Two weeks ago, my students read Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own, and they were, refreshingly, receptive. They were digging Julia Shakespeare, they were digging a room with a lock on the door and $37,000.* They were even digging the Androgyny of Mind. Enthused, I then pushed them on her critique of uncontrolled emotion in writing and asked them how her aesthetic framework compared to Nietzsche's and lost them. Many didn't know what 'aesthetics' meant. But, you know: Baby steps.
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| Flyer by Clo Blanco |
Woolf's Core Café discussion went wonderfully. It was an intimate group -- only a handful of students, none of them compelled to come by their professors or a half-finished essay assignment -- and the conversation was inspired.
* How much Woolf's 500 British pounds would be in today's American dollars, according to Dr. Susan Gubar, the Mariner edition's editor.
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