The Handbook to the Bloomsbury Group: (Bloomsbury Handbooks)

The Handbook to the Bloomsbury Group is the most comprehensive available survey of contemporary scholarship on the Bloomsbury Group – the set of influential writers, artists and thinkers whose members included Virginia Woolf, Leonard Woolf, E.M. Forster, John Maynard Keynes, Vanessa Bell, Clive Bell, Duncan Grant and David Garnett. With chapters written by world leading scholars in the field, the book explores novel avenues of thinking about these pivotal figures and their works opened up by the new modernist studies. It brings together overview essays with detailed illustrative case studies, and covers topics as diverse as feminism, sexuality, empire, philosophy, class, nature and the arts. Setting the agenda for future study of Bloomsbury, this is an essential resource for scholars of 20th-century modernist culture.

Table of Contents:
List of Contributors Introduction Derek Ryan (University of Kent, UK) and Stephen Ross (University of Victoria, Canada) 1. Bloomsbury and Sexuality Todd Avery (University of Massachusetts Lowell, USA) Case Study: Edward Carpenter's Radical Integrity and its Influence on E. M. Forster Jesse Wolfe (California State University, Stanislaus, USA) 2. Bloomsbury and the Arts Maggie Humm (University of East London, UK) Case Study: Clive Bell and the Legacies of Significant Form Mark Hussey (Pace University, USA) 3. Bloomsbury and Empire Sonita Sarker (Macalester College, USA) Case Study: Race, Empire and Performative Activism in Late Edwardian Bloomsbury Anna Snaith (King's College London, UK) 4. Bloomsbury and Feminism Lauren Elkin (Independent scholar) Case Study: Bloomsury, the Hogarth Press and Feminist Organisations Claire Battershill (Simon Fraser University, Canada) 5. Bloomsbury and Philosophy Benjamin Hagen (University of South Dakota, USA) Case Study: Bloomsbury, Mulk Raj Anand and Henri Bergson Laci Mattison (Florida Gulf Coast University, USA) 6. Bloomsbury and Class Kathryn Simpson (Independent scholar) Case Study: Bloomsbury's Rural Cross-Class Encounters Clara Jones (King's College London, UK) 7. Bloomsbury and Jewishness Susan Wegener (Purdue University, USA) Case Study: Leonard Woolf and John Maynard Keynes: Palestine, Zionism and the State of Israel Steven Putzel (Pennsylvania State University, Wilkes-Barre, USA) 8. Bloomsbury and Nature Peter Adkins (University of Kent, UK) Case Study: Eating Animals and the Aesthetics of Meat in Virginia Woolf's The Years Vicki Tromanhauser (State University of New York, New Paltz, USA) 9. Bloomsbury and Politics David Ayers (University of Kent, UK) Case Study: From Bolshevism to Bloomsbury: The Garnett Translations and Russian Politics in England Michaela Bronstein (Stanford University, USA) 10. Bloomsbury and War J. Ashley Foster (California State University, Fresno, USA) Case Study: Bloomsbury's Pacifist Aesthetics: Woolf, Keynes, Rodker Jane Goldman (University of Glasgow, UK) Index

About the Author :
Derek Ryan is Senior Lecturer in Modernist Literature at the University of Kent, UK. His previous books include Virginia Woolf and the Materiality of Theory (2013) and Animal Theory: A Critical Introduction (2015). Stephen Ross is Professor of English at the University of Victoria, Canada. He is Past-President of the Modernist Studies Association (2015/16) and General Editor of The Routledge Encyclopedia of Modernism Online.

Review :
Bloomsbury is everywhere: books, films, plays, even anime. Indeed, has any other group of friends had a more potent influence on the 20th-century ethos? Ryan (Univ. of Kent, UK) and Ross (Univ. of Victoria, Canada) demonstrate that the influence extends into the 21st century too, in essays covering sexuality, the arts, empire, feminism, philosophy, class, Jewishness, nature, politics, and war. Each essay is followed by a case study. Some essays (those on sexuality, class, the arts, and philosophy) reiterate well-established contentions; others force a new reckoning of the interconnectedness between the members and the pervasiveness, both positive and negative, of the group’s influence. The essays in this latter group are provocative and sometimes antagonistic, so they will be terrifically exciting for Bloomsbury scholars. Most fascinating are the essays devoted to the men of Bloomsbury, who were often relegated to the darkness in relation to Virginia Woolf and Vanessa Bell. This collection reminds one that the reverberations of Bloomsbury are still felt in every aspect of modern society, from the arts (including literature, painting, textiles, pottery, and museum acquisitions) to politics and economics, and even social policy. Summing Up: Essential. A particularly fine collection of essays on a wide range of Bloomsbury activities, enriching our understanding of this eclectic group of individuals and the worlds in which they moved ... fascinating. A dense and detailed examination of the interactions, writings, behaviors, and influences of this diverse and eclectic group of individuals on both their own time period and succeeding generations. This does everything a handbook ought to do, and much more. While providing its readers with an unsurpassed panorama of perspectives on that elusive term 'Bloomsbury', its innovative pairing of overview chapters with focused case studies animates a scholarly conversation which is as vibrant and diverse as Bloomsbury itself.