Course Details

961: To the Lighthouse: "Reading Minds" in Virginia Woolf's Masterpiece

July 8-12
11:45 AM - 1:15 PM
In-Person

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British novelist Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) wrote fiction during the early decades of the 20th century. Among pioneering writers who broke from traditional narrative forms, she experimented with point of view to express non-verbal dimensions of her characters’ interior lives. This technique, termed stream of consciousness, offers readers access to characters' conscious and subconscious thoughts, feelings, reveries, and other dimensions of ordinary consciousness. To the Lighthouse (1927), the fifth and most autobiographical of Woolf’s nine novels, is generally regarded as her masterpiece. Through her vivid representations of ordinary lives, readers will "read the minds" of her characters through the author's life.

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Class Type: Lecture and Discussion

Class Format: In-Person

Hours of Reading: 2+ hours/session

Study Group Leader(s):

Roberta Rubenstein

Roberta Rubenstein, currently Professor Emerita of Literature at American University, received her BA in English literature at the University of Colorado, followed by a Fulbright Fellowship to pursue graduate study in England. She earned her doctorate in English literature from the University of London in 1969 with her dissertation on Virginia Woolf and the Russian Point of View. While studying in London, she had the exceptional good fortune to meet and become friends with Leonard Woolf, Virginia's husband, when she was in her 20s and he was in his 80s. During her 51-year academic career in AU’s Department of Literature, she taught courses on Virginia Woolf, Modernist fiction, contemporary women’s fiction, feminist theory, Russian literature in translation, and other topics. She was honored with several awards for teaching excellence, including her selection as AU’s 1994 Scholar-Teacher of the Year. She has published widely in scholarly and popular venues on modern and contemporary writers, including Virginia Woolf, Doris Lessing, Margaret Atwood, Toni Morrison, Barbara Kingsolver, and others. Her publications include five books—The Novelistic Vision of Doris Lessing: Breaking the Forms of Consciousness; Boundaries of the Self: Gender, Culture, Fiction; Home Matters: Longing and Belonging, Nostalgia and Mourning in Women’s Fiction; Virginia Woolf and the Russian Point of View; Literary Half-Lives: Doris Lessing, Clancy Sigal, and Roman à Clef—and a pamphlet, "Reminiscences of Leonard Woolf." She is an avid gardener and enjoys travel and photography.

Reading List: