NUMBER 84 FALL 2013 To the Readers: night insects killed by contemporary bug-zapper Woolf and Animals – TABLE of CONTENTS – See page 8 technology. Twenty-first century Woolf scholarship has seen International Virginia Woolf Alison Lacivita’s “‘diamond-cut red eyes’: Insect a surge of interest in Woolf and the natural world. Society Column, Perspectives in To the Lighthouse and Between the Virginia Woolf and the Study of Nature, by Christina Officers and Members-at-Large Acts” investigates the viewpoints of insects in two Alt (2010); In the Hollow of the Wave: Virginia See page 52 (continued on 51) of Woolf’s novels, examining Woolf’s descriptions Woolf and Modernist Uses of Nature, by Bonnie – EVENTS, INFO and CFPs– of what ants or bluebottle flies or butterflies Kime Scott (2012); Virginia Woolf and the Natural About MLA 2014 in Chicago experience in tandem with or through indifference World: Selected Papers from the Twentieth Annual See page 3 toward the human presence. International Conference on Virginia Woolf, Louisville Conference edited by Kristin Czarnecki and Carrie Rohman 2015 CFP & 2014 panel session Becky Tipper, in “Moments of Being and Ordinary (2011); the “Eco-Woolf’ issue of the Virginia Woolf See page 3 Human-Animal Encounters,” takes a sociological Miscellany, edited by Diana Swanson (2012); and About the 2014 and ethnographic approach when she considers how Virginia Woolf and the Materiality of Theory: Sex, Annual Conference on Virginia Woolf Woolf’s concept of moments of being “offers an Animal, Life, by Derek Ryan (2013), are among See page 4 eloquent and evocative way to understand” human- works exploring the myriad aspects of nature animal encounters. After discussing several of and the environment found throughout Woolf’s Virginia Woolf Miscellany Woolf’s own examples of moments of being, Tipper Editorial note: While previously published work may oeuvre. As Swanson points out, for instance, be submitted for consideration, the original publication recounts in-depth interviews she held with people “Ecocriticism and ecofeminism are relatively new must be acknowledged at the time of submission. about their highly affecting experiences with the theoretical and methodological approaches in Guest Editors & CFPs non-human other. She finds that “in such moments Woolf studies but have already proved to be fertile Issue #86—Fall 2014 of being, humans might indeed appreciate ‘what avenues into her work” (1). In addition, the issue Virginia Woolf and Katherine Mansfield Articles on the topic may include Woolf’s and it is like’ to be a creature” and that “people may of Deleuze Studies, “Deleuze, Virginia Woolf, and Mansfield’s writings, friendship, rivalry, shared experience interspecies ‘fellowship’ or intimacy.” Modernism” (7:4 2013), includes two essays on interests; different ways they interconnect; animality: Carrie Rohman’s “A Hoard of Floating literary experiments; modernist agendas; Sandra Inskeep-Fox’s poem, “The Snail and Monkeys: Creativity and Inhuman Becomings in engagements with social, political, economic the transcending time,” is the first of several Woolf’s Nurse Lugton Story” and Derek Ryan’s concerns; attitudes to empire, nationality, contributions concerning Woolfian snails. Her poem cultural belonging. We also welcome critical adopts the snail’s perspective from “The Mark on “‘The reality of becoming’: Deleuze, Woolf and the perspectives such as constructions of self and Territory of Cows.” These works are just a few of identity, sexuality, ecology, critical animal the Wall” while integrating the human observer’s many. Virginia Woolfstudies, commodity culture and the marketplace,Miscellany perceptions as well. “She is watching me,” the snail the visual arts. Send submissions of no more states, “taking notes. / She wants to sink deeper, / Indeed, animals play a vital role in Woolf’s life and than 2500 words to: […] Only / I know that to look is not to see.” writing. From the lighthearted animal nicknames Kathryn Simpson <[email protected]> and E. D. Kort’s “The Snail in ‘Kew Gardens’: A she shared with her family to the disturbing animal Melinda Harvey imagery in Between the Acts, creatures great and <[email protected]> Commentary on Ethical Awareness” offers a small roam among Woolf’s letters, diaries, short Deadline: March 1, 2014 meticulous investigation of the ethics of the snail stories, novels, and essays. This special Miscellany Issue #87—Spring 2015 and its various endeavors. The snail’s diligence issue on Woolf and Animals highlights the “1930s Woolf” and intentionality contrast with the humans who innovative ways Woolf perceived and represented . This issue of VWM seeks contributions that wander randomly through the snail’s environment, the nonhuman other. These contributions are explore Woolf’s relationship to the canonical preoccupied only with themselves. She argues that literature of the 1930s, such as but not limited Woolf “has drawn a careful contrast between the grouped on the premise of the living beings that are to Auden’s poetry, Isherwood’s Berlin fiction, discussed, and the perspectives focus on a range of Auden’s and Isherwood’s plays, Spender’s snail’s world on the one hand and the insincerity, beings including insects, snails, toads and snakes, commentary, and Waugh’s comedic novels. awkwardness, and self-absorption of humans on the fish, birds and four-legged creatures including In addition, this issue encourages responses other.” rabbits and Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s animal to the following questions: How does Woolf scholarship, if at all, engage with the critical companion, Flush. Katherine Parker-Hay in “Reading a Woolfian study of 1930s literature? How does Woolf’s Sexuality in the Poetry of Marianne Moore” modernism disrupt or complement the critical considers representations of sexuality in Mrs. Jeanne Dubino’s article, “Virginia Woolf’s understanding of 1930s literature? What can Dance-Drama: Staging the Life and Death of Woolf’s late fiction and essays reveal about Dalloway and Marianne Moore’s poem “The the Moth,” combines a very close reading of the 1930s and its literature that the common Paper Nautilus.” Noting that critics have found Woolf’s essay, “The Death of the Moth,” with scholarly narrative conceals or overlooks? both women avoiding sexuality in their texts, the recent developments in the field of nonhuman Send submissions of no more than 2500 words Parker-Hay sees Woolf and Moore drawing upon to: Erica Gene Delsandro animal imagery to “expand beyond the trappings animal studies. She positions the argument in the <[email protected]> context of our increasingly rapid planetary mass Deadline for submission: of the classic sexual metaphor.” Both writers take extinctions. She also pairs the demise of this single August 1, 2014 up the image of exterior protective armor, such as moth, which is entirely due to natural causes, Clarissa’s party dress, Doris Kilman’s defiance, For information or questions about and the paper nautilus, in considering women’s with Monica Youn’s poem, “Against Imagism,” the Virginia Woolf Miscellany which illuminates the annihilation of millions of contact Vara Neverow autonomy over their sexuality, domesticity, and <[email protected]> maneuverability in patriarchal spaces. 1 “‘The curious phenomenon of your occipital horn’: Spiraling around “What Does Power Smell Like? Canine Epistemology and the Politics Snails and Slugs in Virginia Woolf,” by Elisa Kay Sparks, provides a of the Pet in Virginia Woolf’s Flush” by Anna Feuerstein considers thorough overview of snails and slugs throughout Woolf’s writings. At how canine epistemology in the novel “disrupts the dominant empirical times, they signify “cozy self-sufficiency” as when Woolf wonders in epistemology of the period, allowing readers to experience animal her diary whether a “dark dry little house […] a little snail shell of a alterity as a non-empirical mode of knowing.” In doing so, she counters place […] could be made habitable for the summer.” Snail shells also “the dominant critical belief that the novel’s use of anthropomorphism serve as “metaphors for human endeavor” and “houses of fiction,” while discounts the possibility of animal alterity.” Relying primarily on scent, exploring the world from a snail’s viewpoint yields fresh insights into Flush’s canine epistemology opposes Victorian empiricism while also both animal and human subjectivity. Sparks finds “that, as with many of highlighting “the troublesome power relationships associated with [Woolf’s] natural references, there is a lifetime of observation, emotional pet keeping” and “the ‘smelly’ side of gender oppression in Victorian resonance, and symbolic elaboration underwriting the many tenors of England.” these miniature vehicles.” In the same vein, Jamie Johnson, in “Virginia Woolf’s Flush: In “‘Like Snake that Swallowes toad’: Woolf and Male Cultural Power,” Decentering Human Subjectivity through the Nonhuman Animal Jim Stewart begins his argument by noting that Woolf, in setting Character,” cites studies that emphasize Woolf’s anthropomorphizing out to read Andrew Marvell’s entire oeuvre during 1921, the poet’s of Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s dog and a critique of Victorian tercentenary, was also engaging in “a subterranean resistance […] to mores as the novel’s principal tropes. Johnson, in turn, sees Flush [T. S. Eliot’s] ‘magisterial’ (D2 292) paternalistic cultural authority.” showing the “complex workings of human-animal relationships with Stewart aligns a contested