Virginia Woolf as a Process-Oriented Thinker: Parallels Between Woolf’s Fiction and Process Philosophy introduces Virginia Woolf as a nondualist and process-oriented thinker whose ideas are, despite no direct influence, strikingly similar to those of Alfred North Whitehead. Veronika Krajíčková argues that in their respective fields, literature and philosophy, Woolf and Whitehead both criticized the materialist turn of their time and attempted to reattribute importance to experience and undermine long-rooted dualisms such as subject and object, the animate and the inanimate, the human and the nonhuman, or the self and the other. By erasing the gaps between these dualities, the two thinkers anticipated the poststructuralist thought with which Woolf has been anachronically associated in the last decades. Krajíčková shows that there is no need to analyze Woolf’s fiction via critical and philosophical theories that developed much later. This book demonstrates that Woolf and Whitehead’s ideas may help us adopt more ecologically friendly, selfless, intersubjective, and harmless modes of being in the present day. Both figures emphasize the intrinsic value and importance of each constituent of reality and teach us to appreciate the aesthetic values dispersed throughout our environment.

Greening Philosophy of Religion: Process, Ecology, and Ethics develops fruitful avenues for the theory and practice of greening philosophy of religion. Collected with a pluralistic conception of both philosophy and religion, the chapters in this volume address pressing and timely issues that involve imagining ecological democracy as an ideal horizon for facing climate catastrophe, with a radical hope and sober vision for realizing a more sustainable planetary economy that places a high value on food sovereignty, an ethic of trust, and inter-religious conversations. Edited by Jea Sophia Oh and John Quiring, this book offers a vital contribution to the fields of philosophy of religion, environmental ethics, religion and ecology, comparative philosophy, and ecotheology—all tuned to the note of process thinking and a deep ecological sensibility.

Astrophilosopy, Exotheology, and Cosmic Religion: Extraterrestrial Life in a Process Universe applies Alfred North Whitehead’s process philosophy and the associated process philosophies of Henri Bergson, Teilhard de Chardin, and others to the interdisciplinary layers of astrobiology, extraterrestrial life, and the impact of discovery. This collection, edited by Andrew M. Davis and Roland Faber, asks questions such as “How have process thinkers imagined universal creative evolution and its implications for philosophies, theologies, and religions beyond earth?” and “How might their claims as to the primacy of organism, temporality, novelty, value, and mind enrich current discussions and debates across disciplines?” As experts in their fields, the contributors are informed by, but not limited to, process conceptualities. The chapters not only advance recent discussions in astrobiology, cosmology, and evolution but also consider a constellation of philosophical topics, from shared extraterrestrial knowledge and values to the possibilities or limitations afforded by A.I. technology, the Fermi Paradox, the Drake Equation, and the increasing need to nurture the cosmic dimensions of theological and religious traditions.

Thinking in Literature examines how the Modernist novel might be understood as a machine for thinking, and how it offers means of coming to terms with what it means to think. It begins with a theoretical analysis, via Deleuze, Spinoza and Leibniz, of the concept of thinking in literature, and sets out three principle elements which continually announce themselves as crucial to the process of developing an aesthetic expression: relation; sensation; and composition. Uhlmann then examines the aesthetic practice of three major Modernist writers: James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, and Vladimir Nabokov. Each can be understood as working with relation, sensation and composition, yet each emphasize the interrelations between them in differing ways in expressing the potentials for thinking in literature.

Virginia Woolf, the Intellectual, and the Public Sphere relates Woolf's literary reviews and essays to early twentieth-century debates about the value of 'highbrow' culture, the methods of instruction in universities and adult education, and the importance of an educated public for the realization of democratic goals. By focusing on Woolf's theories and practice of reading, Melba Cuddy-Keane refutes assumptions about Woolf's modernist elitism, revealing instead a writer who was pedagogically oriented, publicly engaged and committed to the ideal of classless intellectuals working together in reciprocal exchange. Woolf emerges as a stimulating theorist of the unconscious, of dialogic reading, of historicist criticism and of value judgments, while her theoretically informed but accessible prose challenges us to reflect on academic writing today. Combining a wealth of historical detail with a penetrating analysis of Woolf's essays, this 2003 study will alter our views of Woolf, of modernism and of intellectual work.

“A truly comprehensive, multi-perspective, and up-to-date survey of the undeniable role of music in Woolf ’s life and writings” (Music and Letters). Through Virginia Woolf's diaries, letters, fiction, and the testimony of her contemporaries, this fascinating volume explores the inspiration and influences of music—from classical through mid-twentieth century—on the preeminent Modernist author of Mrs. Dalloway, To the Lighthouse, Orlando, A Room of One’s Own, and other masterful compositions. In a letter to violinist Elizabeth Trevelyan, Woolf revealed: “I always think of my books as music before I write them.” In a journal entry she compared herself to an “improviser with [my] hands rambling over the piano.“ Approaching the author’s career from a unique perspective, Virginia Woolf and Music examines her musical background; music in her fiction and her own critical writings on the subject; its importance in the Bloomsbury milieu; and its role within the larger framework of aesthetics, politics, gender studies, language, and Modernism. Illuminating the rich nature of Woolf's works, these essays from scores of literary and music scholars are “a fascinating and important contribution to scholarship about Virginia Woolf, music, and interdisciplinary art” (Music Reference Services Quarterly).

Patricia Boling investigates the implications of privacy for feminist theory and legal philosophy, examining issues rooted in intimate life which have broad public impact. She draws on Hannah Arendt's work and ordinary language analysis to identify confusions in the way we think about public and private. She then uses the insights she has developed to illuminate issues in contemporary politics, such as the problem of transforming private identities into political ones in the'outing'of lesbians and gay men. Another such issue is the relevance of the private experience of nurturing small children to the political activity of the citizen. Evenly divided between theoretical and issue-oriented discussion, this book makes clear the practical stakes in both the distinction and the connection between private and public. Boling considers how to translate private experience into public claims with regard to such contentious issues as shared parenting, abortion funding, fetal abuse, sodomy laws, and parental consent for minors seeking abortions. She also analyzes the application of privacy in landmark legal cases including Roe v. Wade, Bowers v. Hardwick, and Planned Parenthood v. Casey.

When Nina Collins entered her forties she found herself awash in a sea of hormones. As symptoms of perimenopause set in, she began to fear losing her health, looks, sexuality, sense of humor-perhaps all at once. Craving a place to discuss her questions and concerns, and finding none, Nina started a Facebook group with the ironic name, "What Would Virginia Woolf Do?," which has grown exponentially into a place where women-most with strong opinions and fierce senses of humor--have surprisingly candid, lively, and intimate conversations. Mid-life is a time when women want to think about purpose, about how to be their best selves, and how to love themselves as they enter the second half of life. They yearn to acknowledge the nostalgia and sadness that comes with aging, but also want to revel in their hard-earned wisdom. Part memoir and part resource on everything from fashion and skincare to sex and surviving the empty nest, What Would Virginia Woolf Do? is a frank and intimate conversation mixed with anecdotes and honesty, wrapped up in a literary joke. It's also a destination, a place where readers can nestle in and see what happens when women feel comfortable enough to get real with each other: defy the shame that the culture often throws their way, find solace and laugh out loud, and revel in this new phase of life.

In the first comprehensive study of Virginia Woolf's Common Reader, Katerina Koutsantoni draws on theorists from the fields of sociology, sociolinguistics, philosophy, and literary criticism to investigate the thematic pattern underpinning these books with respect to the persona of the 'common reader'. Though these two volumes are the only ones that Woolf compiled herself, they have seldom been considered as a whole. As a result, what they reveal about Woolf's position with regard to the processes of writing, reading, and critical analysis has not been fully examined. Koutsantoni challenges the critical commonplace that equates Woolf's strategy of self-effacement and personal removal from her works as a necessary compromise that allowed her to achieve authorial recognition in a male-dominated context. Rather, Koutsantoni argues that an investigation of impersonality in Woolf's essays reveals the potential of the genre to function both as a vehicle for the subjective and dialogic expression of the author and reader and as a venue for exploring topics with which the ordinary reader can relate. As she explores and challenges the meaning of impersonality in Woolf's Common Reader, Koutsantoni shows how the related issues of subjectivity, authority, reader-response, intersubjectivity, and dialogism offer useful perspectives from which to examine Woolf's work.