Faulty Woolf? Exploring the Fault Lines of Virginia Woolf’s Heritage in the British Statue Wars

Abstract

This article explores how Virginia Woolf has become the figurehead of contradictory positions that embody the various political fault lines polarising the British public sphere. Focusing on the campaigns for women statues, and on the statue wars Woolf was drawn into in 2022, it examines the articulation between Woolf’s contemporary reception and the intersectional fractures of gender, class, and race that pervade British culture in the age of #MeToo, #BlackLivesMatter, #TransLivesMatter. It thus offers a reflection on the fault lines that divide literary heritage and cultural, or political, zeitgeist, by addressing the contemporary crystallization around the so-called ‘cancel culture’. Finally, it evokes how Woolf’s own take on statues and the memorialisation of ‘great (wo)men’ sheds an ambivalent light on current debates.

Keywords

• Virginia Woolf
• heritage
• memorialization
• statue wars
• feminism
• gender