Call for Papers

Profession and Performance
30th Annual International Conference on Virginia Woolf
June 10th–13th, 2021
University of South Dakota (Vermillion, SD, USA)

[If you had a proposal accepted to the postponed 2020 Woolf Conference, please fill out this Google Forms survey. To submit a new proposal, see instructions below. The deadline for new proposals is February 15th, 2021.]

“Profession and Performance,” the theme of the 2021 Annual Conference on Virginia Woolf, calls to mind not only Woolf’s sense of herself as a writer (her profession) but also the set of specialized occupations she takes up in A Room of One’s Own (1929) and Three Guineas (1938), areas of study and livelihoods traditionally reserved for the sons of educated men. It also invokes the ACVW’s commitment over the past three decades to the arts, including theater, music, dance, spoken word, and the resonances of these and other media with the performance and the performativity of Woolf’s life and writing. “Profession and Performance” might also encourage us to reflect on the ACVW’s rich history of drawing people together and to consider how the professions of those who support and attend the conference might be changing. As an event open to all scholars, students, performers, and common readers of Woolf and Woolfian connections, we encourage 2021 participants to sound and explore echoes of past professions and performances in our present ones—especially as we face the constraints of the ongoing pandemic and the too-familiar campaigns of emboldened fascisms, but also the resilient and defiant hopes of the young, wayward, rebellious, and courageous.

Note: The conference will take place online.

In the effort to accommodate as many participants and presenters as possible during the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2021 ACVW program committee is currently planning a hybrid conference modality that would allow presenters to share their work from afar (and, ideally, to attend any other panel at the conference). We still hope to host folks here in Vermillion, SD, but present realities necessitate ~~at least~~ a hybrid if not a fully online modality. Since so much is up in the air, we will do our best to be as flexible and accommodating as possible; indeed, many of the usual conventions of conference presentations and events may also need rethinking as we move ahead with planning.

The 30th Annual International Conference on Virginia Woolf will automatically accept proposals that were accepted in early 2020 but also invites new proposals that address “Profession and Performance”—especially in light of new research interests that speak to the present. These proposals might study a range of topics, including (but not limited to):

contemporary adaptations of Woolf, her circles, or her work on stage/screen (e.g., Vita and Virginia; Life in Squares; etc.)

the dynamic link between Woolf’s social critique (what she professed) and her art (its performance)

the rich archive of scholarship that brings together studies of the avant-garde, modernism, and the middlebrow

intersections of modernist studies and performance studies

modernism’s role in the professionalization of literature and criticism

the livelihoods and lifestyles of Woolf and the Bloomsbury Group

investigations of identity and community

Woolfian meditations on professions (i.e., on occupations, commitments, allegiances, and declarations)

interpretations of Woolf-inspired performance art (e.g., music, dance, theater)

profession as (public) performance

questions of affect and attachment

strong and weak performances/professions/modernisms

reflections on the selves and the worlds we profess/perform in daily life, in politics, in ethics, in institutions, and in ongoing efforts to teach and learn

the performative life of professionalization (or the subversion of professionalization)

life-writing as performance of self, professionalization of self

gendered performances/performances of gender (on stage/page, in life)

professions for women (history of, literary treatments of, performances of)

Woolf and developments in medical sciences and psychology

teaching Woolf/Woolf as Teacher

performing Bloomsbury/performative Bloomsberries

the life of the feminist academic; the professionalization and/or institutionalization of feminism outside of academia

Please upload abstracts of 250 words for single papers and 500 words to this Google Form by February 15th, 2021. Because our assessments of submissions are anonymous, please refrain from including your name or any other identifying information on the abstract document itself. In addition to your abstract, please also upload a separate cover page that includes:

Your name and preferred pronouns
Your presentation title
Five keywords related to your presentation
Your institutional affiliation (if any)
~~Your preferred presentation modality (in-person or virtual)~~ [all presentations will be virtual]

NOTE: if you have trouble accessing the Google Form, you may also email your abstract and cover page to Virginia.Woolf@usd.edu.

For accepted proposals, we ask that presenters ~~bring access copies of their presentations to their panels or~~ make access copies available via electronic file.

In addition to traditional presentations, we encourage proposals for virtual workshops and for roundtable or group discussions (such as feminist / queer perspectives, Woolfian pedagogy, staging / performing Woolf, etc.). The conference will also be planning a series of study groups, meant to foster collegial conversation about cutting-edge and urgent topics—all grounded in selected texts. More information about these study groups will be available soon.

The conference welcomes proposals for presentations in languages other than English to foster a more open exchange at this international conference. A few caveats: the organizers ask that all abstracts and proposals be submitted in English. Also, to ensure a more effective exchange among all participants, we ask that non-English presentations be accompanied by a handout of main points in English as well as (if possible) a PowerPoint presentation in English. Note that Q&A sessions will be conducted in English as well.

Website: https://sites.google.com/usd.edu/vwoolf2021/home

Twitter: @vwoolf2020