NUMBER 73 SPRING/SUMMER 2008 To the Reader you taken a leading part in the invention of the implements of war? How far have your students I. Introduction—Woolf and Pedagogy — TABLE of CONTENTS — succeeded in business as capitalists? How then page 10 Intellectual Liberty Under Pressure to can you expect ‘very handsome bequests and Instrumentalize Knowledge donations’ to come your way?” (AROO 21; TG UPCOMING EVENTS 30, 32). This logic, which Woolf eventually links Editing a special issue on Woolf and pedagogy has – CFP for MLA 2009 – to the cultivation of public sentiments that lead to been both exciting and daunting. Reflecting on the – MLA 2008 – war, is akin to what Paulo Freire calls the “banking” topic has reminded me of how many innovative, page 2 concept in education.2 According to Freire, “The thoughtful, intellectually and ethically committed – CFP for Louisville 2009 – capability of banking education to minimize or teachers I’ve met during Woolf conferences and – Louisville 2008 Report – annul the students’ creative power and to stimulate other gatherings of folks who are passionate about page 3 their credulity serves the interests of the oppressors, Woolf. For the very same reason, the prospect of who care neither to have the world revealed nor – Virginia Woolf Conferences – selecting essays for such an issue was daunting—how to see it transformed. The oppressors use their presumptuous to think that one could put together a page 3 & 4 humanitarianism to preserve a profitable situation” “special” issue on Woolf and pedagogy for readers – Grolier Club Exhibit – (54). In other words, the instrumentalization of who are, in their own rights, gifted and inspiring – A Room of Their Own Exhibit – knowledge teaches us to adapt to the status quo, teachers! Hence the strange transformation I feel page 4 however unjust, rather than to imagine other when in the company of Woolfians: each summer I – A Year of Bloomsbury at Duke – methods for bringing about a just world. come to the annual conference feeling like a grizzled page 5 veteran of the classroom, only to feel myself morph – A Room of One’s Own Woolf, as many have said before me, was a into an enthusiastic novice eavesdropping on a at Cambridge – proponent of pedagogies that would inspire us to conversation that stretches back decades to Woolf’s “think peace into existence” (“Thoughts on Peace page 6 own musings on pedagogy in works such as A Room in an Air Raid” 243). Continuing her letter to the of One’s Own and Three Guineas. Let us not call hypothetical honorary treasurer of the women’s this issue “special” then, but “characteristic,” in the Virginia Woolf Miscellany college, she devises a potential curriculum for sense that the essays collected in this volume carry Guest Editors & CFPs “produc[ing] the kind of society, the kind of on an already distinguished tradition of Woolfians Issue #75—Spring 2009 people that will help to prevent war” (TG 33). The generously sharing their best ideas about education, Elisa Sparks curriculum at the “new college, the poor college” aboutVirginia pedagogy, and about cultivating what Woolf Woolf Country and City Miscellanywould not teach “the arts of dominating other called “intellectual liberty” (TG 85). in Woolf’s Life and Work people; not the arts of ruling, of killing, of acquiring The theme will place special emphasis land and capital” (TG 34). Instead, the college I have thought often about intellectual liberty in the on parks and gardens and on theoretical would teach past several years, because it seems such a fragile approaches including space and place. thing to nurture in a cultural environment (I am Articles and queries should be sent to only the arts that can be taught cheaply and [email protected] writing of my own cultural location in the U.S.) practiced by poor people; such as medicine, should be less than 2500 words. Final where educators are under increasing pressures to drafts will be due by December 1, 2008, mathematics, music, painting and literature. It instrumentalize knowledge. By this I mean the so queries and proposals need to be in by should teach the arts of human intercourse; the trend to “assess” educational “outcomes” according October 15, 2008. art of understanding other people’s lives and to supposedly quantifiable measures, such as job minds….[I]t should explore the ways in which Issue #76—Fall 2009 placement, income, and technological proficiency of the mind and body can be made to co-operate; 1 Patrick Collier graduates. These goals, while certainly respectable, discover what new combinations make good Woolf in Periodicals/ imagine students primarily as potential contributors wholes in human life. (TG 34) to local and national economies. We only need Woolf on Periodicals. The VWM, seeks short essays (2000 look to Woolf to understand that this is not a new words maximum) investigating Virginia I suspect, but I am perhaps biased by my own development in public perceptions of education. Woolf’s interactions with periodicals. professional commitments, that Woolf is describing Her ironic chastisement of Mary Seton’s mother for Particularly welcome are essays that what we now call liberal education—a curriculum bearing and raising children rather than learning “the read periodicals themselves as complex devoted to developing well-rounded persons great art of making money” in A Room of One’s Own cultural texts while contextualizing and/ with the ability to think critically and creatively becomes even more pointed in Three Guineas, where or historicizing Woolf’s contributions. about ideas and issues, to evaluate evidence she asks of a hypothetical “honorary treasurer” of a Essays that shed new light on Woolf’s dispassionately, to resist the sway of ideology, evolving attitudes towards journalism and women’s college: “What has your college done to especially the ideology of the powerful few who the print marketplace are also welcome. stimulate great manufacturers to endow it? Have Deadline: July 1, 2009 would dare to “dictate to other human beings how Submit essays via they shall live; what they shall do” (TG 53). 1 For a more thorough discussion of the trend towards email attachment to Patrick Collier at measureable outcomes, see Mary Cayton’s “The Commodification of Wisdom” and Paul Basken’s report [email protected] 2 For more on Freire and Woolf, see Jill Channing’s essay on infighting over liberal education in the department of in this issue of the Miscellany. education. 1 This curriculum, importantly, moves beyond the classroom and beyond is November 10, 2008. Voting on the resulting proposals will be the constructed categories of “student” and “teacher.” The habits of completed by December 21, 2008, to meet MLA deadlines. If you “intellectual liberty” are, or should be (for Woolf) quotidian operations want to propose your own special session, go to the MLA website for that challenge our complacent acceptance of custom (and the social instructions: http://www.mla.org/. stratification that accompanies it) for custom’s sake: Contact: [email protected] or Let us think in offices; in omnibuses; while we are standing in the Bonnie Kime Scott, President IVWS, Dept. of Women’s Studies, San crowd watching Coronations and Lord Mayor’s shows; let us think Diego State University, San Diego, CA 92182-6030. as we pass the Cenotaph; and in Whitehall; in the gallery of the House of Commons; in the Law Courts; let us think at baptisms and I will hope to hear from many of you. marriages and funerals. Let us never cease from thinking—what is this ‘civilization’ in which we find ourselves? (TG 62-63) Best wishes, Bonnie Kime Scott Seventy years later, many of us are still asking this question. The seat of imperial power may have changed, as have the ceremonies and Note: As an Allied Organization of the Modern Language Association, the public spectacles, but, if one reads the newspapers, hardly a day goes International Virginia Woolf Society has traditionally sponsored two sessions by without some headline or picture of atrocity prompting us to ask, at the annual MLA Convention. In the future, the IVWS will sponsor one “what is this ‘civilization’ in which we find ourselves?” This question session, with the potential of sponsoring two sessions if our second session is not rhetorical for Woolf. It is one that requires our best energies and is selected by the MLA conference committee. Sessions are organized and chaired by members of the Modern Language Association. The MLA requires our most creative thinking to ensure that the answer is not one that leads all presenters to be active members of the Modern Language Association. us to despair. I’m heartened to say that in my years as a teacher and The IVWS invites, but does not require, all presenters to join the Society. a learner, as a colleague of many wonderful teachers, I’ve witnessed the profoundly transformative force of people (young and old) who have asked the question, and dared to answer it in their own fashion. MLA 2008 IN SAN FRANCISCO This “characteristic” issue on Woolf and pedagogy is offered to you THE PANELS in that spirit, with the hope of stirring up even more discussion of the Saturday, 27 December indispensible craft of teaching, or communicating, and of inspiring habits 74. Troping the Light Fantastic: Woolf’s Use of Desire and Pleasure of “intellectual liberty” among our students and ourselves (TG 85). 5:15–6:30 p.m., Hilton San Francisco Program arranged by the International Virginia Woolf Society Madelyn Detloff Presiding: Brenda S. Helt, Univ. of Minnesota, Twin Cities Miami University, Oxford, OH 1. “The ‘Power to Cut and Wound and Excite’: Feeling and Communication after War in Mrs.