The Flâneuse: Walking in London and Paris
We speak of things like ships, cities, and even the earth itself as female, yet men are so often the ones confidently plodding through these spaces, conquering them as they would a female body.
Mrs. Dalloway
Virginia Woolf and the Language of Trauma
In reference to the sexual abuse Virginia Woolf endured by her half brothers,
she once told her biographer Nigel Nicolson, “Nothing has really happened until it
has been described.” This line stuck with me, especially after I’d been struggling with
the words to tell the story of my rape.
Deck the Halls–Merrily but Warily
In literature, scenes of decoration are charged with dramatic potential. In leaving their marks on spaces in this exaggerated way, characters show themselves to us.
Preserving Intent: What’s Lost in the Cinematic Translation of Mrs. Dalloway
I like to follow up my reading of a text with its cinematic counterpart. After finishing Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway, I rented the DVD of the same name with great anticipation. But after the credits rolled, I was unsatisfied: while the cinematic version of Woolf’s novel provides a touching and well-acted rendering of her vision,…
Fear and Narrative
There’s a little door in the corner of our almost-three-year-old daughter’s bedroom, and she’s very convinced something is going to come out of it. It isn’t even a door, really—it’s an access panel for getting at the problematic plumbing in the bathroom next door. I’ve come to really, really wish it were somewhere else in…
Do-Overs: Text Redux
I love art from other art. Ballets inspired by narratives. Garments influenced by architecture. Paintings that translate sound into color. Recognizable connections light up our synapses. We like things that remind us of other things, particularly if the connections are clever. (How else do you explain the popularity of “Weird Al” Yankovic?) Inspired work…