NUMBER 78 FALL/WINTER 2010 To the Readers: quite seriously. In the closing keynote, Diana Woolf and Nature Swanson discussed how Woolf’s writing can — TABLE of CONTENTS— encourage and guide us today in reversing see page 8 While Virginia Woolf is closely associated with the city trends of environmental destruction and taking of London, the 2010 Woolf conference at Georgetown EVENTS, INFO and CFPs responsibility for the natural world. When College in Georgetown, Kentucky, Virginia Woolf and pages 2-6 the daily news seems to bring yet another – MLA 2011 – the Natural World, demonstrated the centrality of nature ecological disaster to our attention, Swanson’s – Louisville 2011 CFP – to her life and writing as well. Animals, insects, trees, talk was hopeful and closed the conference on – 21st Virginia Woolf Conference – parks, flowers and gardens, the sea, the land—indeed an inspiring note. numerous aspects of the natural world play a vital REMEMBRANCES role throughout Woolf’s works, even those—perhaps Susan Dick This issue of the Miscellany carries on the especially those—set in the city. The conference page 5 work of the conference, for there remains theme was a natural choice (no pun intended), given Isota Tucker Epes much to be said and discovered about Woolf’s Georgetown College’s location on 104 acres of beautiful page 7 views toward and uses of nature in her Kentucky bluegrass, with rolling hills and grazing horses writing. Christina Alt’s article discusses how to be seen along stretches of highway and country road. Virginia Woolf Miscellany Woolf drew upon her extensive knowledge Also, having attended Anne Fernald’s conference in New Guest Editors & CFPs of taxonomy and specimen collection to comment in her works upon “the constraints York City in 2009, I knew that Woolfians were engaged Issue #80—Fall 2011 in important scholarship not only on “the urban Woolf” Amy Smith and Isabel Mª Andrés imposed by social categorization” and how but also “on her rural haunts and references,” as Elisa Virginia Woolf and “identification determines identity.” Yet Alt Kay Sparks notes in her introduction to the Spring/ Spirituality also discerns Woolf’s sense of how “emerging Summer 2009 issue of the Miscellany, “Streets and Please send 300-word proposals perspectives on nature” could engender Flowers: Woolf and the City/Country.” (for essays up to 2000 words) discussions of “contrasting approaches to to both Amy Smith and Isabel Mª Andrés the presentation of life in fiction.” Alt’s Perusing the 2010 conference program shows the wealth by March 30, 2010 at: article draws upon material from her new of ideas at play regarding Woolf and nature. The schedule <[email protected]> book, Virginia Woolf and the Study of Nature included panels on Woolf and ecocriticism, the human and (Cambridge 2010). Benjamin Hagen and and non-human in Woolf, nature and scientific discovery, < [email protected]> Angeliki Spiropoulou both find Woolf and rural and urban controversies in Mrs. Dalloway, The Issue #81—Spring 2012 working in a Romantic vein. Hagen focuses Years, and Between the Acts—and that’s just part of the Virginia WoolfDiana Swanson Miscellanyon Woolf’s memoir “A Sketch of the Past” and first session of day one of the conference! In addition, Eco-Woolf the role that nature plays in her remembrance Erica Delsandro’s paper argued that in Between the Acts, Submissions should discuss/demonstrate of things past. Like William Wordsworth natural history and the history of Western civilization are ways that ecocritical/ecofeminist thought does in The Prelude, Woolf considers in her confounded on the lawn of Pointz Hall. Drew Shannon can be applied to Woolf’s fiction/ memoir the complexities of autobiographical discovered that two young-adult novels by the British nonfiction. Can ecocriticism open new writing to portray and theorize an ethical writer Jill Paton Walsh, Goldengrove and Unleaving, are perspectives on Woolf’s world view? Writing Self. Spiropoulou sees a Romantic variations on themes and locations in To the Lighthouse. Particularly interesting would be works strain in Woolf’s receptiveness to the natural Emily Hinnov followed the wavelike oscillation between that do not, in their manifest content, focus world—animals, plants, waves, light, color, fragment and wholeness as represented in The Waves on “nature.” Send submissions to Diana and contour—and also sees Woolf addressing in order to illustrate the sense of waxing and waning Swanson at <[email protected]> in her works the problematic relation between inherent in the creation of Woolfian communities that Deadline: January 15, 2011 nature and history. Her article draws from a welcome outsiders into the fold, from an individual Issue #82—Fall 2012 chapter of her book Virginia Woolf, Modernity consciousness revealed as necessarily a fragment, to a Madelyn Detloff and Brenda Helt and History: Constellations with Walter coherent and unified natural world. Queer Woolf Benjamin (Palgrave 2010). We invite brief analyses and explorations The conference keynote speakers further demonstrated of how queer studies can help or has Other articles consider Woolf’s treatment of the breadth of scholarship on Woolf and nature. Bonnie helped illuminate Woolf’s life and work, binaries, particularly those involving rural Kime Scott discussed ways that Woolf’s natural imagery, and vice versa —and how Woolf’s work and urban environs, and also locate intriguing particularly as framed by marginal female characters, and life nuance or otherwise influence links between her fiction and nonfiction and her representations of earth goddess figures offer queer studies, broadly conceived. where aspects of nature are concerned. holistic, ordered moments. This pattern resonates Send submissions of not more than Sandra Inskeep-Fox’s poem attends to the with various ecofeminisms, which Scott presented in 2000 words to significance of gardens and gardening to the the opening keynote, hoping to provide theoretical Madelyn Detloff Woolf marriage. I am delighted to present structure for discussions to follow. Carrie Rohman’s <[email protected]> and in this issue the work of undergraduates as Brenda Helt <[email protected]> by talk explored how Woolf’s novel The Waves describes well. Two students from my Spring 2010 February 1, 2012 the nonhuman dynamism of vibrational forces at work Honors Seminar on Virginia Woolf and the in the human characters, Jinny in particular. Through Bloomsbury Group chose to write their final this reading, she discussed Jinny’s “creativity” as research papers on aspects of nature in Woolf’s writing; their edited something rooted in our animal nature and connected to cosmic patterns. versions of these papers appear here. Jeanne Shearer, a sophomore Rohman’s approach suggests that the novel acknowledges life itself biology major, brought her own love of the natural world into her is an artistic performance, a claim that takes Woolf’s posthumanism paper exploring the importance of plant imagery in Mrs. Dalloway. 1 Adrienne Bartlett, a junior majoring in English and French, examined the complex, fluctuating relationships between humans and nature inTo the MLA 2011—Los Angeles January 6-9 Lighthouse. The Panels Recent conferences, publications, and the articles presented here reflect Thursday, 06 January the myriad ways in which Woolf was inspired by the natural world. Na- 94. Bloomsbury and Africa ture was many things to her: a personal matter, a family matter, a matter 3:30–4:45 p.m., Diamond Salon 6, J. W. Marriott involving science, history, and literary predecessors, and one having a Program arranged by the International Virginia Woolf Society profound impact on social structures, class systems, human psychology, and gender (in)equity. She also, quite simply, enjoyed nature, whether Presiding: Danell Jones, Montana State Univ., Bozeman living in London or Rodmell, working at the Hogarth Press or walking 1. “An Anti-Imperialist League of Their Own: The Hogarth Press, Kenya, in Kew Gardens. In addition, we see the diversity of thought among stu- Norman Leys, and Parmenas Githendu Mockerie,” Jeanne Dubino, Appala- chian State Univ. dents, scholars, and creative writers regarding Woolf and nature. Where one reader sees her privileging nature over culture, another finds her 2. “Bunga Bunga: The Language of the 1910 Dreadnought Hoax,” Martyn doing just the opposite. Such is a unique hallmark of Woolf scholarship, Downer, Buntingford, England for as Sparks notes, “thematic focus on one issue or idea [in Woolf] is 3. “From Cosmopolitanism to Anti-Imperialism: William Plomer, the Hogarth frequently complemented by concentration on its opposite.” We will un- Press, and Colonial Critique,” Laura A. Winkiel, Univ. of Colorado, Boulder doubtedly see such complementarity on full display at the 2011 confer- ence in Glasgow, Scotland, Contradictory Woolf. Friday, 07 January 254. Dirt, Desire, Recollection: James Joyce and Virginia Woolf Kristin Czarnecki 12:00 noon–1:15 p.m., Plaza III, J. W. Marriott Georgetown College Program arranged by the International Virginia Woolf Society and the Inter- national James Joyce Foundation LouisviLLe ConferenCe 2011 Presiding: Bonnie Kime Scott, San Diego State Univ. The International Virginia Woolf Society is pleased to host 1. “Woolf’s Gothic Modernism: Spirited Feminism in To the Lighthouse,” Bonita Rhoads, Masaryk Univ. its tenth consecutive panel at the University of Louisville Conference on Literature and Culture Since 1900, scheduled 2. “Shitting on Empire: Metropolitan Abjection and Colonial Returns in Vir- ginia Woolf’s London,” Katherine Merz, Univ. of Wisconsin, Madison for February 24-26, 2011. The 2011 panel includes Morgan Hanson of Motlow State Community College, who will 3. “The Crumbs of Ulysses,” Abby S. Bender, New York Univ. read her paper, “Equal and Opposite Reactions in Virginia 4. “Joyce, Woolf, and the Philosophy of Dirt,” Richard H. Brown, Univ. of Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway”; Ruth Hoberman of Eastern Illinois Leeds University, whose paper is entitled, “Rhoda in Oxford Street: Commodity Consciousness in The Waves”; and Saturday, 08 January Beth Rigel Daugherty of Otterbein University, who will 458.