The Virginia Woolf Podcast
The Virginia Woolf Podcast, presented by Karina Jakubowicz
Karina Jakubowicz
Photo by Seb Peters
In 2019 Karina recorded a podcast about Woolf's former home, Monk's House. It attracted a lot of interest, being listened to over 800 times in the months that followed. It was also truly rewarding to make, and promoted conversations that might not have otherwise taken place. This inspired us to create The Virginia Woolf Podcast, a series designed to discover Woolf’s impact on art, philosophy, and politics in the present day, as well as Woolf’s interest in the arts and ideas of her own time. By winter 2023, the podcasts had been heard by 15,000 people.
In these episodes Karina interviews an artist, writer, or academic who has been influenced by Virginia Woolf. She asks why Woolf is such an important figure to them, and how her work affected their career. Through the podcasts, we hope to understand how the work of one groundbreaking writer can help others to break new ground of their own.
Our thanks to Karina for creating and recording these podcasts.
Season 3, 2024
Episode 3: Gerri Kimber: Katherine Mansfield and Virginia Woolf
Karina talks with Dr Gerri Kimber about Katherine Mansfield, her writing, and her complex friendship with Woolf. Recorded February 2023.
Episode 2: Virginia Woolf in Japan
This is the first in a series of episodes on Woolf in Japan, supported by the Daiwa Foundation and co-produced by Aki Katayama. Karina visited Japan and talked to scholars, students, translators and others who work on Woolf and are deeply interested in her writing. Published 19 February 2024.
Photo by Seb Peters: Aki and Karina at the 2023 Literature Cambridge summer course
Episode 1: Kabe Wilson
Karina talks to the brilliant artist and writer Kabe Wilson about his work on Woolf. Published 27 January 2024.
Photo by Jeremy Peters: Karina and Kabe at the 2019 summer course.
Season 2, 2022-23
Episode 8: Bring No Clothes: Bloomsbury and Fashion
This episode celebrates the opening of an exhibition at Charleston's new museum in Lewes, Sussex. The exhibition is entitled Bring No Clothes: Bloomsbury and Fashion and runs until 7 January 2025.
To discuss the Bloomsbury Group and their innovative approach to clothing, Karina is joined by the exhibition's curator, Charlie Porter, and Woolf and fashion scholar Claire Nicholson.
Charlie Porter is a writer, fashion critic and curator. He has written for The Financial Times, The Guardian, The New York Times, GQ, Luncheon, i-D and Fantastic Man, and has been described as one of the most influential fashion journalists of his time. He co-runs the London queer rave Chapter 10, and is a trustee of the Friends of Arnold Circus, where he is also a volunteer gardener. He is the author of What Artists Wear and of a book inspired by his work with Charleston, entitled Bring No Clothes.
Claire Nicholson has taught English in Cambridge for many years. Her interest in fashion history was combined with literary analysis in her PhD dissertation In Woolf’s Clothing: Clothes and Fashion in Virginia Woolf’s Fiction. She is Chair of the Virginia Woolf Society.
Recorded in October 2023.
Episode 7: The Legacies of Leonard Woolf, with Peter Stansky and Marielle O’Neill
Scholars Peter Stansky and Marielle O’Neill discuss the life and work of Leonard Woolf with Karina Jakubowicz.
They discuss the many legacies of Leonard Woolf, notably his anti-imperialism, socialism, and work in international politics.
Peter Stansky is a professor of History at Stanford University and the author of Leonard Woolf, Bloomsbury Socialist.
Marielle is a PhD candidate at Leeds Trinity University. Her research explores the political activism and partnership of Leonard and Virginia Woolf. She serves on the Executive Committee of the Virginia Woolf Society of Great Britain.
Leonard Woolf (1880-1969) was a writer, editor and journalist, active in the Labour Party and Fabian Society, with a strong commitment to peace and social justice. Further information on Leonard Woolf.
Episode 6: For There She Was: Love and Presence in Mrs Dalloway, with Gillian Beer
16 June 2023. Professor Dame Gillian Beer of Clare Hall, University of Cambridge, on Mrs Dalloway (1925), love, loss and the passage of time. This lecture marks 100 years since Mrs Dalloway is set, in the middle of June, 1923.
Music: Elli Welsh plays Three Pieces for Piano by Nadia Boulanger
Producer: Alastair Elphick
Episode 5: Mrs Dalloway’s Party
June 2023. This is the first of two episodes created to celebrate 100 years since the day on which Mrs Dalloway is set.
This episode focuses on a mysterious painting by Vanessa Bell and explores its possible connection to Mrs Dalloway. Karina speaks with the painting's owner, Howard Ginsberg, and the bestselling author of Bloomsbury Pie, Regina Marler, in order to think about paintings and parties in 1920s Bloomsbury.
With thanks to Howard Ginsberg for his permission to use an image of the artwork.
Episode 4: Mark Hussey on Clive Bell
Karina talks with Professor Mark Hussey, author of the recent biography of Clive Bell and editor of Clive Bell’s Selected Letters.
Music: Elli Welsh plays Three Pieces for Piano by Nadia Boulanger
Producer: Alastair Elphick
Episode 3: Orlando at the Garrick Theatre
Karina Jakubowicz talks with Dr Angela Harris and Neil Bartlett about the challenges of adapting Orlando to the stage. January 2023.
Music: Elli Welsh plays Three Pieces for Piano by Nadia Boulanger
Producer: Alastair Elphick
Episode 2: Virginia Woolf Statue at Richmond
In the second episode of Season 2, Karina Jakubowicz attends the installation of the statue of Virginia Woolf at Richmond in November 2022.
Music: Elli Welsh plays Three Pieces for Piano by Nadia Boulanger
Producer: Alastair Elphick
Episode 1: Centenary of Jacob’s Room (1922)
Peter Jones and Karina Jakubowicz at King’s College
In the first episode of Season 2, Karina celebrates the centenary of Jacob's Room by visiting King's College, Cambridge. There we get a sense of where some of the Bloomsbury members lived in Cambridge, and we explore the novel's relationship with death, memory, and the Great War.
Karina speaks with novelist Susan Sellers and Fellow of King's College Peter Jones.
Music: Elli Welsh plays Three Pieces for Piano by Nadia Boulanger
Producer: Alastair Elphick
Season 1, 2020-22
Tanya Shadrick, writer
Tanya Shadrick talks to Karina about Woolf, writing, motherhood, and Tanya’s new book, The Cure for Sleep (2022). Tania has been writer-in-residence in the garden of Monks House, the former home of Virginia and Leonard Woolf. Recorded in May 2022.
Susan Sellers, scholar and novelist
Susan Sellers talks to Karina Jakubowicz about her new book, Firebird, a novel about the dancer Lydia Lopokova and the economist John Maynard Keynes. Recorded in spring 2022.
Sarah Hall
Sarah Hall, writer and editor, talks to Karina Jakubowicz about her book, Before Leonard: The Early Suitors of Virginia Woolf, and much else. Sarah is on the Council of the Virginia Woolf Society of Great Britain. Recorded in summer 2021.
Emma Sutton on Virginia Woolf and Classical Music
Emma Sutton talks to Karina Jakubowicz about Woolf’s fascination with classical music, and the importance of music in Woolf’s life and writing. Recorded late spring 2021.
Emma is Founding Director of the Woolf and Music project.
Peter Fullagar and Laury Dizengremel
Writer Peter Fullagar and sculptor Laury Dizengremel talk to Karina Jakubowicz about the campaign to place a life-sized statue of Virginia Woolf at Richmond. The campaign was founded by Aurora Metro Arts and Media organisation. Recorded in spring 2021.
Susan Sellers, scholar and novelist
Susan Sellers is a distinguished Woolf scholar and author of the acclaimed novel Vanessa and Virginia. She talks to Karina Jakubowicz about her academic and creative work, and about her forthcoming novel, Firebird. Recorded in winter 2020-21. Susan’s website.
Woolf’s collection of Shakespeare at Monks House. Photo by Stephanie Taiber.
Varsha Panjwani: Woolf and Shakespeare
Dr Karina Jakubowicz talks with Dr Varsha Panjwani about Woolf's complicated relationship with William Shakespeare. We discuss the Bard as authority figure, and get to grips with the truth behind Shakespeare's sister.
Varsha Panjwani’s research focuses on the way in which Shakespeare is deployed in the service of diversity and how diversity, in turn, invigorates Shakespeare. Her forthcoming book, Podcasts and Gender in Shakespeare Pedagogy is under contract with Cambridge University Press and she hosts the NYU-grant-funded podcast series, Women & Shakespeare. Her essays have been published in journals Shakespeare Survey and Shakespeare Studies, and in edited collections Shakespeare, Race and Performance; Shakespeare and Indian Cinema; and Eating Shakespeare. She has also co-edited (with Robert Sawyer) a special issue of Multicultural Shakespeare and is editing (with Koel Chatterjee) an essay collection, Re-contextualizing Indian Shakespeare Cinema in the West (Arden Global Shakespeare Inverted Series, 2021).
June 2020
Maggie Humm: Talland House
Woolf scholar and novelist Maggie Humm talks about Talland House, her novel about Lily Briscoe, set in St Ives, Cornwall.
An original podcast created by Karina Jakubowicz, Autumn 2020.
Photograph: Henri T.
Holly James Johnston on Queer Identity
Holly James Johnston discusses her drag work as Orlando. Taking her name from Virginia Woolf’s Orlando (1928), her drag melds masculinities and femininities together through lip-sync and dance. The image here is from Holly’s website, Adventures in Time and Gender. Holly is a graduate student at the University of Oxford.
An original podcast created by Karina Jakubowicz, November 2020
Links
Interview with Tate Gallery
The Orlando photographs
Caroline Zoob: Virginia Woolf’s Garden
Monk’s House, July 2019. Photo by Jeremy Peters.
Hear Caroline Zoob, author of Virginia Woolf’s Garden, and Jonathan Zoob, in conversation with Literature Cambridge lecturer Karina Jakubowicz.
In the year 2000, Caroline and Jonathan Zoob moved into Monk’s House, much-loved home of Virginia and Leonard Woolf from 1919 until the end of their lives (Virginia Woolf died in 1941; Leonard Woolf in 1969). For more than 10 years, the Zoobs looked after Monk’s House, restoring the garden in the spirit of the Woolfs.
An original podcast created by Karina Jakubowicz, Spring 2019.