Seminar: Virginia Woolf

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2025 When life [sinks] down for a moment, the range of experience [seems] limitless … . Beneath it is dark, it is all spreading, it is unfathomably deep, but now and again we rise to the surface, and this is what you see us by. Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse , 1927. As a literary critic, social commentator, and, above all, experimental author, Virgina Woolf is a key figure in British modernism. In this seminar, we will encounter deep and limitless mysteries within Woolf’s essays, short fiction, and novels, including Mrs. Dalloway , To the Lighthouse , The Waves , A Room of One’s Own , and Three Guineas . We will explore the relationship between her work and literary modernism, between her criticism and her art, and between her art, and her biography. Critics have developed widely divergent readings of Woolf as an effete elite, an engaged citizen, a feminist warrior, a neurotic and troubled artist, and/or as a queer icon. We will grow together in our understanding of this complex, crucial 20 th century writer through substantial collaborative discussion and individual exploration culminating in seminar-length research projects. Satisfies the Historical Approaches requirement of the English major. Prerequisites & Notes Juniors and Seniors only.