Course Description

I come to feel more and more how difficult it is to collect oneself into one Virginia...
~Virginia Woolf, letter dated October, 1931~

If it was difficult for Virginia Woolf then to see herself as "one Virginia," it is certainly difficult for readers now to collect into one the many voices we hear in her novels, essays, letters, and diaries or the many images we see of her often-photographed face. But why should we try? The theme of this course might well be "The Many Virginias."

Since her death in 1941, Virginia Woolf has become all of the following:

• An icon of elite, high culture and a constant reference in popular culture;
• A representation of frail, feminine sensibility and a figure of rebellious feminism; ~An example of a mentally unstable yet brilliant genius and of an independent, strong- minded, highly prolific writer;
• A writer of sensitive, lyrical, and very difficult prose and of popular, well-selling novels and essays; ~A person politically limited by her upper middle-class privileges and a socialist/feminist/anarchist committed to imagining and working for social change;
• A "woman writer" within a tame English version of an otherwise radical international modernism and a leader in that same movement, even one ahead of her time who anticipates postmodernism.

Who was Virginia Woolf? What has her writing meant to twentieth and, now, twenty-first-century literature and its readers? What significance does it hold for us, sixty-one years after her death? Our project this semester is not to dismiss the many Virginias already out there as too contradictory. Rather, by reading her writing attentively and exploring the contexts in which she wrote, we will critically assess the many images of Virginia and discover new ones for ourselves.

Additional readings, some required of everyone and some for outside research, are held in the Reserve Room of the Main Library (1st Floor).

We will also see several videos during the semester. They are required viewing for everyone.

Disabilities Statement--I have some loss of hearing. Please help me to hear you by speaking loudly and clearly. You may also need to let me know if I am not speaking loudly enough. I would like to hear from anyone in the class who has a disability that may require some modification of the seating, testing or other class requirements so that appropriate arrangements may be made. Please see me after class or during my office hours