ENGLISH 5850 SEMINAR IN A MAJOR FIGURE

VIRGINIA WOOLF: WRITING/LIFE

The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga
CRN 24697 Spring Term 2014 M 5:308:00

DR. GREGORY ODEA

Offices: Holt 229D (425-4611)
Guerry 202 (4254166)
Email: gregory-odea@utc.edu

Hours: M 4:305:30 (Holt)

TWR 2:003:30
and by appointment

"Yet it is in our idleness, in our dreams, that the submerged truth sometimes comes to the top."
Virginia Woolf, A Room of One's Own (1929)

THE COURSE
Catalog Description: A seminar course devoted to a major writer in English. The course will consider
biography, time and place, relationship to literary history, forms and themes. May be repeated only once,
with different content.
Virginia Woolf (18821941) writer, feminist, pacifist is among the most important and influential
figures in twentieth-century literature. Woolf practically reinvented the English novel with her profound,
poetic explorations of subjectivity, and she very much lived at the center of English literary and artistic
life during the inter-war years, working among an unusually energetic circle of modernist writers, artists,
and thinkers. (At different points in her life, she knew or worked with Henry James, T. S. Eliot, James
Joyce, Sigmund Freud, Roger Fry, E. M. Forster, Lytton Strachey, Vita Sackville-West, and many more).
The seminar will examine the interweaving of these two strands, Woolf's revolutionary writing and her
unusual life, in the context of her times. We will concentrate on Woolf's ideas about writing fiction
(though many other ideas and genres flow through that consideration), and our reading will focus on her
novels, essays, and stories. The following topics will have particular interest in our reading and thinking:

English social history (especially class and gender) in the first half of the twentieth century
The development of an artist's thought and work across a career
Modernism as a hallmark of the twentieth century's break with traditional thought
The particulars of a thoroughly "literary" life and family
Psychology and mental illness
Literary process (we'll read significant selections from Woolf's writer's diary)
The intricacies and mysteries of language

TEXTS

Virginia Woolf - Jacob's Room - Mariner - ISBN 978-0156034791

Virginia Woolf - Mrs. Dalloway - Mariner - ISBN 978-0156030359
Virginia Woolf - To the Lighthouse - Mariner - ISBN 978-0156030472
Virginia Woolf - Orlando - Mariner - ISBN 978-0156031516
Virginia Woolf - A Room of One's Own - Mariner - ISBN 978-0156030410
Virginia Woolf - The Waves - Mariner- ISBN 978-0156031578
Virginia Woolf - Between the Acts - Mariner - ISBN 978-0156034739
Virginia Woolf - Moments of Being - Mariner - ISBN 9780156619189
Virginia Woolf - A Writer's Diary - Mariner - ISBN 978-0156027915

English 4470 Virginia Woolf: Writing/Life 2

These required texts are available at the UTC Bookstore and from most online booksellers. Other
materials will be distributed via UTC Online. I would also recommend Hermione Lee's excellent
biography, Virginia Woolf (Vintage, 1997), and

REQUIREMENTS AND GRADES

Short Essays (2 @ 15%) .....................................

Critical Summary-Reviews (6 @ 5%) ................
Longer Researched Paper ...................................
Preparation & Participation .................................

30%
30%
25%
15%

Grade Scale: A=90-100; B=80-89; C=70-79; D=60-69; F=below 60

SHORT ESSAYS
Students will write two short essays, each about 1500 words (about 6 double-spaced, computer-printed
pages). Each essay should address a carefully-focused aspect of one or two of Woolf's works, including at
least one novel, and

pose a clear and specific critical question that you would like to explore;
present a clear and specific response to that question;
offer clear and specific evidence from the text as support for your response.

Suitable subjects include a well-focused theme, analyses of characters or particular scenes or recurring
images, difficulties of plot, narrative devices, structural patterns, etc. I will distribute sample topics at
appropriate times. Due dates are listed in the Schedule of Class Meetings.

CRITICAL SUMMARY-REVIEWS
UTC's Lupton Library gives us access to a wealth of important, peer-reviewed journals in literary studies,
mostly thanks to electronic databases that offer full-text articles. The critical summary-review assignment
will make good use of these resources. Each student is responsible for finding, reading, summarizing and
reviewing one critical article about each novel on our syllabus. You will post your summary-reviews
(with full bibliographic citation) and a link to the full-text article itself in the appropriate forum on our
UTC Online Discussion Board. This way, we'll all have access to a range of critical material as we
discuss each novel, and especially when we approach the longer researched paper. I have posted specific
instructions for this ongoing assignment on UTC Online > Assignments. Please read them carefully.

LONGER RESEARCHED PAPER

Students will write one longer researched paper of about 3500 words (about 15 double-spaced pages).
This paper should trace an idea or theme as it develops through at least two of Woolf's novels. You
should follow the form for short essays (question, response, evidence), but each section of the longer
paper should be more detailed, more sophisticated, and offer more evidence, both from the primary texts
and from at least six secondary critical sources. (If you and your fellow seminarians do well with your
critical summary-reviews, you will have a hefty annotated bibliography to work from as well as quick
access to the articles themselves though you are certainly not limited to this selection of sources.)
In preparation for this paper you are required to submit a written topic proposal and have a short
consultation with me about your plans for researching and organizing the project. Due dates are listed in
the Schedule of Class Meetings.

English 4470 Virginia Woolf: Writing/Life 3

PREPARATION & PARTICIPATION

You are expected to prepare for, attend, and participate in each of our seminar meetings. Absence is
excused only by serious illness or family emergency. You should inform me as soon as possible regarding
the cause of absence.
This much, at least, I assume; your presence is a necessary but insufficient condition for preparation and
participation. Rather, I expect that you will: (a) prepare for each meeting by carefully and consistently
completing the days assignments, and (b) demonstrate that preparation by thoughtful participation in
seminar discussion. Because this class meets only once per week, each meeting represents a substantial
portion of the course. Three absences will lower your final grade by one letter grade; four absences will
earn you an F in the course.
At the end of class I will also frequently announce "thinking assignments" for our next meeting. These
assignments will ask you to work with our texts in a particular way, or to prepare a short, informal set of
comments for the next class, etc. Your care in preparing these assignments forms a major component of
your preparation and participation grade.

ASSISTANCE
ADA STATEMENT: Attention: If you are a student with a disability (e.g. physical, learning, psychiatric,
vision, hearing, etc.) and think that you might need special assistance or a special accommodation in this
class or any other class, call the Disability Resource Center (DRC) at 425-4006 or come by the office,
102 Frist Hall http://www.utc.edu/Administration/DisabilityResourceCenter/.
Counseling and Career Planning: If you find that personal problems, career indecision, study and time
management difficulties, etc. are adversely affecting your successful progress at UTC, please contact the
Counseling and Career Planning Center at 425-4438 or
http://www.utc.edu/Administration/CounselingAndCareerPlanning/.
To enhance student services, the University will use your UTC email address (firstnamelastname@mocs.utc.edu) for communications. (See http://onenet.utc.edu for your exact address.) Please
check your UTC email on a regular basis. If you have problems with accessing your email account,
contact the Help Desk at 423/425-4000.

English 4470 Virginia Woolf: Writing/Life 4

SCHEDULE OF CLASS MEETINGS

(subject to revision as we proceed)
Jan 06:

Course Intro: Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

Victoria, Edward, Georges: The Great War(s) and Modern(ist) Memory
Leslie, Leonard, Hogarth: Writing/Life
J. J. Wilson, "(Adeline) Virginia Woolf: A Biographical Essay" (UTC Online)
Early Experimental Narratives I:
"The Mark on the Wall" (1917) (UTC Online)

Jan 13:

Impressionism, Post-Impressionism, and Modernism (Dr. Gavin Townsend, guest lecturer)

Early Experimental Narratives II:
"Kew Gardens" (1919) (UTC Online)
"An Unwritten Novel" (1920) (UTC Online)
Jacob's Room (1922)
A Writer's Diary: 26 Jan 192029 Oct 1922

Jan 20:

Martin Luther King, Jr. Holiday no class

Jan 27:

Jacob's Room (1922)

Critical Summary-Review (JR) Due

Feb 03:

"Mr Bennett and Mrs Brown" (1923) (UTC Online)

"Modern Fiction" (1919; 1925) (UTC Online)
"On Not Knowing Greek" (1925) (UTC Online)
"Jane Austen" (1925) (UTC Online)
Mrs Dalloway (1925)

Feb 10:

Mrs Dalloway (1925)

A Writer's Diary: 13 June 19237 Dec 1925
Critical Summary-Review (MD) Due

Feb 17:

"How Should One Read a Book?" (1926) (UTC Online)

To the Lighthouse (1927)
Short Essay #1 Due

Feb 24:

To the Lighthouse (1927)

A Writer's Diary: 14 June 192516 May 1927
Critical Summary-Review (TTL) Due

Mar 03:

"Street Haunting" (1927) (UTC Online)

Orlando: A Biography (1928)
A Writer's Diary: 14 March 1927; 5 Oct 192718 Dec 1928

SPRING BREAK
Mar 17:

Orlando: A Biography (1928)

Critical Summary-Review (Orlando) Due
"The Lady in the Looking Glass: A Reflection" (1929) (UTC Online)

English 4470 Virginia Woolf: Writing/Life 5

A Room of One's Own (1929)

A Writer's Diary: 28 March19 Aug 1929; 23 Oct 1929
Short Essay #2 Due
Mar 24:

A Room of One's Own (1929)

"Professions for Women" (1931) (UTC Online)
Research Paper Proposal Due

Mar 31:

The Waves (1931)

A Writer's Diary: 8 June 1927; 12 Aug 1928; 7 Nov 192811 Oct 1929
"The Narrow Bridge of Art" (1927) (UTC Online)

Apr 07:

The Waves (1931)

A Writer's Diary: 2 Nov 192916 Nov 1931
"A Letter to a Young Poet" (1932) (UTC Online)
Critical Summary-Review (Waves) Due

Apr 14:

"A Sketch of the Past" (1939) (Moments of Being)

"Lappin and Lapinova" (1939) (UTC Online)
Between the Acts (1941)

Apr 21:

Between the Acts (1941)

A Writer's Diary: 26 April 1938 - 8 March 1941
"The Death of the Moth" (UTC Online)
Final Thoughts
Critical Summary-Review (BTA) Due

Apr 28:

Longer Researched Paper Due