Discussion: Woolf and Phillips

Laura presented some material on Virginia Woolf and MODERNISM - 1890-1930
That is was a reaction against classical and realistic traditions - art, writing, architecture etc
Impressionism immediately preceded this - did not reject as much as modernism did
But all of these were attempt to bring elements of everyday life into things but were also against realism.
The artists were usually well-trained in classics and would layer these allusions into their work to show they are familiar with them but are rejecting them.
Common themes were: Sexualism and the family - sexual explorations
They show a shift from subjective to objective - examples of visual art - more obvious but present in literature as well.
Also a shift from rural to urban - the war also had a big impact.

Marx - modermist art grew out of European mass of individualism, industrialism, interaction of human and machine
With Darwin - we see humans evolving, evolving or regressing
With Freud - into the modern - conversational free association, stream of consciousness, writing and literature were affected as writers felt they had to present internal life as well
With Nietzsche - natural selection replaced god; God Is Dead; hatred for systemizers, rail against entrenched rules

Modernity - different from the Enlightenment and the Romantics - dates to the present, very contemporary.  The Modern - dates from French Revolution

Virginia Woolf - born 1882 - 3rd child
Mental problems started when 13 &  mother died, 1/2 sister died later as well as step-mother, father died when 22
Sexually abused by older half-brother - detailed in her autobiography
She connected her numerous breakdowns to the position of women in her lifetime
Married Leonard Woolf at age 30 - suffered repeated mental issues and Woolf would support her through these.

ART - should we be supporting art?  Naomi and Chris felt that we should, as every age or culture or period is most known or renowned by their 'art' (literature, painting, music, architecture).  They felt (as did much of the class) that art was worth supporting.

Poverty and wealth each have a significant effect on the mind and creativity.  Woolf delves into this towards the end of Chapter 1.  Poverty is deadening and locks someone out of the worlds and necessities that they need to nurture and release their creativity.  Being wealthy also is constraining as it locks people into a confined safe world.

Gender and Voice - is this important?  Gender is important in much of literature, we want to know and it affects us and how we see the work.  This isn't the case in art, music or literature where usually we can't tell the gender and we don't care, it doesn't affect our response.

We spoke about woman's presence in culture.  Finally, within the books written by her contemporaries, Woolf finds female characters who represent the uniquely female experience without having to qualify this within the context of the masculine world.  This continues to be an ongoing challenge in today’s film industry, where the majority of films fail to pass the 1985 three-step Bechdel Test:

1. Are there at least two women in this film?
2. Do these two women have names?
3. At one point throughout the film, do these two women talk to each other about any subject other than a man? 

The majority of films don't pass.  Lauren put all the books we read this year through this test and 90% of them failed.

There was also discussion about value and commercialism.  And how we value much of women's work or issues.

Naomi led our discussion on Adam Phillips book Darwin's Worms.  He is the 1st author we've read who is still alive.  He is 59 and is a psychotherapist..  It is also the 1st book that is a secondary source.  This book was published in 2001 and so is contemporary to all of us. 

We are the animals who seem to suffer the most from our ideals, according to Phillips.  We spoke about whether humankind suffers from new ideals of human perfectibility which leaves us frustrated by these impossible ideals and therefore experienced as continuous failure; and whether this is a fair assessment of our human condition?  Most of the speakers felt that we do have ideals that are unrealistic and these creates unhappiness.  The key, based on Phillips book, is acceptance, being happy with the lives we have, with change, with the inevitability.

We also spoke about Darwin's anthropomorphizing of animals, even earthworms and how science has changed in this regard, for decades removing all human qualities possibly to justify abuse and experimentation on them.  Now science is doing a lot of research into animals and what emotions, instincts and feelings they may have.  We spoke about various animals and how some have a sense of self and others don't 'seem' to have a sense of self.  The problem is our limitations in how to assess this.

We also had a discussion about Freud's concept of a death drive.  Most of the class did not buy into this concept but this may be terminology issue with the word 'drive'.  I agree death is inevitable and so there is a death process.  Stephen said it was more that our organism has a drive towards decay and death and we have to be aware of this, live knowing that death is inevitable and also live accepting life.  It's hard to get into these discussions without getting enmeshed in trite aphorisms that we see mass-produced into 'inspirational or motivational' posters and executive desk accessories.