Pre-Conference events at King’s College London for the 34th Annual International Conference on Virginia Woolf

34th Annual International Conference on Virginia Woolf: ‘Woolf and Dissidence’, University of Sussex July 5-8. Organised by Helen Tyson, Clara Jones and Anna Snaith

King's Archive Visit

Archives Reading Room, S3.02 Strand Building. 

Virginia Woolf studied History, Greek, Latin and German at King’s College London’s Ladies Department between 1897 and 1902. This event will take place in the King’s Archives and participants will be able to view materials relating to Woolf’s studies such as registration books, syllabi and ephemera relating to the College. The event will include a brief introduction from the archive team and Professor Anna Snaith will talk about the discovery of the materials in 2009 and its impact on Woolf studies.

Available times:

• 10-11am
• 11:30-12:30pm
• 12:30 - 1:30
• 1:30-2:30pm

Plenary Event: Virginia Woolf: Creative Engagements

Safra Lecture Theatre, Strand Campus, 4 to 6pm. 

'Virginia Woolf: Creative Engagements' brings together a roundtable of artists, creative writers and practitioners to reflect on the role Woolf's life and writing plays in their work. Director and dramaturg Uzma Hameed, novelists Jo Hamya and Olivia Laing, multi-media artist A T Kabe Wilson, and theatre director and playwright Katie Mitchell, will be in dialogue with KCL academic and writer Jon Day about what it means to engage with Woolf's literary and artistic legacies in our own contemporary moment, considering the aspects of her work that they champion and those they critique. 

The plenary event will be followed by a drinks reception (6-7pm in the Great Hall) with background music by the Woolf Quartet featuring:

Zosia Herlihy-O’Brien (violin)
Emily Harrison (violin)
Beatrice Slocumbe (viola)
Emma Osterrieder (cello) - deputy for Hoda Jahanpour

Founded at the Royal Academy of Music, the Woolf Quartet comprises four versatile creatives dedicated to the coming together of new and old. The quartet (Zosia Herlihy-O’Brien and Emily Harrison violins, Beatrice Slocumbe viola, Hoda Jahanpour cello) enjoy performing well-known repertoire side by side with unexplored and contemporary music. They have a strong desire to mirror the eclecticism of their musical identities in their programming and sharing what they love. Named after famed author Virginia Woolf, the quartet are frequently based in Bloomsbury and rehearse on the site where Woolf once lived. Most recently the quartet were described in a review of their concert at Chamber Music Weymouth - including a programme of Debussy, Caroline Shaw and a work by their own cellist, Hoda Jahanpour - as ‘young artists who bring fresh ideas’. They are looking forward to upcoming engagements in Berlin where they will collaborate with audio producer and sound artist Caroline Siegers, Bradfield Festival of Music, the London Charterhouse, and Wigmore Hall where they will be the Learning Ensemble Fellows for 2025-26.’

Contributor Bios:

Uzma Hameed

Uzma Hameed is a British writer, director and dramaturg. A regular collaborator of choreographer Wayne McGregor, she was Dramaturg on Woolf Works (Olivier Award), The Dante Project (South Bank Sky Arts Award), Obsidian Tear, and Multiverse for the Royal Ballet; MADDADDAM for the National Ballet of Canada and the Royal Ballet; Autobiography, Universe: A Dark Crystal Odyssey and Deepstaria for Company Wayne McGregor; AfteRite-LORE for La Scala (Danza&Danza Award). Other dramaturgy credits include Northern Ballet’s Victoria (South Bank Sky Arts Award) and The Seven Deadly Sins/Mahagonny Songspiel for the Royal Opera. UNDYING, a novel co-authored with her sister Ambreen Hameed, was published in 2021 (Bath Novel Award longlist).

Jo Hamya

Jo Hamya is the author of the novels Three Rooms (2021) and The Hypocrite (2024). Her literary criticism has appeared in the Guardian, the New York Times, the Independent, and the Financial Times among others. She is currently pursuing a doctorate on literary value and social media at King’s College London.

Olivia Laing

Olivia Laing is an internationally acclaimed writer and critic. They’re the author of eight books, including The Lonely City, Everybody and the Sunday Times number one bestseller The Garden Against Time. Laing’s first novel, Crudo, won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize and in 2018 they were awarded the Windham-Campbell Prize for non-fiction. Their books have been translated into twenty-one languages. Laing’s new novel, The Silver Book, will be published in November.

A T Kabe Wilson

A T Kabe Wilson is a UK multimedia artist with a particular focus on adaptation across different forms. As part of an ongoing creative engagement with British modernism, especially the work of Virginia Woolf, he has produced The Dreadlock Hoax, a performance piece that adapted and inverted the infamous Dreadnought Hoax of 1910, Olivia N’Gowfri – Of One Woman or So, an extended experiment in literary recycling, ‘On Being Still’ (The Modernist Review #25), a series of paintings and writings that scrutinises his own engagement with the Bloomsbury Group, and Looking for Virginia: An Artist’s Journey through 100 Archives, a multimedia archival project developed for his 2023 residency at the Centre for Modernist Studies at the University of Sussex.

Katie Mitchell

Katie Mitchell is a theatre and opera director. She has directed over 100 productions in a thirty year career, including a multi-media adaptation, Waves, of Woolf’s The Waves (National Theatre 2006) and of Orlando (Schaubühne, Berlin). She has worked extensively at theatres and opera houses in the UK, Germany, Holland, France and Denmark. In 2009 she was awarded an OBE for services to drama and she is currently Professor of Theatre Directing at Royal Holloway, University of London.’