[Vwoolf] Advice About Dreadnought Hoax Discussion

[Susan Friedman]

Hi Danell Jones and Woolfians, I think Danell's idea is a great one. I'd
also like to bring Woolfians' attention to the 2014 performance, The
Dreadlock Hoax, by multi-media artist Kabe Wilson. Dressed as Woolf, and
reading in a Gordon Square Bloomsbury drawing room, Kabe Wilson read an
essay about his creation of *One Woman or So-- Olivia N'Gowfri* and
revealed at the end of the reading that every word he had just read came
from Woolf's essay "Craftsmanship"--but reordered. *One Woman or So* is an
art work of cut-up pieces of A Room of One's Own, rearranged to be a
novella about a young scholarship student at Cambridge, who is mixed-race
and queer and who faces racism, which leads her into reading US Black Power
writers like Stokely Carmichael and H. Rap Brown. He only used Woolf's
words the same number of times they appear in *Room*. Olivia decides to
burn the libraries and the MSS of *Room,* but the MSS won't burn, and she
decides that she can re-mix, re-fresh and recycle them for the 21st
century. It's a remarkable project from a remarkable artist. I am attaching
the essay I published about the project in my edited volume, *Contemporary
Revolutions: Turning Back to the Future in 21st Century Literature and Art*
(now in paperback, with essays by Margaret Homans and Elizabeth Abel on
Woolf as well). I'll attach some images from Kabe's work. He and I also
have a "conversation" about his work coming out in *Recycling Woolf in
Contemporary Culture*, edited by Monica Latham, Caroline Marie, and
Anne-Laure Rigarde (Routledge, 2021).
   I would love to learn more about the 1909 Dreadnought Hoax!
Best, Susan Friedman

On Tue, Oct 20, 2020 at 10:10 AM Danell Jones via Vwoolf <
vwoolf at lists.osu.edu> wrote:

> Dear Woolfians,
>
>
>
> I am working on a book about Woolf’s involvement in the *Dreadnought *hoax
> and would like to propose something—perhaps a round-table discussion?—at
> the next Woolf conference and would like your advice about the best format,
> questions, etc.
>
>
>
> I am very interested in how Woolf scholars and others have thought about
> the hoax in the past and how views of it have changed over time. As I write
> in my manuscript, “The *Dreadnought* hoax may have started out as a joke,
> but it engages a powerful nexus of competing ideas about militarism,
> imperialism, race, and feminism as important today as it was a hundred
> years ago. Still struggling for equality, women lean into it for its
> feminist daring and defiance. In a world capable of self-destruction,
> pacifists celebrate its stand against militarism. More aware than ever of
> the damage caused by racism, people fighting for social justice call out
> its bigotry and use it to remind readers of our racist past and present.”
>
>
>
> My questions for a discussion would be twofold:
>
>
>    1. How have we (Woolf scholars) talked about the hoax in the past and
>    why did we talk about it that way?
>
>    2. How are we talking about the hoax now? How do we
>    use/reinterpret/reject earlier interpretations?
>
>
>
> Do you think a roundtable would be a good format? Would some kind of panel
> be better? I really want this to be a fruitful discussion about changing
> perspectives and not any kind of personal attack on anyone.
>
>
>
> I would love feedback on the idea, format, questions, or anything else you
> think is important.
>
>
>
> Thank you so much for your help,
>
>
>
> Danell
>
>
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>


-- 
Susan Stanford Friedman
Hilldale Professor Emerita in the Humanities
Virginia Woolf Professor Emerita of English and Women's Studies
7103 Helen C. White Hall
600 N. Park St.
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Madison, WI 53706
Phone: 608-258-8080
Fax: 608-263-3709
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