The Virginia Woolf Podcast
The Virginia Woolf Podcast
Karina Jakubowicz
Dr Karina Jakubowicz talks with writers, artists, and academics whose work has been influenced by the modernist writer, Virginia Woolf. This podcast is made in association with Literature Cambridge, an independent educational organisation that provides university-style lectures on a wide range of literary subjects. Head to https://www.literaturecambridge.co.uk for more info.
The Waves on Stage
Send us Fan Mail A new stage adaptation of The Waves has just premiered at the Jermyn St theatre to sell-out shows. In this episode, Karina interviews the scriptwriter, Flora Wilson Brown, and director, Júlia Levai To purchase the script, head to https://www.nickhernbooks.co.uk/the-waves Flora Wilson Brown is a writer and dramaturg. Her first play I KNOW I KNOW I KNOW, about friendship and abusive relationships, premiered at the Southwark Playhouse in 2022 to critical acclaim. Her second play...
May 10
41 min
Jane Harrison with Ann Kennedy Smith
Send us Fan Mail This podcast is all about the wonderful Jane Harrison, the inimitable classicist who was a significant influence on Virginia Woolf. To discuss Jane's life and legacy we have Ann Kennedy Smith. Ann is a writer, researcher, and literary critic. Her essays and reviews have been published in the Guardian, Times Literary Supplement, Slightly Foxed magazine, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Journal of Victorian Culture, English Review and History Today. She has given ...
Mar 2
29 min
Frances Spalding on Woolf, Bloomsbury, and Stevie Smith
Send us Fan Mail Frances Spalding discusses her thoughts on Bloomsbury, a meeting with Duncan Grant, and the wonderful Stevie Smith. To learn more about Literature Cambridge, go to https://www.literaturecambridge.co.uk or follow them on: https://litcamb.substack.com/ https://www.linkedin.com/company/literature-cambridge and Instagram @litcamb
Feb 2
36 min
'The Life of Violet' with Urmila Seshagiri
Send us Fan Mail In this episode, Karina speaks with Urmila Seshagiri about 'The Life of Violet,' a previously unpublished manuscript by Virginia Woolf that has just been released by Princeton University Press. Urmila is Distinguished Professor in Humanities and Professor of English at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. She is the author of Race and the Modernist Imagination (Cornell UP), and is the editor of Virginia Woolf’s The Life of Violet (Princeton UP), Jacob’s Room (Oxford UP), ...
Dec 19, 2025
40 min
The Writer's Room with Katie da Cunha Lewin
Send us Fan Mail This is episode is all about writers' rooms - where do writers really work, and why are we so invested in the romance of the writing process? Academic and author, Katie da Cunha Lewin has thought a great deal about this subject, and her recent book 'The Writer's Room' explores it in depth. In this episode, Karina chats to Katie about the politics and practicalities of authorship, and (of course) about Virginia Woolf's own writing process. To learn more about Literature ...
Nov 16, 2025
28 min
Living Dangerously with Katherine Mansfield
Send us Fan Mail Our previous episode on Katherine Mansfield was so successful that we've prepared this sequel entirely dedicated to her life and work. In this episode, Karina speaks with Dr Gerri Kimber about her new biography, 'Katherine Mansfield: A Hidden Life,' an incredibly rich examination of the wild and dangerous legacy left by one of one of the twentieth century's greatest writers. Woolf said that Mansfield was the only writer she was jealous of, and in many ways it's easy to ...
Oct 3, 2025
36 min
Mrs Dalloway at 100 with Mark Hussey
Send us Fan Mail It is officially 100yrs since the publication of Mrs Dalloway. To celebrate, we have just released a podcast episode with Prof Mark Hussey on his new 'biography' of the novel. In the course of this interview we discussed the evolution of Mrs Dalloway, Woolf's various sources of inspiration, and the novel's many afterlives. We also talked about how re-reading the novel across a lifetime grants it a new kind of biography, an autobiography mapped on to our own lives and ex...
May 14, 2025
34 min
The Bloomsbury Photographs with Maggie Humm
Send us Fan Mail In this episode, Karina speaks with Professor Maggie Humm about her new book, 'The Bloomsbury Photographs.' They discuss the importance of photography to the Bloomsbury members, the cameras they used, and the role of photograph albums in the curation of their intimate, creative lives. http://www.maggiehumm.net/ https://yalebooksblog.co.uk/2024/10/25/the-bloomsbury-photographs/ To learn more about Literature Cambridge, go to https://www.literaturecambridge.co.uk ...
Mar 10, 2025
30 min
Rural Hours with Harriet Baker
Send us Fan Mail Harriet Baker joins Karina to discuss her new book, 'Rural Hours: The Country Lives of Virginia Woolf, Sylvia Townsend Warner and Rosamond Lehmann.' Together they explore how rural living affected the work of these three innovative authors, and profoundly shaped their personal and political lives. The book is available from Allen Lane publishers and all good bookshops. https://www.qmul.ac.uk/sed/english/staff/phd/profiles/bakerh.html https://www.waterstones.com/book/rura...
Nov 24, 2024
20 min
Virginia Woolf in Japan, episode 2
Send us Fan Mail In the second part of our series on Woolf in Japan, Karina visits Etc bookshop, a feminist bookshop in Tokyo. There, she speaks to the bookshop's founder, Akiko Matsuo, who believes Woolf's work is inspiring a whole community of Japanese feminists. Karina also speaks to the novelist and translator Aoko Matsuda, who discusses what it means to 'think back through our mothers' if we are women. Her book 'Eko no Mori' is partly inspired by Mrs Dalloway. You can find more about Et...
Nov 7, 2024
27 min
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