Virginia Woolf and the Materiality of Theory: Sex, Animal, Life

Derek Ryan

Published by Edinburgh University Press 2013

Virginia Woolf and the Materiality of Theory

Sex, Animal, Life

Derek Ryan

https://doi.org/10.1515/9780748676446

Overview
Contents

About this book

Explores Woolf’s writing alongside Deleuze’s philosophy and new materialist theories of ‘sex’, ‘animal’, and ‘life’.

How does Virginia Woolf conceptualise the material world? In what ways has Woolf’s modernism affected understandings of materiality, and what new perspectives does she offer contemporary theoretical debates? Derek Ryan demonstrates how materiality is theorised in Woolf’s writings by focusing on the connections she makes between culture and nature, embodiment and environment, human and nonhuman, life and matter. Through close readings of texts including To the Lighthouse, Orlando, A Room of One’s Own, The Waves, Flush, and ‘Sketch of the Past’, he details the fresh insights Woolf provides into issues concerning the natural world, sexual difference, sexuality, animality, and life itself.

Ryan opens up Woolf studies to new theoretical paradigms by placing Woolf in dialogue with Gilles Deleuze – who cites her modernist aesthetics as exemplary of some of his most important philosophical concepts – as well as eminent contemporary theorists including Rosi Braidotti, Donna Haraway, Karen Barad, and Jane Bennett, all of whom have influenced the recent critical turn towards new materialisms. Locating theory within Woolf’s writing as well as locating Woolf within theory, Virginia Woolf and the Materiality of Theory: Sex, Animal, Life brings her modernism firmly into to the foreground of current debates in literary studies, feminist philosophy, queer theory, animal studies and posthumanities.

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: Virginia Woolf and the Materiality of Theory Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
1 Materials for Theory: Digging Granite and Chasing Rainbows Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	26
2 Sexual Difference in Becoming: A Room of One’s Own and To the Lighthouse Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	58
3 Queering Orlando and Non/Human Desire Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	101
4 The Question of the Animal in Flush Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	132
5 Quantum Reality and Posthuman Life: The Waves Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	171
Bibliography Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	203
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	220

(Deutsch)

Language: English
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
Audience: College/higher education;
Pages
- Main content: 232
Keywords: Literary Studies

eBook

Published: March 17, 2013
ISBN: 9780748676446