Virginia Woolf: Ambivalent Activist

Clara Jones

Published by Edinburgh University Press 2015

Virginia Woolf

Ambivalent Activist

Clara Jones

https://doi.org/10.1515/9781474401937

Overview
Contents

About this book

Rescues the particularities of Virginia Woolf’s political and social participation, tracing her career as an activist across forty-five years

Clara Jones re-reads Woolf’s fiction and non-fiction in light of her examination of the details of Woolf’s involvement with Morley College, the People’s Suffrage Federation, the Women’s Co-operative Guild and the National Federation of Women’s Institutes. Drawing on extensive archival research into these organisations, Jones also positions Woolf’s activism with regard to the institutional contexts in which she worked. Virginia Woolf: Ambivalent Activist demonstrates the degree to which Woolf was sensitive to the internal politics and conflicts of the bodies she was associated with and the ways in which she interrogated her ambivalent attitudes towards her activism throughout her literary career.

Focusing on texts that represent the range of Woolf’s literary output, this book includes essays, unpublished sketches, Woolf’s social realist 1919 novel Night and Day, and her final, visionary novel Between the Acts. This approach to Woolf’s writing takes an integrated view, incorporating her juvenilia and foregrounding Woolf’s critically neglected early novels. Rather than offering readings of Woolf’s well-known ‘political’ works, Jones instead uncovers the unexpected ways in which Woolf’s activism made its way into unlikely texts.

Key Features

Includes two new transcriptions of material by Woolf: the ‘Report on Teaching at Morley College’ (‘Morley Sketch’) and the ‘Cook Sketch’
Provides insights into the histories of neglected institutions through accounts of Woolf’s activism
Explores a range of texts, reading across genres with an alertness to class and gender politics in each case

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	v
Acknowledgements Publicly Available Download PDF	vi
Abbreviations Publicly Available Download PDF	viii
Introduction Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
Chapter 1 Virginia Stephen and Morley College, 1905–7 Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	17
Chapter 2 Virginia Stephen and the People’s Suffrage Federation, 1910 Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	65
Chapter 3 Virginia Woolf and the Women’s Co-operative Guild, 1913–31 Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	108
Chapter 4 Virginia Woolf and the Rodmell Women’s Institute, 1940–1 Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	154
Conclusion Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	207
Appendix 1 The ‘Morley Sketch’ Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	210
Appendix 2 The ‘Cook Sketch’ Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	216
Bibliography Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	222
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	238

(Deutsch)

Language: English
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
Audience: College/higher education;
Pages
- Main content: 272
Illustrations
- Other: 5 B/W illustrations
Keywords: Literary Studies

eBook

Published: December 14, 2015
ISBN: 9781474401937