[Vwoolf] Jane Marcus and Shari Benstock

Fri May 29 19:57:24 EDT 2015

Dear all,

I do not want to diminish the importance and influence of Shari Benstock’s contributions to the world of scholarship on modernist women writers. I grieve for the loss of Shari and have received a beautiful formal remembrance of her written by Murray Beja. I will be including it in the current Virginia Woolf Miscellany. Please do feel free to send me other informal remembrances of Shari to share with other readers.

The second and all-too-recent posting on the VW listserv notifying us of Jane Marcus’s passing cuts even deeper. Jane Marcus was, without a doubt, a visionary and an inspiration and, in terms of her own physical presence, almost a force of nature. She shaped the world of Woolf studies and brought Virginia Woolf’s feminism into focus in ways that have changed the interpretation of Woolf’s works forever. And she did far more than that, as I know many of you have already noted.

In honor and recognition of Jane and her achievements, I would like to include remembrances from a range of Woolfians in one of the upcoming issues of the Virginia Woolf Miscellany (these remembrances will be published in either in a free-standing issue devoted solely to Jane, as was done for Lucio Ruotolo—one of the founding editors of the publication—or in the current issue in progress).

I would also very much like to garner permission from those of you who have already posted remembrances  on the VW Listserve or on Facebook so that I can publish them (or segments of them) in the issue.

Above and beyond the postings on the VW listserv and Facebook, I am also requesting that you send me more formal remembrances and recollections of Jane so that I can integrate them either into this special section or into a special issue. She deserves this recognition for all that she did to radically transform the perception of Virginia Woolf’s life and work.

Thank you so much.

In deep sadness,

Vara

Vara Neverow
Managing Editor, Virginia Woolf Miscellany
Professor, English and Women’s Studies
English Department Engleman Hall D265
Southern Connecticut State University
501 Crescent Street
New Haven, CT 06515

Phone:   203-392-6717
Fax:       203-392-6731
Email:    neverowv1 at southernct.edu

From: Diane Gillespie <gillespie at pullman.com<mailto:gillespie at pullman.com>>
Date: Friday, May 29, 2015 at 3:12 PM
To: Laurie Reiche <lauriereiche at gmail.com<mailto:lauriereiche at gmail.com>>, U V <representationmatters at gmail.com<mailto:representationmatters at gmail.com>>
Cc: "vwoolf at lists.osu.edu<mailto:vwoolf at lists.osu.edu>" <vwoolf at lists.osu.edu<mailto:vwoolf at lists.osu.edu>>
Subject: Re: [Vwoolf] Jane Marcus

Among the many eloquent and heartfelt tributes, you've said it best.

Diane Gillespie

From: Laurie Reiche<mailto:lauriereiche at gmail.com>
Sent: Friday, May 29, 2015 1:28 AM
To: U V<mailto:representationmatters at gmail.com>
Cc: vwoolf at lists.osu.edu<mailto:vwoolf at lists.osu.edu>
Subject: Re: [Vwoolf] Jane Marcus

A poem that sprang to mind….Laurie

Meditation in Tavistock Square
in Front of the Gan Statue On the Deaths
Of Shari Benstock & Jane Marcus

Me and Ghandi and the sky, our laps full of treasures, mine
with a notebook full of words, his with the offerings
of a god: dried roses once fresh, leaves
once alive.

How quickly life passes.

In two days two brilliant scholars died,
Feminists of the Second Wave,
towering waves themselves
who spread their essences like molten silver
across the shore of our lives:
Shari Benstock and Jane Marcus.

Say their names. Say their names, again.

In my imagination I already see them
as statues in a park, their laps full of roses
and there's a plaque that says:
"Read Their Books!"
Yes, perhaps a tactless order, a pressing command
because our lives are fleeting and one must take a stand for
cut roses perish in less than a day but words--
well, words we know are the engraved,
perpetually living in our eyes and minds,
beyond decay.

(Laurie Lessen Reiche- May 29, 2015)

On May 29, 2015, at 8:35 AM, U V <representationmatters at gmail.com<mailto:representationmatters at gmail.com>> wrote:

This is terrible news -- my very, very best to those who knew her well. Her work has been magnificent; and the generosity and real, insightful interest with which she engaged inexperienced young scholars, and normalized that interest, was wonderful. And she coined "the Virginia Woolf Soap Operas"! She will be missed so much.

On 29 May 2015 at 06:40, Angeliki Spiropoulou <angelikispiropoulou at hotmail.com<mailto:angelikispiropoulou at hotmail.com>> wrote:
Very sad news indeed. Her work is foundational.

Angeliki

__________
Dr. Angeliki Spiropoulou ( MA; PhD Sussex University)
Assistant Professor of European Literature and Theory
The University of the Peloponnese
Theatre Studies Department
Vassileos Konstantinou 21, Nafplio 21100, GR
email: aspirop at uop.gr<mailto:aspirop at uop.gr>
tel (Secretariat): 0030-27520-96130/126

http://ts.uop.gr/images/files/bs/spiropoulou_bs.pdf
https://uop-gr.academia.edu/AngelikiSpiropoulou

________________________________
From: millsj7 at gmail.com<mailto:millsj7 at gmail.com>
Date: Fri, 29 May 2015 00:26:34 -0400
To: cfroula at northwestern.edu<mailto:cfroula at northwestern.edu>
CC: vwoolf at lists.osu.edu<mailto:vwoolf at lists.osu.edu>
Subject: Re: [Vwoolf] Jane Marcus

Devastating. Jane Marcus was a force to be reckoned with. And as someone once said of Jane Ellen Harrison, another of our intellectual "unmet" mentors and friends...she was a giant upon whose shoulders we all stand. Jane Marcus asked the important questions. Go back. Re-read her. All of it. There are gems to be mined there that will guide you, test you, frustrate you, but demand that you rethink possible. Her work will remain generative, bold, and meaningful to our own questions and research as we stay up late reading and writing forgetful of the tea kettle on the stove ...but somehow certain that we're on to something, something that matters.

Jean Mills

Sent from my iPhone

On May 28, 2015, at 11:40 PM, Christine Froula <cfroula at northwestern.edu<mailto:cfroula at northwestern.edu>> wrote:

What very sad news. Jane's pioneering scholarship and devoted teaching as well as her kindness and generosity have encouraged and inspired countless scholars of Woolf, Elizabeth Robins, feminism, modernism, and much more, and the enduring legacy of her own work will keep her spirit alive. We will miss you, Jane.

Christine

n 5/28/2015 9:54 PM, Linda Camarasana wrote:
Dear fellow Woolfians—

It is with extraordinary sadness that I convey the news that Jane Marcus has died.

Those of us who studied with Jane are reeling from the news, announced today by her son Ben.

--Linda

Linda Camarasana
Associate Professor, English Department
Coordinator of Writing Programs
SUNY College at Old Westbury
Old Westbury, NY 11568
CamarasanaL at OldWestbury.edu<mailto:CamarasanaL at OldWestbury.edu>

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--
Urvashi Vashist
Department of English Language and Literature
University College London

Email: urvashi.vashist.09 at ucl.ac.uk<mailto:urvashi.vashist.09 at ucl.ac.uk>
Phone: +44 (0) 7999 052989

"Tonight I think
 no poetry
 will serve."

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