Virginia Woolf

To celebrate the 100 year anniversary of Virginia Woolf’s great novel, first published in 1927, the Institute for Creative Inquiry is hosting a weekend encounter with To the Lighthouse which, along with Mrs. Dalloway (1925) and The Waves (1931), may constitute the greatest trilogy of English-language literary works in the 20^thcentury.

Written in three parts, on the surface Woolf’s novel is the story of the Ramsay family and their assorted guests, who gather at their summer home in the Hebrides on the Isle of Skye in Scotland. But far more ambitious than that, it is also a novel about the impact of World War I on British families, about the nature of philosophic and artistic ambition, about the question of whether or not literary, artistic, and intellectual activities are enough to redeem human life in the face of historic, economic, and interpersonal pressures and challenges, and indeed, about the very nature of time itself.

The novel does not so much ask as seeks to be an answer to the questions: why do human beings create works of art, fall in love, form families, and aspire to forms of connection and creativity which transcend the limitations of time, history, and culture?

This symposia will meet over the course of an intensive weekend, starting Friday evening and continuing Saturday and Sunday mornings.

Participation in this symposium is by invitation only. For more information, please contact the Academic Director at dcarl.ici@protonmail.com