Virginia Woolf and Her Influences presents papers from the Seventh Annual Conference on Virginia Woolf at Plymouth State College in New Hampshire June 12-15, 1997. These papers fall under the theme of 'the influence of something upon somebody' as it arises throughout Woolf's work. The careful arrangement of the essays carries them over from the context of the conference to provide a range of critical and expanded approaches to Woolf's writing under the groupings of Reading/Writing the Individual, Historical Positionings, Creative Revolutions, and Theoretical Foray. Each part concludes with a section of 'Teachings' that recognizes the emphasis that Woolf placed on education and its impact on constructions of the body, on constructions of history, and on art and its interpretations. The editors' main goal is to expand the understanding of Woolf so that her creativity and ideas can be appreciated from not only the traditional perspective, but modern, varied perspectives as well.

Thirty-five papers selected from the 1998 conference analyze and re-explore communities of which Virginia Woolf was a part -- for example, Female Modernists, artists, lesbian and gay, communities formed by letter writing, British, and pacifist. Highlights include artists' conversations (reproduced) on their communion with Woolf, discussion and critique of the film Paris Was a Woman, and thoughts on the conversations that take place while reading and teaching Woolf; Woolf and technology; the letters she received in response to Three Guineas; Woolf through the lens of trauma theory; and the impact of her work on Spanish-American women writers.