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International Studies in Phenomenology and Philosophy

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182685

"But she loved her roses (didn't that help the armenians?)"

resisting facts, inventing forms, negotiating history in virginia woolf's to the lighthouse and mrs. dalloway

Katerina Kitsi-Mitakou

pp. 191-213

Abstract

This essay aims to explore modernism's relationship with philosophy by focusing on two novels by Virginia Woolf: To the Lighthouse (1927) and Mrs. Dalloway (1925). It will argue that despite modernism's anti-philosophical stance, Woolf's texts engage with seminal philosophical debates in their own search for truth and invent new ways of re-inscribing literature, the artist, and the arts in the realm of politics. Her novels propose challenging positions to basic philosophical questions associated with the subject/object relationship, the connection between the personal and the political, our shared condition of precarity, or the open-endedness of history. Woolf's modernist/cubist aesthetics and narrative techniques invite new readings of the self and history and anticipate poststructuralist views like those of Judith Butler or Fredrik Jameson.

Publication details

Published in:

Falcato Ana, Cardiello Antonio (2018) Philosophy in the condition of modernism. Dordrecht, Springer.

Pages: 191-213

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-77078-9_9

Full citation:

Kitsi-Mitakou Katerina (2018) „"But she loved her roses (didn't that help the armenians?)": resisting facts, inventing forms, negotiating history in virginia woolf's to the lighthouse and mrs. dalloway“, In: A. Falcato & A. Cardiello (eds.), Philosophy in the condition of modernism, Dordrecht, Springer, 191–213.