Virginia Woolf – Objects, Things, Matter

Virginia Woolf's deep and creative interest in materiality is not only illuminated by but precedes current theorisations of objects, things and matter among them, new materialism, object-oriented ontology and thing theory. Through both critical and creative engagements, contributors explore the possibilities and limitations of these theoretical accounts: what new readings they afford; what they say that Woolf has already shown us; and how Woolf goes beyond or can't be fully captured by these ideas. This volume thus gathers various, sometimes even contradictory, approaches on the topic; in turn, it emphasises congruences and tensions in theoretical, literary and cultural interpretations of Woolf's material investments. What emerges in Virginia Woolf Objects, Things, Matter is an account of how Woolf reveals things to be vital, active and strange by refiguring the relationship between subject and object and, at times, even inverting, subverting or redefining those very terms.

Laci Mattison is Associate Professor in the Department of Language and Literature at Florida Gulf Coast University. She is a Series Editor for Understanding Philosophy, Understanding Modernism and co-editor of Understanding Deleuze, Understanding Modernism (2014); Understanding Bergson, Understanding Modernism (2013); and The Routledge Companion to Virginia Woolf (forthcoming 2026).