper, printed on one side only, double-spaced (or 1.5) and in a font size no smaller than 10-point. The VWSGB regrets that no emailed entries will be accepted,
because of printing costs.
The competition will be judged by acclaimed Woolf scholars Lyndall Gordon
and Maggie Humm, and VWSGB Vice-Chair and Woolf biographer Ruth Webb. The decision of the judges is final. The VWSGB reserves the right not to award the prize if, in the judges' opinion, none of the entries attains the
required standard. Otherwise the winner will be contacted in mid-March.
The winner will receive a cheque for £250, presented at the VWSGB's AGM in central London on 4 April 2009, and the winning essay will be published in
the Virginia Woolf Bulletin. If the winner is unable to attend the AGM, the
prize will be sent by secure mail.
PLEASE NOTE
No entry will be accepted without the signed entry form, which should be
attached to the first page of the first copy of the essay. There should be
no personal details on the essay pages themselves. The VWSGB cannot return entries. Acknowledgement of receipt can only be given if the entrant
supplies an SAE containing the confirmation slip. (Entrants from outside
the UK should email Sarah M. Hall as above for confirmation of receipt.)
Victorian Conference
THE VICTORIAN EVERYDAY
THE NORTHEAST VICTORIAN STUDIES ASSOCIATION
WELLESLEY COLLEGE
APRIL 3rd-5th, 2009
FRIDAY, APRIL 3rd
[Pre-conference: 12:30-2:00 pm Informal Panel for Wellesley Students,
Founders Hall 106]
1:00-4:00 pm Registration: Wang Campus Center, Information Desk
1:30-3:45 pm Exhibit: Ruskin, Browning, and Others: Wellesley College
Library, Special Collections (Space is limited and prior registration is
required; see below.)
4:00 pm Welcome: Margaret Clapp Library, Library Lecture Room
4:15-5:45 pm Common Words, Commonplace Sounds: Margaret Clapp Library,
Library Lecture Room
Rachel Teukolsky (Vanderbilt U), Moderator
* Daniel Pollack-Pelzner (Harvard U), “The Exotic Demotic: Wellerisms
and Everyday Language”
* Janice Schroeder (Carleton U), “Everyday Sound as Extraordinary in
Adam Bede”
* Jonathan Farina (Vanderbilt U), “Whoever explains a ‘but’: Everyday
Words and the Epistemology of Victorian Chatter”
5:45-7:00 pm Reception: Wang Campus Center, Anderson Forum
7:15 pm Shuttle to Babson College Executive Center
Informal buffet dinner at Babson
SATURDAY, APRIL 4th
8:00-9:00 am Registration and Continental Breakfast: Pendleton Hall, Atrium
9:00-10:45 am Keynote Panel: Pendleton West 212
Tricia Lootens (U of Georgia), Moderator
* Tim Barringer (Yale U)
* Laurie Langbauer (U of North Carolina, Chapel Hill)
* Ruth Yeazell (Yale U)
10:45-11:00 am Coffee: Pendleton Hall, Atrium
11:00am-12:30 pm The Scientific Mundane: Pendleton West 212
Anna Henchman (Boston U), Moderator
* John Plotz (Brandeis U), “Primitive Habits: Significant Trivia and the
Birth of Victorian Anthropology”
* Mark Frost (U of Portsmouth), “Opening Our Eyes to the Everyday: John
Ruskin, Moss and Iron”
* Pascale McCullough Manning (U of Western Ontario), “Darwin’s
Autobiographies and the Post-evolutionary Everyday”
12:30-2:15 pm Lunch: Wellesley College Club, Main Dining Room
2:30-4:00 pm Everyday Poetics: Pendleton West 212
Carolyn Williams (Rutgers U), Moderator
* Andrea Gazzaniga (U of North Carolina, Charlotte), “An Everyday
Poetics: Processing Experience in Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Sonnets
from the Portuguese”
* Jason Rudy (U of Maryland), “Everyday Poetry, London to Sydney”
* Marjorie Stone (Dalhousie U), “The Poetics and Practices of ‘Everyday
Life’: The Brownings’ Love Letters, the Dramatic Monologue, and the
Wellesley Manuscript of Aurora Leigh”
4:00-4:15 pm Coffee: Pendleton Hall, Atrium
4:15-5:45 pm Session A: Customary Worship: Pendleton West 212
Judith Wilt (Boston C), Moderator
* Amy King (St. John’s U), “Reverent Form: Elizabeth Gaskell’s Everyday”
* Paul Yeoh (Rutgers U), “Everyday in The Christian Year”
* Evan Horowitz (U of North Texas), “Everyday Afterlife”
4:15-5:45 pm Session B: Habitual Perception: Pendleton West 117
Jonathan Loesberg (American U), Moderator
* Benjamin Morgan (U of California, Berkeley), “A Lot of Art is Boring:
The Psychological Aesthetics of Grant Allen and Vernon Lee”
* Jennifer Judge (York U), “‘Walking bundles of habits’ or Creatures of
Volition?: The All-Importance of Habit in Victorian Theories of Character”
* Sara Maurer, (U of Notre Dame), “Mary Russell Mitford’s Our Village:
Keeping England in Place”
6:15 pm Reception: Wellesley College Club, Council Library,
7:00-10:00 pm Dinner Banquet: Wellesley College Club, Wall Room
SUNDAY, APRIL 5th
8:00-9:00 am Continental Breakfast: Pendleton Hall, Atrium
9:00-10:30 am Interpreting the Everyday: Pendleton West 212
Sean O’Toole (Baruch College, CUNY), Moderator
* Yuri Cowan (U of Toronto), “Medieval Things: Antiquarianism and
Victorian Historiographies of the Everyday”
* Maia McAleavey (Harvard U), “Desires of Touch: Marital Crisis and the
Everyday”
* Abigail Joseph (Columbia U), “Hyacinthus Goes to Salisbury: Wilde's
Trials and Errors of Transmission”
10:30-10:45 am Coffee: Pendleton Hall, Atrium
10:45 am-12:15 pm Daily Places: Pendleton West 212
Will Lee (Yeshiva U), Moderator
* Barbara Leckie (Carleton U), “Whose Everyday? Architecture, Print
Culture, and the Domestic Interiors of the Poor, 1840-70”
* Mary Wilson Carpenter (Queen’s U), “Inside a Victorian Hospital: The
Extraordinary Everyday”
* Robert Sulcer (Hofstra U), “Keeping School: Romancing the Everyday”
12:15-1:00 pm Conference Wrap-Up: Pendleton West 212
* David Kurnick (Rutgers U)
* Rosemarie Bodenheimer (Boston C)
______________________________________________________________
The Friday dinner is an informal buffet at Babson immediately following
the reception. The cost is $20.00 (soup/salad, main course, cookies,
coffee). There will be a cash bar.
The Saturday lunch, a convivial event at which topics are proposed and
voted on for the following year, is a long-standing tradition; everyone
is warmly encouraged to attend and participate.
Rooms are available at the Babson Conference Center located on the
campus of Babson College (231 Forest Street, Babson Park, MA 02457). The
conference rate is $155.00 (single or double, breakfast included). The
rate is guaranteed until February 28. Please book early. We will provide
a limited shuttle service (before the first morning panels, after the
Friday reception, after the last panel on Saturday, after the Saturday
night banquet) between Babson and Wellesley College. Here are the
directions for booking your Babson reservation on line:
1 Go to www.Babsonecc.com.
2. Click "Book a reservation" on the right hand side of the screen in
blue font.
3. A new page will open up displaying a calendar. On the top of the
screen there is a link to "Group Reservation." Click it.
4. This will bring you to the Group page. You will need to input the
group code -- NVSA09
5. From there it will walk you through making the reservation.
Or you may call Babson directly at 781-239-5816 or 781-239-4000. Mention
NVSA to get the group rate.
Please visit the NVSA website for directions, other dining options, and
to learn of other conference details: http://www.nvsa.org.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
REGISTRATION
Please return completed form by March 1. Make checks payable to
Wellesley College. Please write in memo area “NVSA Registration.” Please
direct all registration questions to Lisa Rodensky
(lrodensk@wellesley.edu) or Lisa Easley (leasley@wellesley.edu).
Send checks to: Lisa Easley, Department of English, 106 Central Street,
Wellesley College, Wellesley, MA 02481.
Transportation
If you are staying at Babson, please check here if you will need to use
the shuttle between Wellesley and Babson during the conference (we would
like to have an estimate so that we can reserve an appropriate van):
___ Yes, I will need to use the shuttle
Registration Meals
____ $85 Members ___ $20 Friday informal buffet dinner
____ $105 Non-Members (If vegetarian, please check here __)
____ $50 Students ___ $15 Saturday Luncheon – Faculty
____ $15 NVSA dues ___ $11 Saturday Luncheon – Students
____ $10 NVSA Student dues ___ $55 Saturday Banquet – Faculty
___ $35 Saturday Banquet – Students
__ Fish
__ Vegetarian
____ Total Remittance
Library Visits
The Wellesley College Library (Special Collections) will display
material from its Ruskin and Browning collections on Friday afternoon.
If you would like to view the material, please number preferred times.
Space is limited.
__ 1:30-2:15 pm Friday __ 2:15 – 3 pm Friday __ 3 – 3:45 pm Friday
Name _______________________________ Email
____________________________________
Address _______________________________ Phone
____________________________________
Academic Affiliation _____________________
THE NORTHEAST VICTORIAN STUDIES ASSOCIATION
WELLESLEY COLLEGE
APRIL 3rd-5th, 2009
FRIDAY, APRIL 3rd
[Pre-conference: 12:30-2:00 pm Informal Panel for Wellesley Students,
Founders Hall 106]
1:00-4:00 pm Registration: Wang Campus Center, Information Desk
1:30-3:45 pm Exhibit: Ruskin, Browning, and Others: Wellesley College
Library, Special Collections (Space is limited and prior registration is
required; see below.)
4:00 pm Welcome: Margaret Clapp Library, Library Lecture Room
4:15-5:45 pm Common Words, Commonplace Sounds: Margaret Clapp Library,
Library Lecture Room
Rachel Teukolsky (Vanderbilt U), Moderator
* Daniel Pollack-Pelzner (Harvard U), “The Exotic Demotic: Wellerisms
and Everyday Language”
* Janice Schroeder (Carleton U), “Everyday Sound as Extraordinary in
Adam Bede”
* Jonathan Farina (Vanderbilt U), “Whoever explains a ‘but’: Everyday
Words and the Epistemology of Victorian Chatter”
5:45-7:00 pm Reception: Wang Campus Center, Anderson Forum
7:15 pm Shuttle to Babson College Executive Center
Informal buffet dinner at Babson
SATURDAY, APRIL 4th
8:00-9:00 am Registration and Continental Breakfast: Pendleton Hall, Atrium
9:00-10:45 am Keynote Panel: Pendleton West 212
Tricia Lootens (U of Georgia), Moderator
* Tim Barringer (Yale U)
* Laurie Langbauer (U of North Carolina, Chapel Hill)
* Ruth Yeazell (Yale U)
10:45-11:00 am Coffee: Pendleton Hall, Atrium
11:00am-12:30 pm The Scientific Mundane: Pendleton West 212
Anna Henchman (Boston U), Moderator
* John Plotz (Brandeis U), “Primitive Habits: Significant Trivia and the
Birth of Victorian Anthropology”
* Mark Frost (U of Portsmouth), “Opening Our Eyes to the Everyday: John
Ruskin, Moss and Iron”
* Pascale McCullough Manning (U of Western Ontario), “Darwin’s
Autobiographies and the Post-evolutionary Everyday”
12:30-2:15 pm Lunch: Wellesley College Club, Main Dining Room
2:30-4:00 pm Everyday Poetics: Pendleton West 212
Carolyn Williams (Rutgers U), Moderator
* Andrea Gazzaniga (U of North Carolina, Charlotte), “An Everyday
Poetics: Processing Experience in Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Sonnets
from the Portuguese”
* Jason Rudy (U of Maryland), “Everyday Poetry, London to Sydney”
* Marjorie Stone (Dalhousie U), “The Poetics and Practices of ‘Everyday
Life’: The Brownings’ Love Letters, the Dramatic Monologue, and the
Wellesley Manuscript of Aurora Leigh”
4:00-4:15 pm Coffee: Pendleton Hall, Atrium
4:15-5:45 pm Session A: Customary Worship: Pendleton West 212
Judith Wilt (Boston C), Moderator
* Amy King (St. John’s U), “Reverent Form: Elizabeth Gaskell’s Everyday”
* Paul Yeoh (Rutgers U), “Everyday in The Christian Year”
* Evan Horowitz (U of North Texas), “Everyday Afterlife”
4:15-5:45 pm Session B: Habitual Perception: Pendleton West 117
Jonathan Loesberg (American U), Moderator
* Benjamin Morgan (U of California, Berkeley), “A Lot of Art is Boring:
The Psychological Aesthetics of Grant Allen and Vernon Lee”
* Jennifer Judge (York U), “‘Walking bundles of habits’ or Creatures of
Volition?: The All-Importance of Habit in Victorian Theories of Character”
* Sara Maurer, (U of Notre Dame), “Mary Russell Mitford’s Our Village:
Keeping England in Place”
6:15 pm Reception: Wellesley College Club, Council Library,
7:00-10:00 pm Dinner Banquet: Wellesley College Club, Wall Room
SUNDAY, APRIL 5th
8:00-9:00 am Continental Breakfast: Pendleton Hall, Atrium
9:00-10:30 am Interpreting the Everyday: Pendleton West 212
Sean O’Toole (Baruch College, CUNY), Moderator
* Yuri Cowan (U of Toronto), “Medieval Things: Antiquarianism and
Victorian Historiographies of the Everyday”
* Maia McAleavey (Harvard U), “Desires of Touch: Marital Crisis and the
Everyday”
* Abigail Joseph (Columbia U), “Hyacinthus Goes to Salisbury: Wilde's
Trials and Errors of Transmission”
10:30-10:45 am Coffee: Pendleton Hall, Atrium
10:45 am-12:15 pm Daily Places: Pendleton West 212
Will Lee (Yeshiva U), Moderator
* Barbara Leckie (Carleton U), “Whose Everyday? Architecture, Print
Culture, and the Domestic Interiors of the Poor, 1840-70”
* Mary Wilson Carpenter (Queen’s U), “Inside a Victorian Hospital: The
Extraordinary Everyday”
* Robert Sulcer (Hofstra U), “Keeping School: Romancing the Everyday”
12:15-1:00 pm Conference Wrap-Up: Pendleton West 212
* David Kurnick (Rutgers U)
* Rosemarie Bodenheimer (Boston C)
______________________________________________________________
The Friday dinner is an informal buffet at Babson immediately following
the reception. The cost is $20.00 (soup/salad, main course, cookies,
coffee). There will be a cash bar.
The Saturday lunch, a convivial event at which topics are proposed and
voted on for the following year, is a long-standing tradition; everyone
is warmly encouraged to attend and participate.
Rooms are available at the Babson Conference Center located on the
campus of Babson College (231 Forest Street, Babson Park, MA 02457). The
conference rate is $155.00 (single or double, breakfast included). The
rate is guaranteed until February 28. Please book early. We will provide
a limited shuttle service (before the first morning panels, after the
Friday reception, after the last panel on Saturday, after the Saturday
night banquet) between Babson and Wellesley College. Here are the
directions for booking your Babson reservation on line:
1 Go to www.Babsonecc.com.
2. Click "Book a reservation" on the right hand side of the screen in
blue font.
3. A new page will open up displaying a calendar. On the top of the
screen there is a link to "Group Reservation." Click it.
4. This will bring you to the Group page. You will need to input the
group code -- NVSA09
5. From there it will walk you through making the reservation.
Or you may call Babson directly at 781-239-5816 or 781-239-4000. Mention
NVSA to get the group rate.
Please visit the NVSA website for directions, other dining options, and
to learn of other conference details: http://www.nvsa.org.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
REGISTRATION
Please return completed form by March 1. Make checks payable to
Wellesley College. Please write in memo area “NVSA Registration.” Please
direct all registration questions to Lisa Rodensky
(lrodensk@wellesley.edu) or Lisa Easley (leasley@wellesley.edu).
Send checks to: Lisa Easley, Department of English, 106 Central Street,
Wellesley College, Wellesley, MA 02481.
Transportation
If you are staying at Babson, please check here if you will need to use
the shuttle between Wellesley and Babson during the conference (we would
like to have an estimate so that we can reserve an appropriate van):
___ Yes, I will need to use the shuttle
Registration Meals
____ $85 Members ___ $20 Friday informal buffet dinner
____ $105 Non-Members (If vegetarian, please check here __)
____ $50 Students ___ $15 Saturday Luncheon – Faculty
____ $15 NVSA dues ___ $11 Saturday Luncheon – Students
____ $10 NVSA Student dues ___ $55 Saturday Banquet – Faculty
___ $35 Saturday Banquet – Students
__ Fish
__ Vegetarian
____ Total Remittance
Library Visits
The Wellesley College Library (Special Collections) will display
material from its Ruskin and Browning collections on Friday afternoon.
If you would like to view the material, please number preferred times.
Space is limited.
__ 1:30-2:15 pm Friday __ 2:15 – 3 pm Friday __ 3 – 3:45 pm Friday
Name _______________________________ Email
____________________________________
Address _______________________________ Phone
____________________________________
Academic Affiliation _____________________
Victorian: Request for Papers
“Gender, the Professions and the Press” Special Issue of Nineteenth-Century Gender Studies
Nineteenth-Century Gender Studies is a peer-reviewed, online journal committed to publishing insightful and innovative scholarship on gender studies and nineteenth-century British literature, art and culture. Contributions of 5,000-8,000 words are sought for a special number of NCGS on “Gender, the Professions and the Press” to be published in the summer of 2009.
In the nineteenth century, the professions made enormous use of journals and journalism to establish their collective identities. Taking advantage of the proliferation of online material from nineteenth-century periodicals, the special edition of NCGS we propose would focus on what periodicals and newspapers can tell us about the gendered aspects of these professional identities.
Jennifer Ruth in her Novel Professions: Interested Disinterest and the Making of the Professional in the Victorian Novel (Ohio State University Press, 2006) has argued provocatively that the novel attempted to theorise the professional in ways political economy failed to do. In fact, however, it is the periodical press that most extensively addresses the complex issues involved in professional identity. Of course the professions were discussed in fiction in periodicals (e.g. Trollope's "Editor's Tales" first published in St Paul's Magazine consider the role of the professional writer) and we should welcome discussion of the professions and gender in periodical fiction, but enormous numbers of non-fiction articles also appeared in general periodicals about all kinds of professions (E.M. Palmegiano's Health and British Magazines in the Nineteenth Century lists many concerned with the medical profession, for example, and the Wellesley Index is invaluable to locate material on other professions). Then again, hundreds of specifically professional periodicals arose with titles like the Accountant, Army and Navy Gazette, Builder, Engineer, Financial News, Missionary Chronicle, Schoolmaster and Schoolmistress. With varying degrees of detail, these portray lifestyles, working practices and networking procedures and etiquette besides the ostensible domain itself, providing rich and often unexpected insights into nineteenth-century gender relations.
The traditional professions of the church, law, medicine and the military were set up as exclusively male, and there was a strong patrilineal element in professional recruitment (sons either following fathers or entering a neighbouring profession). This of course does not mean these professions were or are “ungendered” as Anne Witz, Cynthia Cockburn and many others forcefully showed in the 1980s. They are, rather, tied to particular versions of masculinity, only one component of which (albeit a large one) was concerned with the exclusion of women. More recently Priti Joshi in her case study of Edwin Chadwick (Victorian Literature and Culture (2004), 32:2: 353-370) and John Tosh more generally have shown that the relationship between masculinity and the practice of a profession was not always easy. What can the periodical press tell us about the construction of masculinity in particular professions? How does the relationship between the two change over the century? How are the masculinities associated with the established professions - themselves divergent from one another - different from emergent ones such as chemists or engineers?
The limited inroads that women made into medicine and teaching have been studied since before Martha Vicinus’s famous Independent Women (1985), but there is still room for more work on women and the professions. Why and how for example, were women kept out of the law or engineering altogether? Why were there only a half-dozen women architects in the Census of 1901 and just 19 accountants in 1911? Perusal of the relevant journals may suggest some answers. H. Byerley Thomson's The Choice of a Profession (1857) noted that music, art, literature and acting were professions already open to women. While work has already been done on how gender was negotiated in these occupations, periodicals such as Actors by Gaslight, the Art Journal, the Musical Times or the Journalist offer new and specific source material on how both women and men trod the gender tightrope at work.
Finally, we should like to direct attention to the place of advertisements in professional journals. While advertisers paid careful attention to the readership profile of publications they appeared in, we find unequivocally women's products advertised in periodicals directed to professions which only men practised. Does this signify only control of women's consumption by men, or are other explanations possible? Perhaps a study of contemporary advertisers’ manuals on where to place products may yield some answers. We raise this issue only as an example of how advertisements can yield many kinds of data relevant to the study of gender.
The recent appearance of the Dictionary of Nineteenth-Century Journalism (British Library/ Academia Press, January 2009) as well as the online resources of ncse, the British Library, Gale-Cengage and others will be a significant aid to identifying hitherto neglected periodical sources. In drawing attention to periodicals, to their fiction, their non-fiction and their adverts for this special issue, we are seeking to generate through a vast but hitherto largely invisible textual palette an ever more finely shaded and sharper picture of nineteenth-century gender relations at work.
Enquiries are welcome, as are completed articles. Please send either to Andrew King (andrew.king@canterbury.ac.uk) or Marysa Demoor (marysa.demoor@ugent.be).
Articles (5,000-8,000 word) should be in MLA format with a brief biographical note which will be posted if accepted for publication. To facilitate the peer review process, please send two files—one with your article void of any identifying information and another with your brief biographical note. The deadline for completed submissions is 31 May 2009.
We look forward to an exciting issue.
Nineteenth-Century Gender Studies is a peer-reviewed, online journal committed to publishing insightful and innovative scholarship on gender studies and nineteenth-century British literature, art and culture. Contributions of 5,000-8,000 words are sought for a special number of NCGS on “Gender, the Professions and the Press” to be published in the summer of 2009.
In the nineteenth century, the professions made enormous use of journals and journalism to establish their collective identities. Taking advantage of the proliferation of online material from nineteenth-century periodicals, the special edition of NCGS we propose would focus on what periodicals and newspapers can tell us about the gendered aspects of these professional identities.
Jennifer Ruth in her Novel Professions: Interested Disinterest and the Making of the Professional in the Victorian Novel (Ohio State University Press, 2006) has argued provocatively that the novel attempted to theorise the professional in ways political economy failed to do. In fact, however, it is the periodical press that most extensively addresses the complex issues involved in professional identity. Of course the professions were discussed in fiction in periodicals (e.g. Trollope's "Editor's Tales" first published in St Paul's Magazine consider the role of the professional writer) and we should welcome discussion of the professions and gender in periodical fiction, but enormous numbers of non-fiction articles also appeared in general periodicals about all kinds of professions (E.M. Palmegiano's Health and British Magazines in the Nineteenth Century lists many concerned with the medical profession, for example, and the Wellesley Index is invaluable to locate material on other professions). Then again, hundreds of specifically professional periodicals arose with titles like the Accountant, Army and Navy Gazette, Builder, Engineer, Financial News, Missionary Chronicle, Schoolmaster and Schoolmistress. With varying degrees of detail, these portray lifestyles, working practices and networking procedures and etiquette besides the ostensible domain itself, providing rich and often unexpected insights into nineteenth-century gender relations.
The traditional professions of the church, law, medicine and the military were set up as exclusively male, and there was a strong patrilineal element in professional recruitment (sons either following fathers or entering a neighbouring profession). This of course does not mean these professions were or are “ungendered” as Anne Witz, Cynthia Cockburn and many others forcefully showed in the 1980s. They are, rather, tied to particular versions of masculinity, only one component of which (albeit a large one) was concerned with the exclusion of women. More recently Priti Joshi in her case study of Edwin Chadwick (Victorian Literature and Culture (2004), 32:2: 353-370) and John Tosh more generally have shown that the relationship between masculinity and the practice of a profession was not always easy. What can the periodical press tell us about the construction of masculinity in particular professions? How does the relationship between the two change over the century? How are the masculinities associated with the established professions - themselves divergent from one another - different from emergent ones such as chemists or engineers?
The limited inroads that women made into medicine and teaching have been studied since before Martha Vicinus’s famous Independent Women (1985), but there is still room for more work on women and the professions. Why and how for example, were women kept out of the law or engineering altogether? Why were there only a half-dozen women architects in the Census of 1901 and just 19 accountants in 1911? Perusal of the relevant journals may suggest some answers. H. Byerley Thomson's The Choice of a Profession (1857) noted that music, art, literature and acting were professions already open to women. While work has already been done on how gender was negotiated in these occupations, periodicals such as Actors by Gaslight, the Art Journal, the Musical Times or the Journalist offer new and specific source material on how both women and men trod the gender tightrope at work.
Finally, we should like to direct attention to the place of advertisements in professional journals. While advertisers paid careful attention to the readership profile of publications they appeared in, we find unequivocally women's products advertised in periodicals directed to professions which only men practised. Does this signify only control of women's consumption by men, or are other explanations possible? Perhaps a study of contemporary advertisers’ manuals on where to place products may yield some answers. We raise this issue only as an example of how advertisements can yield many kinds of data relevant to the study of gender.
The recent appearance of the Dictionary of Nineteenth-Century Journalism (British Library/ Academia Press, January 2009) as well as the online resources of ncse, the British Library, Gale-Cengage and others will be a significant aid to identifying hitherto neglected periodical sources. In drawing attention to periodicals, to their fiction, their non-fiction and their adverts for this special issue, we are seeking to generate through a vast but hitherto largely invisible textual palette an ever more finely shaded and sharper picture of nineteenth-century gender relations at work.
Enquiries are welcome, as are completed articles. Please send either to Andrew King (andrew.king@canterbury.ac.uk) or Marysa Demoor (marysa.demoor@ugent.be).
Articles (5,000-8,000 word) should be in MLA format with a brief biographical note which will be posted if accepted for publication. To facilitate the peer review process, please send two files—one with your article void of any identifying information and another with your brief biographical note. The deadline for completed submissions is 31 May 2009.
We look forward to an exciting issue.
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