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The Virginia Woolf Podcast

Karina Jakubowicz

Dr Karina Jakubowicz talks with writers, artists, and academics whose work has been influenced by the modernist writer, Virginia Woolf. 


To learn more, head over to https://substack.com/@woolfintheworld


This podcast is made in association with Literature Cambridge, an independent educational organisation that provides university-style lectures on a wide range of literary subjects. Head to https://www.literaturecambridge.co.uk for more info.

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  • 20 episodes
  • Avg 32 min
  • English
  • S4 · E3
    June 23 · 39 min

    Night and Day on Film with Director, Tina Gharavi

    Send us Fan Mail The first film adaptation of Woolf's 1919 novel, Night and Day has just been released with a glittering cast including Jack Whitehall, Sally Phillips, Lily Allen, and Timothy Spall. Karina discusses the film with its director, Tina Gharavi, and they touch on the politics of period dramas and the gender disparity that still exists in the filmmaking industry. To learn more about Literature Cambridge, go to https://www.literaturecambridge.co.uk or follow them on: https://litcamb.substack.com/ https://www.linkedin.com/company/literature-cambridge and Instagram @litcamb

  • S4 · E2
    May 10 · 41 min

    The Waves on Stage

    Send us Fan Mail A new stage adaptation of The Waves has just premiered at the Jermyn St theatre to sell-out shows. In this episode, Karina interviews the scriptwriter, Flora Wilson Brown, and director, Júlia Levai To purchase the script, head to https://www.nickhernbooks.co.uk/the-waves Flora Wilson Brown is a writer and dramaturg. Her first play I KNOW I KNOW I KNOW, about friendship and abusive relationships, premiered at the Southwark Playhouse in 2022 to critical acclaim. Her second play THE BEAUTIFUL FUTURE IS COMING, which explores existential questions about the climate crisis across time through three women and their relationships, had a critically acclaimed run on the Bristol Old Vic’s main stage in summer 2025 before transferring to the Traverse for the Edinburgh Festival 2025 in a production directed by Nancy Medina. She is on attachment to the National Theatre and under commission to the Globe Theatre, and in screen is writing an episode for an anthology series about Gen Z for Hat Trick. Júlia Levai is a theatre director & dramaturg from Budapest based in London. She recently directed the critically acclaimed premiere of Nancy Netherwood’s new play, Radiant Boy at Southwark Playhouse. Her production of Petty Men (after Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar) won the European Shakespeare Festival Network’s 2026 Award and will be touring across Europe in 2026. Júlia regularly works at the National Theatre as Staff Director (Land of the Living, Coriolanus, Dear Octopus), Script Reader and Mentor Director for NT Connections. In 2024, she trained on the NT Studio’s Directors Course. To learn more about Literature Cambridge, go to https://www.literaturecambridge.co.uk or follow them on: https://litcamb.substack.com/ https://www.linkedin.com/company/literature-cambridge and Instagram @litcamb

  • S4 · E1
    March 2 · 29 min

    Jane Harrison with Ann Kennedy Smith

    Send us Fan Mail This podcast is all about the wonderful Jane Harrison, the inimitable classicist who was a significant influence on Virginia Woolf. To discuss Jane's life and legacy we have Ann Kennedy Smith. Ann is a writer, researcher, and literary critic. Her essays and reviews have been published in the Guardian, Times Literary Supplement, Slightly Foxed magazine, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Journal of Victorian Culture, English Review and History Today. She has given lectures for Cambridge University Library, Literature Cambridge (with Dr Trudi Tate) and Cambridge alumni associations, and in January 2023 she was a guest on BBC Radio 3’s ‘Freethinking’ programme, talking about women in higher education. She is currently working on a book about the Cambridge Ladies’ Dining Society 1890-1914. She is a member of Clare Hall Art Committee. You can access her excellent substack, 'The Cambridge Ladies’ Dining Society' through the following link: https://akennedysmith.substack.com/?utm_source=global-search To learn more about Literature Cambridge, go to https://www.literaturecambridge.co.uk or follow them on: https://litcamb.substack.com/ https://www.linkedin.com/company/literature-cambridge and Instagram @litcamb

  • S3 · E10
    February 2 · 36 min

    Frances Spalding on Woolf, Bloomsbury, and Stevie Smith

    Send us Fan Mail Frances Spalding discusses her thoughts on Bloomsbury, a meeting with Duncan Grant, and the wonderful Stevie Smith. To learn more about Literature Cambridge, go to https://www.literaturecambridge.co.uk or follow them on: https://litcamb.substack.com/ https://www.linkedin.com/company/literature-cambridge and Instagram @litcamb

  • S3 · E9
    Dec 19, 2025 · 40 min

    'The Life of Violet' with Urmila Seshagiri

    Send us Fan Mail In this episode, Karina speaks with Urmila Seshagiri about 'The Life of Violet,' a previously unpublished manuscript by Virginia Woolf that has just been released by Princeton University Press. Urmila is Distinguished Professor in Humanities and Professor of English at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. She is the author of Race and the Modernist Imagination (Cornell UP), and is the editor of Virginia Woolf’s The Life of Violet (Princeton UP), Jacob’s Room (Oxford UP), and To the Lighthouse (W. W. Norton; in preparation), and she is preparing the first scholarly edition of Woolf’s memoir, A Sketch of the Past To learn more about Literature Cambridge, go to https://www.literaturecambridge.co.uk or follow them on: https://litcamb.substack.com/ https://www.linkedin.com/company/literature-cambridge and Instagram @litcamb

  • S3 · E8
    Nov 16, 2025 · 28 min

    The Writer's Room with Katie da Cunha Lewin

    Send us Fan Mail This is episode is all about writers' rooms - where do writers really work, and why are we so invested in the romance of the writing process? Academic and author, Katie da Cunha Lewin has thought a great deal about this subject, and her recent book 'The Writer's Room' explores it in depth. In this episode, Karina chats to Katie about the politics and practicalities of authorship, and (of course) about Virginia Woolf's own writing process. To learn more about Literature Cambridge, go to https://www.literaturecambridge.co.uk or follow them on: https://litcamb.substack.com/ https://www.linkedin.com/company/literature-cambridge and Instagram @litcamb

  • S3 · E7
    Oct 3, 2025 · 36 min

    Living Dangerously with Katherine Mansfield

    Send us Fan Mail Our previous episode on Katherine Mansfield was so successful that we've prepared this sequel entirely dedicated to her life and work. In this episode, Karina speaks with Dr Gerri Kimber about her new biography, 'Katherine Mansfield: A Hidden Life,' an incredibly rich examination of the wild and dangerous legacy left by one of one of the twentieth century's greatest writers. Woolf said that Mansfield was the only writer she was jealous of, and in many ways it's easy to see why. The book is available from Reaction from Nov 1st 2025. You can see Gerri speak at the Oxford Literary Festival and at Hatchard's Piccadilly, and follow her on instagram at @gerri_kimber https://reaktionbooks.co.uk/work/katherine-mansfield To learn more about Literature Cambridge, go to https://www.literaturecambridge.co.uk or follow them on: https://litcamb.substack.com/ https://www.linkedin.com/company/literature-cambridge and Instagram @litcamb

  • S3 · E6
    May 14, 2025 · 34 min

    Mrs Dalloway at 100 with Mark Hussey

    Send us Fan Mail It is officially 100yrs since the publication of Mrs Dalloway. To celebrate, we have just released a podcast episode with Prof Mark Hussey on his new 'biography' of the novel. In the course of this interview we discussed the evolution of Mrs Dalloway, Woolf's various sources of inspiration, and the novel's many afterlives. We also talked about how re-reading the novel across a lifetime grants it a new kind of biography, an autobiography mapped on to our own lives and experiences. To learn more about Literature Cambridge, go to https://www.literaturecambridge.co.uk or follow them on: https://litcamb.substack.com/ https://www.linkedin.com/company/literature-cambridge and Instagram @litcamb

  • S3 · E5
    Mar 10, 2025 · 30 min

    The Bloomsbury Photographs with Maggie Humm

    Send us Fan Mail In this episode, Karina speaks with Professor Maggie Humm about her new book, 'The Bloomsbury Photographs.' They discuss the importance of photography to the Bloomsbury members, the cameras they used, and the role of photograph albums in the curation of their intimate, creative lives. http://www.maggiehumm.net/ https://yalebooksblog.co.uk/2024/10/25/the-bloomsbury-photographs/ To learn more about Literature Cambridge, go to https://www.literaturecambridge.co.uk or follow them on: https://litcamb.substack.com/ https://www.linkedin.com/company/literature-cambridge and Instagram @litcamb

  • S3 · E4
    Nov 24, 2024 · 20 min

    Rural Hours with Harriet Baker

    Send us Fan Mail Harriet Baker joins Karina to discuss her new book, 'Rural Hours: The Country Lives of Virginia Woolf, Sylvia Townsend Warner and Rosamond Lehmann.' Together they explore how rural living affected the work of these three innovative authors, and profoundly shaped their personal and political lives. The book is available from Allen Lane publishers and all good bookshops. https://www.qmul.ac.uk/sed/english/staff/phd/profiles/bakerh.html https://www.waterstones.com/book/rural-hours/harriet-baker/9780241540510 To learn more about Literature Cambridge, go to https://www.literaturecambridge.co.uk or follow them on: https://litcamb.substack.com/ https://www.linkedin.com/company/literature-cambridge and Instagram @litcamb

  • S3 · E3
    Nov 7, 2024 · 27 min

    Virginia Woolf in Japan, episode 2

    Send us Fan Mail In the second part of our series on Woolf in Japan, Karina visits Etc bookshop, a feminist bookshop in Tokyo. There, she speaks to the bookshop's founder, Akiko Matsuo, who believes Woolf's work is inspiring a whole community of Japanese feminists. Karina also speaks to the novelist and translator Aoko Matsuda, who discusses what it means to 'think back through our mothers' if we are women. Her book 'Eko no Mori' is partly inspired by Mrs Dalloway. You can find more about Etc books and Aoko Matsuda below: https://www.instagram.com/etc.books_bookshop/ https://www.instagram.com/matsudaoko/ The episode was funded by The Daiwa Foundation. The translator and co-producer was Aki Katyama. To learn more about Literature Cambridge, go to https://www.literaturecambridge.co.uk or follow them on: https://litcamb.substack.com/ https://www.linkedin.com/company/literature-cambridge and Instagram @litcamb

  • S3 · E2
    Aug 1, 2024 · 34 min

    Making Sense of The Dreadnaught Hoax with Danell Jones

    Send us Fan Mail In 1910 a young Virginia Woolf engaged in a prank now known as The Dreadnought Hoax. The episode, which involved her pretending to be an Abyssinian Prince and wearing blackface, has divided and embarrassed scholars of her work, many of whom prefer not to dwell on it. Danell Jones, author of 'The Girl Prince: Virginia Woolf, Race, and The Dreadnaught Hoax' is the first researcher to deeply consider this moment in Woolf's biography while also engaging with the Black experience in Britain, including the stories of real princes to Caribbean writers and South African activists. Karina asks Danell what really happened during the Hoax and what legacies it leaves. The book can be purchased through multiple outlets including: https://www.hurstpublishers.com/book/the-girl-prince/ For a discount, use promo code THEGIRLPRINCE25 https://danelljones.com/the-girl-prince-virginia-woolf-race-and-the-dreadnought-hoax/ To learn more about Literature Cambridge, go to https://www.literaturecambridge.co.uk or follow them on: https://litcamb.substack.com/ https://www.linkedin.com/company/literature-cambridge and Instagram @litcamb

  • S3 · E1
    Mar 8, 2024 · 36 min

    Katherine Mansfield: Friend or Rival?

    Send us Fan Mail In this episode, Karina speaks with Mansfield expert Gerri Kimber about the author's infamous connection with Virginia Woolf. They discuss what they had in common, what they didn't, and whether she was really a member of the Bloomsbury Group. Gerri is the founder of the Katherine Mansfield Society. She is the author of Katherine Mansfield: The Early Years (2016), Katherine Mansfield and the Art of the Short Story (2015), and Katherine Mansfield: The View from France (2008). She is the Series Editor of the 4-volume Edinburgh Edition of the Collected Works of Katherine Mansfield (2012-16). To learn more about Literature Cambridge, go to https://www.literaturecambridge.co.uk or follow them on: https://litcamb.substack.com/ https://www.linkedin.com/company/literature-cambridge and Instagram @litcamb

  • S2 · E10
    Jan 28, 2024 · 21 min

    Virginia Woolf in Japan - Episode 1

    Send us Fan Mail This is the first part of a mini-series on Woolf in Japan. In this episode, Karina is joined by Prof Aki Katyama, the Japanese translator of A Room of One's Own. Together they discuss the success of this text in Japan, and the importance of Woolf's feminist essay to contemporary Japanese gender politics. They speak with students at Dokkyo University in Soka, and with Ryoko Takeuchi, a publisher at Heibonsha Publishers in Tokyo. The episode is funded by The Daiwa Foundation. To learn more about Literature Cambridge, go to https://www.literaturecambridge.co.uk or follow them on: https://litcamb.substack.com/ https://www.linkedin.com/company/literature-cambridge and Instagram @litcamb

  • S2 · E9
    Jan 27, 2024 · 33 min

    Going to the Lighthouse with Kabe Wilson

    Send us Fan Mail In this episode, Karina interviews the excellent Kabe Wilson, an artist and scholar who has recently been artist in residence at the University of Sussex. They discuss his long relationship with Woolf's work and go in search of a lighthouse with some strange connections between his own paintings to those of Vanessa Bell. Kabe is known in the Woolf community for his imaginative interventions in Woolf's writing. His many projects on Woolf include: Of One Woman or So, The Dreadlock Hoax, and On Being Still. His work has recently been chosen to illustrate the Norton Critical Edition of To the Lighthouse . To learn more about Literature Cambridge, go to https://www.literaturecambridge.co.uk or follow them on: https://litcamb.substack.com/ https://www.linkedin.com/company/literature-cambridge and Instagram @litcamb

  • S2 · E8
    Oct 16, 2023 · 33 min

    Bring No Clothes: Bloomsbury and Fashion

    Send us Fan Mail This episode celebrates the opening of an exhibition at Charleston's new museum in Lewes, Sussex. The exhibition is titled Bring No Clothes: Bloomsbury and Fashion and is running until January 7th 2025. In order to discuss the Bloomsbury Group and their innovative approach to clothing, Karina is joined by the exhibition's curator, Charlie Porter, and Woolf and fashion scholar Claire Nicholson. Charlie is a writer, fashion critic and curator. He has written for The Financial Times, The Guardian, The New York Times, GQ, Luncheon, i-D and Fantastic Man, and has been described as one of the most influential fashion journalists of his time. Porter co-runs the London queer rave Chapter 10, and is a trustee of the Friends of Arnold Circus, where he is also a volunteer gardener. He is the author of What Artists Wear and of a book inspired by his work with Charleston, titled Bring No Clothes. Claire has taught English in Cambridge for many years. Her interest in fashion history was combined with literary analysis in her dissertation In Woolf’s Clothing: Clothes and Fashion in Virginia Woolf’s Fiction. She is Chair of the Virginia Woolf Society. To learn more about Literature Cambridge, go to https://www.literaturecambridge.co.uk or follow them on: https://litcamb.substack.com/ https://www.linkedin.com/company/literature-cambridge and Instagram @litcamb

  • S2 · E7
    Oct 11, 2023 · 25 min

    Leonard Woolf's Legacies

    Send us Fan Mail Marielle O'Neill and Prof. Peter Stansky discuss the many legacies of Leonard Woolf, notably his anti-imperialism, socialism, and work in international politics. Peter Stansky is a professor of History at Stanford University and the author of Leonard Woolf, Bloomsbury Socialist. His most recent publication is The Socialist Patriot: George Orwell and War. As a distinguished historian, he has judged the Pulitzer Prize, among other book awards. Peter was a finalist for the National Book Awards in 1967, 1973, and 1981. He has also served as a member of the Executive Council of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and has lectured in various parts of North America, Europe and Australia. Marielle is a PhD candidate at Leeds Trinity University. Her research explores the political activism and partnership of Leonard and Virginia Woolf. She serves on the Executive Committee of the Virginia Woolf Society of Great Britain. She has been active in politics on both sides of the Atlantic, working on Capitol Hill, Washington, DC and in the Houses of Parliament, London. To learn more about Literature Cambridge, go to https://www.literaturecambridge.co.uk or follow them on: https://litcamb.substack.com/ https://www.linkedin.com/company/literature-cambridge and Instagram @litcamb

  • S2 · E6
    Jun 14, 2023 · 26 min

    Professor Dame Gillian Beer on Mrs Dalloway

    Send us Fan Mail This is the second of two episodes created to celebrate 100yrs since the first 'Dalloway day.' In this episode, Professor Dame Gillian Beer gives a wonderful lecture titled, 'For There She Was: Love and Presence in Mrs Dalloway' To learn more about Literature Cambridge, go to https://www.literaturecambridge.co.uk or follow them on: https://litcamb.substack.com/ https://www.linkedin.com/company/literature-cambridge and Instagram @litcamb

  • S2 · E5
    Jun 6, 2023 · 27 min

    Mrs Dalloway's Party

    Send us Fan Mail This is the first of two episodes created to celebrate 100yrs since the day on which Mrs Dalloway is set. This episode focuses on a mysterious painting by Vanessa Bell and explores its possible connection to Mrs Dalloway. Karina speaks with the painting's owner, Howard Ginsberg, and the bestselling author of Bloomsbury Pie, Regina Marler in order to think about paintings and parties in 1920s Bloomsbury. With thanks to Howard Ginsberg for his permission to use an image of the artwork. To learn more about Literature Cambridge, go to https://www.literaturecambridge.co.uk or follow them on: https://litcamb.substack.com/ https://www.linkedin.com/company/literature-cambridge and Instagram @litcamb

  • S2 · E4
    Feb 10, 2023 · 38 min

    Clive Bell Revisited

    Send us Fan Mail Karina speaks with Prof Mark Hussey about an often misunderstood member of the Bloomsbury Group, Clive Bell. Hussey touches on Bell's pacifism, his love affairs, and his powerful influence on Bloomsbury thought. Prof Hussey is the author of Bell's biography, 'Clive Bell and the Making of Modernism' and has edited 'The Selected Letters of Clive Bell: Art, Love, and War in Bloomsbury.' You can purchase copies and learn more at: https://www.markhusseybooks.com For a 30% discount on The Letters of Clive Bell: See https://edinburghuniversitypress.com/book-selected-letters-of-clive-bell.html Code NEW30 gets a 30% discount. To learn more about Literature Cambridge, go to https://www.literaturecambridge.co.uk or follow them on: https://litcamb.substack.com/ https://www.linkedin.com/company/literature-cambridge and Instagram @litcamb

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