Virginia Woolf scholar Emily Kopley will present two lectures on Dec. 3 and 4 at Holland and Terrell Libraries on the Pullman campus. The author of Virginia Woolf and Poetry, Kopley teaches at McGill University in the Department of Jewish Studies.
Kopley’s Dec. 3 lecture, “Virginia Woolf’s Poetry Library,” takes place from 3–4 p.m. in the old Holland Library lobby (first floor adjacent to the Dimensions Lab). Focusing on Woolf’s poetry titles, Kopley said these books help readers to understand Woolf’s attitude towards poetry, which she considered a rival and muse to her own form, the novel. Following the lecture, attendees are invited to the Manuscripts, Archives, and Special Collections reading room in Terrell Library’s ground floor to see more from the Library of Leonard and Virginia Woolf.
Kopley’s Dec. 4 lecture, “The Lighthouse as Tree: Vanessa Bell’s Cover for To the Lighthouse and Virginia Woolf’s 1902 Edition of Wordsworth,” is set from 3–4:30 p.m. in the MASC reading room. Bell’s dust jacket for To the Lighthouse (1927) features an abstract lighthouse that doubles as a tree. The novel’s concern with trees supports this reading, Kopley said, as does an apparent source for Bell’s cover design, a sketch of three trees on the back endpapers of Woolf’s 1902 edition of Wordsworth.
More information about the lectures can be found online.
