For the 20th Annual International Conference on Virginia Woolf, people from around the world gathered at Georgetown College, amid the bluegrass and horses of Central Kentucky, to explore the theme Virginia Woolf and the Natural World. The call for papers included a quotation from The Waves (1931)— “Sharp stripes of shadow lay on the grass, and the dew dancing on the tips of the flowers and leaves made the garden like a mosaic of single sparks not yet formed into one whole. The birds, whose breasts were specked canary and rose, now sang a strain or two together, wildly, like skaters rollicking arm–in–arm, and were suddenly silent, breaking asunder”—that led scholars, students, common readers, and creative writers in myriad directions as they explored nature in the life and writing of Virginia Woolf. Panelists considered the nature of patriarchy, nature in the city, theories and philosophies of nature, nature as transformative, and science and technology as gateways into the natural world, among a host of other topics. As can be seen from the conference program (archived at http://www.georgetowncollege.edu/ Departments/English/Woolf/) and these Selected Papers, nature was vital to Woolf 's life experience and her conception and development of a modernist, feminist poetics.

The conference included an array of special presentations, many of which we are pleased to publish here. In the first of three keynote addresses, Bonnie Kime Scott discussed how Woolf 's natural imagery, particularly as framed by marginal female characters, and her representations of earth goddess figures offer holistic, ordered moments. This pattern resonates with various ecofeminisms, which Scott presented with an eye toward providing theoretical structure for discussions to follow. Scott also provided an invaluable synthesis of previous scholarship on Woolf and nature. Carrie Rohman explored how The Waves describes the nonhuman dynamism of vibrational forces at work in the human characters, Jinny in particular. Through this reading, she discussed Jinny's “creativity” as something rooted in our animal nature and connected to cosmic patterns. Rohman's approach suggests that the novel acknowledges life itself is an artistic performance, a claim that takes Woolf 's posthumanism quite seriously.