Air War, Propaganda, and Woolf's Anti-Tyranny Aesthetic
TL;DR: The authors examines Virginia Woolf's negotiation of political and aesthetic commitments in the 1930s, reassessing her revisions of The Years away from explicit political critique in the context of the Woolfs' trip to Germany, the release of Leni Riefenstahl's Triumph of the Will, and the bombing of Madrid during the Spanish Civil War.
Abstract: This essay examines Virginia Woolf’s negotiation of political and aesthetic commitments in the 1930s, reassessing her revisions of The Years away from explicit political critique in the context of the Woolfs’ trip to Germany, the release of Leni Riefenstahl’s Triumph of the Will , and the bombing of Madrid during the Spanish Civil War. Tracing a homology between a literal aerial perspective, a totalizing narrative voice, political propaganda, and despotism, this essay argues that Woolf embedded her critique of tyranny within the novel’s form. With two narrative perspectives, the novel undercuts the allure of totalizing knowledge without itself propagandizing.
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272 citations
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06 Dec 2018TL;DR: Threshold Modernism as discussed by the authors investigates how changing ideas about gender and race in late nineteenth-and early-20th-century Britain shaped and were shaped by London and its literature.
Abstract: Threshold Modernism reveals how changing ideas about gender and race in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Britain shaped - and were shaped by - London and its literature. Chapters address key sites, especially department stores, women's clubs, and city streets, that coevolved with controversial types of modern women. Interweaving cultural history, narrative theory, close reading, and spatial analysis, Threshold Modernism considers canonical figures such as George Gissing, Henry James, Dorothy Richardson, H. G. Wells, and Virginia Woolf alongside understudied British and colonial writers including Amy Levy, B. M. Malabari, A. B. C. Merriman-Labor, Duse Mohamed Ali, and Una Marson. Evans argues that these diverse authors employed the 'new public women' and their associated spaces to grapple with widespread cultural change and reflect on the struggle to describe new subjects, experiences, and ways of seeing in appropriately novel ways. For colonial writers of color, those women and spaces provided a means through which to claim their own places in imperial London.
21 citations
01 Jan 2015
5 citations
19 Feb 2019
TL;DR: The authors argue that in her 1938 essay Three Guineas Virginia Woolf proposes strategies for resistance to fascism and war that anticipate Emmanuel Le Gall, the leader of the French National Resistance.
Abstract: Focusing on the significance of the term “indifference,” I argue that in her 1938 essay Three Guineas Virginia Woolf proposes strategies for resistance to fascism and war that anticipate Emmanuel L...
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01 Jan 1988
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present a very different view of the arts of practice in a very diverse culture, focusing on the use of ordinary language and making do in the art of practice.
Abstract: Preface General Introduction PART I: A VERY ORDINARY CULTURE I. A Common Place: Ordinary Language II. Popular Cultures: Ordinary Language III. Making Do: Uses and Tactics PART II: THEORIES OF THE ART OF PRACTICE IV. Foucault and Bourdieu V. The Arts of Theory VI. Story Time PART III: SPATIAL PRACTICES VII. Walking in the City VIII. Railway Navigation and Incarceration IX. Spatial Stories PART IV: Uses of Language X. The Scriptural Economy XI. Quotations of Voices XII. Reading as Poaching PART V: WAYS OF BELIEVING XIII. Believing and Making People Believe XIV. The Unnamable Indeterminate Notes
10,978 citations
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01 Jan 1977
TL;DR: The diary of Virginia Woolf (1915) as mentioned in this paper is a collection of diary entries written by the author of The Diary of V. Woolf and published by the National Archives of the United Kingdom.
Abstract: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Documents about the work The diary of Virginia Woolf (1915) / Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Pages in data.bnf.fr . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Related authors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 This page in data.bnf.fr lab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Sources and references . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Link to the main catalogue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Sources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Variant of the title
426 citations
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01 Jan 2001
TL;DR: Harley as mentioned in this paper defines a map as a social construction and argues that maps are not simple representations of reality but exert profound influences upon the way space is conceptualized and organized, in which power - whether military, political, religious or economic - becomes inscribed on the land through cartography.
Abstract: Focusing on historical examples and the practises of modern cartography, J.B. Harley (1932-1991) offers an alternative to the dominant view that Western cartography since the Renaissance has been a progressive technological, scientific and objective trajectory of development. This traditional view asserts that maps produce an accurate relational model of terrain and, as such, epitomize representational modernism, which is rooted in the project of the Enlightenment; in sum, maps banish subjectivity from the image. Accordingly, cartographers have promoted a standard scientific model for their discipline, one in which a mirror of nature can be projected through geometry and measurement. Cartographers often mistakenly assess early maps by this modern yardstick, excising from the accepted canon of mapping not only maps from the premodern era but also those from other cultures that do not match Western notions of accuracy. In these essays, Harley draws on ideas in art history, literature, philosophy, and the study of visual culture to subvert the traditional, "positivist" model of cartography, replacing it with one that is grounded in an iconological and semiotic theory of the nature of maps. He defines a map as a "social construction" and argues that maps are not simple representations of reality but exert profound influences upon the way space is conceptualized and organized. A central theme is the way in which power - whether military, political, religious or economic - becomes inscribed on the land through cartography. In this reading of maps and map making, Harley undertakes a surprising journey into the nature of the social and political unconscious.
403 citations
Book•
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17 Jul 1941
TL;DR: In Between the Acts as discussed by the authors, a novel about life in a country house in whose grounds there is to be a pageant, "Between the Acts" is also a striking evocation of English experience in the months leading up to the Second World War.
Abstract: Virginia Woolf's last novel, in equal parts a triumphant celebration and witty mockery of 'Englishness', "Between the Acts" is edited by Stella McNichol, with an introduction and notes by Gillian Beer in "Penguin Modern Classics". Outwardly a novel about life in a country house in whose grounds there is to be a pageant, "Between the Acts" is also a striking evocation of English experience in the months leading up to the Second World War. Through dialogue, humour and the passionate musings of the characters, Virginia Woolf explores how a community is formed (and scattered) over time. The tableau, a series of scenes from English history, and the private dramas that go on between the acts are closely interlinked. Through the figure of Miss La Trobe, author of the pageant, Virginia Woolf questions imperialist assumptions and, at the same time, re-creates the elusive role of the artist. Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) is regarded as a major 20th century author and essayist, a key figure in literary history as a feminist and modernist, and the centre of "The Bloomsbury Group". This informal collective of artists and writers which included Lytton Strachey and Roger Fry, exerted a powerful influence over early twentieth-century British culture. Between 1925 and 1931 Virginia Woolf produced what are now regarded as her finest masterpieces, from "Mrs Dalloway" (1925) to the poetic and highly experimental novel "The Waves" (1931). She also maintained an astonishing output of literary criticism, short fiction, journalism and biography, including the playfully subversive "Orlando" (1928) and "A Room of One's Own" (1929) a passionate feminist essay. If you enjoyed "Between the Acts", you might like Woolf's "The Waves", also available in "Penguin Modern Classics". "A powerful and prophetic statement". (Richard Shone, "The Times").
310 citations