English 150

Other Readings and Media

Cunningham, M: The Hours; Lee, H: Virginia Woolf; Woolf, V: Between the Acts, Jacob's Room, Moments of Being, Orlando, Mrs. Dalloway, A Room of One's Own, Three Guineas, To the Lighthouse, The Waves, A Writer's Diary, The Years

Description

The semester will be devoted to an intensive and extensive reading of Virginia Woolf's literary career, focusing on her fiction but also taking into account her essays, diaries, and letters. We will trace the evolution of Woolf's narrative strategies and subjects, representation of consciousness, engagement with history and politics, and remaking into a contemporary icon. We will also assess her contributions to modernist aesthetics and gender theory. In preparation for writing the senior thesis, students will explore a explore a range of recent critical approaches to Woolf -- psychoanalytic, materialist, feminist, and biographical -- and examine some of the recently published holograph manuscripts. Short writing assignments will culminate in an approximately twenty-page essay.