NUMBER 87 SPRING/SUMMER 2015 To the Readers: This is not to say that particular scholars have not 1930s Woolf – TABLE of CONTENTS – attempted to reorient discussions of the 1930s and Valentine Cunningham, in his iconic British See page 16 its literature. Most notably, Jed Esty, in his 2004 Writers of the Thirties (1988), argues against International Virginia Woolf A Shrinking Island, examines the 1930s literary the traditional characterization of the decade’s Society Column production of modernist writers, specifically T. S. literature as exclusively shaped and reflected by See page 56 Eliot, E. M. Forster, and Virginia Woolf. However, the Auden Generation. This characterization, IVWS Officers and Members-at-Large instead of integrating these canonical modernist deeply engrained in the scholarly discourse See page 55 writers into a broader examination of the 1930s by Cunningham’s 1988 publication date—and –EVENTS, INFO and CFPs– literary scene in order to investigate the reciprocal due in large part to Auden and Company’s self- MLA 2016 in Austin relationships between 1930s literary trends and mythologizing proclivities—places poetry above See page 3 modernism, Esty focuses on the development and prose, realism above modernism, and political 2016 Annual Conference on role of modernism through the 1930s. Esty argues commitment above aesthetic innovation. And, Virginia Woolf: that rather than relinquishing its position as the not surprisingly, men above women. Despite the Virginia Woolf and Heritage dominant cultural force in the decade—as many reality that Cunningham’s comprehensive text Leeds Trinity University, UK See page 4 narratives of 1930s literature seem to imply— inadvertently contributes to this traditional and modernism reorients itself. According to Esty, narrow understanding of the 1930s more than 2017 Annual Conference on modernism takes an “anthropological turn” in it disrupts or expands it, he does articulate his Virginia Woolf: which modernist aesthetics are redirected towards inclusive intentions early in his book. An example Woolf and the World of Books a pastoral, English nativism. In other words, rather of his inclusive intentions is his reference to University of Reading, UK rd than examining what sympathies Woolf, Eliot, and Virginia Woolf’s Shakespeare’s sister. Within 3 Korea-Japan Woolf Conference Forster might share with their younger generation this context, Cunningham describes the gender See page 52 literary counterparts during the decade, Esty dynamics of the interwar literary scene: “The About the Leonard Woolf Society focuses on how Victorian-born modernists adapt neglected sister—why didn’t we know more See page 5 to political and cultural currents that dominate the about Shakespeare’s sister, Virginia Woolf asked, About the Virginia Woolf Miscellany decade, thus reinforcing the distinction between famously and influentially inA Room of One’s Editorial note: writers of the 1930s and modernists writing in the Own (1928), inspiring numerous recent feminist While previously published work may be submitted for 1930s. inquiries—was finding her modern voice in consideration, both the original publication and any other versions of it must be acknowledged and cited in the ’20s and ’30s, and her critical and editorial the text at the time of submission. As the title of this issue of the Virginia Woolf brother wasVirginia still trying to stifle it” (26). Although WoolfSpecial Topics & CFPs Miscellany Miscellany, “1930s Woolf,” suggests, the Woolf, in her role with Leonard Woolf as owner For more detailed versions of the CFPs contributing scholars look closely at Woolf’s and operator of the Hogarth Press, was not only see page 46 writing and literary politics of the decade, a writer in the 1930s but also a literary arbiter, Virginia Woolf Miscellany constellating her with canonical 1930s writers her position in the literary history of the first half Issue #89--Spring 2016: (such as Isherwood and Upward) and other of the twentieth century is indisputably that of A Truly Miscellaneous Issue women writers publishing in the decade (Dorothy Editor: Diana Swanson female modernist. (It is worth noting that this Sayers and Victoria Ocampo) as well as attending characterization has not always been secure: <[email protected]> Essays on any topic related to Virginia Woolf to Woolf’s responses to her earlier writing and feminist scholars dedicated a tremendous amount are welcome; however, we do have particular emerging cultural trends of the decade. In this of energy in the last few decades of the twentieth interest in essays on post-colonial, eco-critical, manner, I hope that “1930s Woolf” offers to century to advocating for Woolf’s place in the LGBT, and historical topics. readers of Woolf and readers of the decade a way male-dominated modernist canon, not as a woman Please send queries and submissions to Diana L. Swanson at <[email protected].> to move beyond scholarly categorizations that but simply as a modernist.) Consequently, she is Essays should be between 2,000 and 2,500 words distinguish between Woolf and her canonical hardly ever given a place within studies of the and use MLA citation style. 1930s counterparts by highlighting the way 1930s, despite the fact that her most innovative Submit files in Word or RTF format. Woolf’s work in the decade took seriously her Deadline: 1 September 2015 fiction, The Waves (1931), and her bestselling literary, historical, and cultural moment, her own Issue #90—Fall 2016: novel, The Years (1937), were published in the continued evolution, and the appearance of new decade, not to mention her political tour de force, Woolf and Illness Guest Editor: Cheryl Hindrichs literary and cultural discourses. The goal is not to Three Guineas, published in 1938. Regardless of <[email protected]> claim Woolf as a 1930s writer. Rather, my aim is her support of the now canonical 1930s writers— Deadline: 31 March 2016 to open up the decade designation in such a way publishing Christopher Isherwood and Edward Issue #91—Spring 2017: as to encourage common readers and scholars of Upward, corresponding with Stephen Spender, Virginia Woolf, Bloomsbury, and the Woolf to “trespass freely and fearlessly” over and and working with John Lehmann—Woolf is War to End War through literary territories—historical as well as distinguished from both the writers and the Guest Editor: Karen Levenback <[email protected]> aesthetic and political—because, as she reminds literary zeitgeist of the decade; although, unlike Deadline: 1 August 2016. us in “The Leaning Tower” (1940), “literature is many of her female counterparts in the 1930s, she Any queries regarding the Virginia Woolf common ground” (154). is far from stifled, she is rarely welcomed into Miscellany should be addressed to the critical conversation examining the decade’s Vara Neverow For Woolf, the end of the decade brought into literature, politics, and position in the history of <[email protected]> relief the dangers of exclusivity and boundary- the novel in the twentieth century. drawing, not just in literature as “The Leaning 1 Tower” argues specifically, but also in life, asThree Guineas recognizes. Both Sarah Cornish and Jennifer Mitchell, like Johnsen, employ In fact, “The Leaning Tower,” its subject the younger generation the decade as the frame for their readings of Woolf’s 1930s writing. of writers commonly known as the Thirties Writers or the Auden Cornish, through her attention to Le Corbusier’s architectural concept Generation, ends with a peroration: “It is thus that English literature of ineffable space, suggests the influence of architectural discourse will survive this war and cross the gulf—if commoners and outsiders on Woolf’s thinking and writing during the 1930s. Reading Woolf in like ourselves make that country our own country, if we teach ourselves conjunction with Le Corbusier, Cornish argues that “Woolf challenges how to read and write, how to preserve, and how to create” (154). meanings, dominant narratives, and patriarchal ideologies found in Although we all know that English literature did indeed survive “this the built environment, contributing to her well-documented interest war” and continues to survive, I think it is important to revisit Woolf’s in the relationship between a gendered body and the city.” Her close concluding reminder: we must continue to teach ourselves how to read, reading of Woolf’s 1938 essay, “America, Which I Have Never write, preserve, and create, a kind reminder to scholars as much as to Seen,” by way of the concept of ineffable space illustrates how Woolf novelists and poets. If we allow ourselves to be confined by scholarly reconceives of the male dominated discourse of architecture in service designations, we may never “find our own way for ourselves.” This issue of creating a “liberated, feminist space.” Similarly, Mitchell draws of the Virginia Woolf Miscellany is dedicated to just that: finding our way upon the increased circulation and familiarity of sexological works by with Woolf through the 1930s. Richard von Kraft-Ebbing and Havelock Ellis during the decade, citing critics’ acknowledgement of Ellis’s direct influence on Woolf and her Many scholars have joined me in this effort and I am proud to showcase conception of androgyny. It is Woolf’s 1933 mock-biography, Flush, them in this issue. Peter Stansky and Alice Keane both directly address that, for Mitchell, stands as an “experiment in masochistic subjectivity.” the scholarly divide between canonical modernists and canonical 1930s “The emotional capacity ascribed to Flush, and its ensuing struggles,” writers by examining connections cultivated through Woolf’s role in Mitchell claims, “echo contemporaneous sexological tracts that uncover the Hogarth Press and the rise of fascism at home and abroad. Stansky and explore the direct relationship between love and suffering.” When leads the issue with his investigation into the relationship between Woolf read together, both Cornish and Mitchell draw our attention to the and Edward Upward, arguably the most committed Communist of the manner in which Woolf was an attentive cultural consumer and critic politically outspoken Auden Generation.