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Virginia Woolf and the Materiality of Theory: Sex, Animal, Life

Ryan, Derek (2013) Virginia Woolf and the Materiality of Theory: Sex, Animal, Life. Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh, 232 pp. ISBN 978-0-7486-7643-9. (The full text of this publication is not currently available from this repository. You may be able to access a copy if URLs are provided) (KAR id:40628)

The full text of this publication is not currently available from this repository. You may be able to access a copy if URLs are provided.

Abstract

Explores Woolf's writing alongside Deleuze's philosophy and new materialist theories of 'sex', 'animal', and 'life' How does Virginia Woolf conceptualise the material world? In what ways has Woolf's modernism affected understandings of materiality, and what new perspectives does she offer contemporary theoretical debates? Derek Ryan demonstrates how materiality is theorised in Woolf's writings by focusing on the connections she makes between culture and nature, embodiment and environment, human and nonhuman, life and matter. Through close readings of texts including To the Lighthouse, Orlando, A Room of One's Own, The Waves, Flush, and 'Sketch of the Past', he details the fresh insights Woolf provides into issues concerning the natural world, sexual difference, sexuality, animality, and life itself. Ryan opens up Woolf studies to new theoretical paradigms by placing Woolf in dialogue with Gilles Deleuze - who cites her modernist aesthetics as exemplary of some of his most important philosophical concepts - as well as eminent contemporary theorists including Rosi Braidotti, Donna Haraway, Karen Barad, and Jane Bennett, all of whom have influenced the recent critical turn towards new materialisms. Locating theory within Woolf's writing as well as locating Woolf within theory, Virginia Woolf and the Materiality of Theory: Sex, Animal, Life brings her modernism firmly into to the foreground of current debates in literary studies, feminist philosophy, queer theory, animal studies and posthumanities.

Item Type: Book
Subjects: P Language and Literature > PE English philology and language
Divisions: Divisions > Division of Arts and Humanities > School of English
Depositing User: Stewart Brownrigg
Date Deposited: 07 Mar 2014 00:05 UTC
Last Modified: 16 Nov 2021 10:15 UTC
Resource URI: https://kar.kent.ac.uk/id/eprint/40628 (The current URI for this page, for reference purposes)

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