Call for proposals for the 35th Annual International Conference on Virginia Woolf 

Virginia Woolf and Sound

24-28 June, 2026

İstanbul Bilgi University

İstanbul,Turkey

“I always think of my books as music before I write them” 

Virginia Woolf to Elizabeth Trevelyan, The Letters of Virginia Woolf. 

The organizers of the 35th Annual International Virginia Woolf Conference warmly invite proposals for individual papers, panels, workshops, and exhibitions that engage with the theme “Virginia Woolf and Sound.” This year’s conference seeks to explore the rich and varied dimensions of sound in Woolf’s writing, her historical and cultural milieu, and the broader literary and artistic landscapes that shaped and were shaped by her work. 

As sound studies continues to expand the boundaries of how we understand sensory experience, media, and cultural production, its intersection with Virginia Woolf studies offers rich terrain for rethinking literary form and perception. From the rhythmic structures of her prose to her representations of listening, voice, and acoustic space, Woolf’s work engages with sound not only as aesthetic texture but as a means of exploring subjectivity, embodiment, and social experience. Her experimental prose resonates with the concerns of sound studies: the politics of listening, the materiality of voice, and the acoustic dimensions of space and time. Engaging Woolf through the lens of sound studies not only deepens our understanding of her modernist aesthetics but also opens new interdisciplinary pathways for exploring how literature listens, performs, and constructs meaning through sonic texture. 

Possible areas of inquiry include, but are not limited to:

• Virginia Woolf’s engagement with classical music and musicians

• The idea of books as musical compositions

• Music in Woolf’s social and emotional life

• Politics of music and sound 

• Music and gender

• Woolf as a performer, listener and music critic

• Representations of different musical genres in Woolf’s fiction and essays

• Intersections between poetry and music 

• Nationalist and pacifist discourse and music

• The role of rhythm and cadence in Woolf’s prose style

• The soundscapes of nature in Woolf’s works

• The influence of emerging sound technologies, such as the gramophone and the radio

• Listening to the infrastructure: the auditory experience of urban life and the sound of the modern city (street music, church bells, etc.)

• Virginia Woolf’s musical legacies

• Silence 

• Noise and sound parasites in Woolf

• Animal sounds

• Biosounds

• Sound and affect

• Deadly sounds: war and sound

• Sound properties of the written word

• The act of listening

This list of suggested topics is intended as a starting point rather than a limitation. We encourage interdisciplinary approaches and welcome contributions from scholars, artists, performers, and practitioners working across literature, musicology, sound studies, media studies, and related fields.

We invite submissions that explore how sound—whether musical, environmental, technological, or textual—resonates throughout the work of Virginia Woolf and the Bloomsbury Group. Proposals are welcome for panels, roundtables, workshops, and exhibitions that take innovative, interdisciplinary, transhistorical, or collaborative approaches to the theme of ‘Virginia Woolf and Sound’. We encourage contributions from scholars at all career stages, independent researchers, students, artists, and readers with a deep interest in Woolf’s work.

The conference will also feature 90-minute interactive workshops, and we welcome proposals in non-traditional formats that engage participants in creative or experimental ways. 

We are accepting submissions in the following formats:

• Individual papers (abstract of 250 words)

• Panels or roundtables (abstract of 500 words for the entire panel or roundtable)

• Interactive workshops (abstract of 500 words)

• Digital/material exhibition or posters (abstract of 250 words))

• Non-traditional or experimental forms of presentation—including dissident, performative, or hybrid formats (abstract of 250-500 words)

We encourage creative and boundary-pushing proposals that challenge conventional academic formats and open new ways of engaging with Woolf’s work and legacy.

Abstract submission deadline: 20 December 2025

Please submit any inquiries and abstracts to woolf2026@bilgi.edu.tr