Studies in 20th- and 21st-Century Literature (368-0-21)
Topic
Virginia Woolf, Bloomsbury and the Arts of Life
Instructors
Christine Froula
Meeting Info
University Hall 318: Tues, Thurs 9:30AM - 10:50AM
Overview of class
Centered around London's British Museum, the modernist artists and intellectuals known as "Bloomsbury" formed, E. M. Forster suggested, "the only genuine movement in English civilization." If prewar social movements inspired hope that Europe "might really be on the brink of becoming civilised" (L. Woolf), the Great War (1914-1918) shattered millions of lives, marked "the end of a civilization," disrupted a racialized imperialist and patriarchal social order, and challenged Europeans to rebuild their social world "on firmer ground" (Freud. The ensuing global contest between liberal democracy and rising totalitarianisms in a century of rapid technological and social change led to - and far beyond - World War II. Bloomsbury's influential network includes writers Virginia and Leonard Woolf, co-founders of the Hogarth Press (which made Virginia Woolf "the only woman in England free to write what I like"); economist John Maynard Keynes; founder of psychoanalysis Sigmund Freud (published by Hogarth); E. M. Forster (A Passage to India), Mulk Raj Anand (Untouchable), T. S. Eliot, Rupert Brooke, Katherine Mansfield, Lytton Strachey, Elizabeth Bowen, Radclyffe Hall, David Garnett, and Vita Sackville-West (who inspired Orlando); painters and designers Vanessa Bell, Duncan Grant and Roger Fry; philosophers Bertrand Russell and G. E. Moore; composer Ethel Smyth, and art critic Clive Bell. Working across disciplines, genres, and forms in this stimulating milieu, "Bloomsbury" friends, relations, and associates shared inventive private lives while creating enduring public works that cut a cross-section through the twentieth century and illuminate challenges that are still very much with us.
We'll study major novels and essays by Virginia Woolf alongside works by Bloomsbury contemporaries and inheritors in light of such contexts as: the 1910 Post-Impressionist Exhibition; the women's movement and suffrage campaign; class, sexualities, the law; war, peace, pacifism, censorship, domestic and world conflict; race, imperialism, colonialism, postcolonial critique; the Spanish Civil War; Nazism, fascism, WWII; science, technology, the natural world, the cosmos known and imagined; literary genres, forms, theory, history influence; drama, theatre, fashion, travel, parties, diaries, letters, dogs, and more. As we read and think together, we'll hone analytic and writing skills while engaging each other in vital, informed, questioning conversations that spark creative insight into the Bloomsbury era and our own.
Evaluation Method
Attendance and participation (20%); Canvas posts collected as midterm and final (20%); presentation with 1-2 page handout (15%); 4) option: two shorter or one longer critical and/or creative paper or project (40%); self-evaluation (5%).
Class Materials (Required)
Books at Norris, chosen from: Woolf, Monday or Tuesday (Dover 978-0486294537); Jacob's Room (Dover 978-0486401096 or: Oxford World Classic 978-0199536580); Mrs. Dalloway (Harcourt; Mariner, ed. B. K. Scott 0156030357); To the Lighthouse (Harvest 978-0156907385 or Oxford World Classic B009OBTHCS); A Room of One's Own (Harvest 9780156787338), The Waves (Harvest 978-0156949606), Three Guineas (Harcourt; Mariner, ed. Marcus 0156031639), Between the Acts (Harvest, 9780156034739); Forster, A Passage to India (978-0156711425); shorter texts on Reserve and Canvas.
Class Attributes
Advanced Expression
Literature and Arts Foundational Discipline
Literature & Fine Arts Distro Area