Emeritus Professor Rachel Bowlby (University College London) will give a lecture titled ‘Virginia Woolf and the Property Market’ on 28 May.
The lecture, which takes place in Woolf College, Seminar Room 6, on the Canterbury campus, will start at 5pm and is free and open to all. There will be an opportunity to discuss Professor Bowlby’s lecture and Virgina Woolf – widely regarded as one of the major English novelists and public intellectuals of the 20th century – at a reception which will take place immediately after.
This event is being generously supported by the School of Classics, English and History, and the Division of Arts and Humanities. It was created to build on the legacy of the 2018 Annual International Conference on Virginia Woolf, which welcomed more than 200 delegates from around the world to the campus.
Professor Bowlby has written widely on women and literature. Her many books include Feminist Destinations and Further Essays on Virginia Woolf, which explores the writer as a woman essayist, as a city writer and critic of modern culture, and as a writer on love. By looking at Woolf’s experience of owning property and writing about house buying in her diaries and novels, this lecture will focus on the property market as prime manifestation of modern capitalism from the early 20th century onwards.
Dr Derek Ryan, Senior Lecturer in Modernist Literature at the School of Classics, English and History, and Series Editor of Virginia Woolf – Variations (Edinburgh UP), said: ‘Professor Bowlby’s lecture promises to be both intellectually stimulating and thoroughly entertaining. It is a privilege to be able to welcome an authority on Woolf, literary modernism and contemporary culture to our campus to celebrate Woolf’s connections to Kent as well as the University’s long-standing commitment to research in modernist studies.’
Dr Bashir Abu-Manneh, Head of Classics, English and History, added: ‘Our School is an international centre for Virginia Woolf and modernism study. Woolf is an especially significant voice that speaks to our contemporary crises around war, capitalism, and global conflict – and how those can infringe on the individual. Our School sits at the cutting edge of a public humanities that embraces the challenge of tackling big questions. We very much hope that the Virginia Woolf Lecture becomes an annual event.’
Woolf College, one of six colleges on the Canterbury campus, was named to honour Virginia Woolf, who, apart from being one the most influential and groundbreaking modernist authors, was also a regular visitor to the county, notably to Sissinghurst and Knole. She also convalesced at Moat House in Blean, on the outskirts of Canterbury, in the summer of 1910. The College is primarily for postgraduate students and includes accommodation and a 480 seat lecture theatre.