“Conjunctural Analysis: Three Guineas by Virginia Woolf and British Cultural Studies”

This conjunctural analysis, selected by the International Virginia Woolf Society reviewing committee on behalf of the Louisville Conference on Literature and Culture (LCLC 52) for the panel on Virginia Woolf, examines Woolf’s 1938 treatise Three Guineas as a model of antifascist critique. In Oden’s paper, she works to both contextualize and de-contextualize Woolf’s writing with consideration for the political crises of the current moment. Revisiting Woolf alongside contemporary British Cultural Studies (BCS) theorists such as Stuart Hall and Richard Johnson yields a fruitful reflection on the ways in which Woolf’s political insights remain relevant today. Specifically, Woolf articulates that the relationship between private and public life, patriarchal society, and the project of fascism are interconnected—but how does that hold with the far-right wave of authoritarian and neofascist politics that we see in the United States and around the globe today? The results of Oden’s research efforts lead her to an investigation of cultural texts, and the study of culture more broadly, in an analysis that is rooted in interdisciplinary modes of thought to both question and critically engage with this moment in our history.