The Minds of Bloomsbury (First 7 weeks) - Zoom
F 2021

Description

The Bloomsbury Group has always fascinated people mainly because of the personalities of the members.  What is often lost is their brilliance as thinkers and artists.  Rather than offering the usual parade of personalities, this s/dg will examine the ideas of the members of this remarkable group of creative minds.  It will commence with an excerpt from G. E. Moore’s Principia Ethica, the foundation of the group’s world view.  We will also read Virginia Woolf’s Three Guineas, her brilliant essay on women’s equality; John Maynard Keynes’s Can Lloyd-George Do It?, his scathing critique of laissez-faire economics; the chapter on Florence Nightingale from Lytton Strachey’s Eminent Victorians, his innovative approach to writing history; E. M. Forster’s novel about homosexuality (unpublished during his lifetime), Maurice; and selections from Roger Fry’s Vision and Design, his ground-breaking theories of modern art.

Weekly Topics

1.  G. E. Moore, Principia Ethica (on the intrinsic value of virtue); Nicholas Griffin, “Moore and Bloomsbury”

2.  Virginia Woolf, “Three Guineas”

3.  John Maynard Keynes, Can Lloyd-George Do It?

4.  Lytton Strachey, “Florence Nightingale” (from Eminent Victorians)

5.  E. M Forster, Maurice

6.  Maurice, cont.

7.  Roger Fry, "Art and Socialism" and "Art and Science" (fromVision and Design)

Bibliography

E. M. Forster, Maurice (Penguin Classics)  Most of the rest of the reading material is available on line.  The remainder will be distributed by the coordinator.