Elicia A. Clements

Associate Professor
Chair, Department of Humanities
Office: Vanier College, 204
Phone: 416-736-5158
Email: humachr@yorku.ca; elicia@yorku.ca
Attached CV
Accepting New Graduate Students
Elicia Clements is an Associate Professor in the Departments of Humanities and English. She has published several works on the interdisciplinary connections between the art forms of literature and music. A co-edited collection of essays with Lesley J. Higgins entitled Victorian Aesthetic Conditions: Pater Across the Arts was published in 2010 by Palgrave Macmillan, UK. Most recently, with the assistance of a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Standard Research Grant, she has published a book called Virginia Woolf: Music, Sound, Language (University of Toronto Press, 2019). Currently, she is working on a project entitled Modernist Literary Opera with the aid of a SSHRC Insight Grant.
Elicia Clements has published several works on the interdisciplinary connections between the art forms of literature and music. In addition to establishing links between Ludwig van Beethoven’s late compositions and Virginia Woolf’s narrative method in The Waves, she has published on the performative interchange between the words and the music of Gertrude Stein and Virgil Thomson’s opera, The Mother of Us All. She has also co-edited a collection of essays with Lesley J. Higgins titled Victorian Aesthetic Conditions: Pater Across the Arts, which was published in 2010 by Palgrave Macmillan, UK. Most recently, with the assistance of a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Standard Research Grant, she has published a book called Virginia Woolf: Music, Sound, Language (University of Toronto Press, 2019). Additionally, an article, "How to Remediate; or, Gertrude Stein and Virgil Thomson’s Four Saints in Three Acts," came out in the Spring 2019 issue of Modern Drama. Currently, she is working on a project entitled Modernist Literary Opera with the aid of a SSHRC Insight Grant.
Degrees
PhD in English Literature, York UniversityMA in English Literature, York University
BA (Honours) in English Literature, University of Western Ontario
BMus (Honours) in Music Education, University of Western Ontario
Research Interests
- SSHRC Standard Research Grant - 2007
- SSHRC Insight Grant - 2012
Current Research Projects
-
Summary:
An examination of the literary and musical exchange of ideas and techniques found in the works of Gertrude Stein and Virgil Thomson, Langston Hughes and William Grant Still, and W.H. Auden and Igor Stravinsky.
Funders:
SSHRC
"The Efficacy of Performance: Musical Events in The Years." Virginia Woolf and Music. Ed. Adriana Varga. Bloomington & Indiana: Indiana University Press, June 2014. 180-203.
Introduction. With Lesley Higgins. Victorian Aesthetic Conditions: Pater Across the Arts. Eds. Elicia Clements and Lesley J. Higgins. Palgrave MacMillan, UK, 2010.
"Pater's Musical Imagination: The Aural Architecture of 'The School of Giorgione' and Marius the Epicurean." Victorian Aesthetic Conditions: Pater Across the Arts. Palgrave MacMillan, UK, 2010. 152-66.
Rev. of Virginia Woolf and Classical Music: Politics, Aesthetics, Form, by Emma Sutton, Edinburgh University Press, 2013. Woolf Studies Annual. 20 (2014): 176-179.
Rev. of Words and Notes in the Long Nineteenth Century, eds. Edited by Phyllis Weliver and Katharine Ellis. Boydell Press, 2013. Nineteenth Century Prose. 42.2 (Fall 2015): 434-439.
Rev. of Brad Bucknell's Literary Modernism and Musical Aesthetics: Pater, Pound, Joyce, and Stein. The Pater Newsletter. 46 (Spring 2003): 5-9.
Rev. of Paula Gillett's Musical Women in England, 1870-1914: "Encroaching on All Man's Privileges." Victorian Review. 28.2 (2002): 96-99.
"How to Remediate; or, Gertrude Stein and Virgil Thomson’s Four Saints in Three Acts." Modern Drama. Vol. 62, No. 1, pp. 45-72.
''We Cannot Retrace Our Steps': Sonorous Performativity in Gertrude Stein and Virgil Thomson's The Mother of Us All.' Theatre Annual: A Journal of Performance Studies 59 (November 2006): 1-18.
"Transforming Musical Sounds into Words: Narrative Method in Virginia Woolf's The Waves." Narrative: The Journal of the Society for the Study of Narrative Literature 13.2 (May 2005): 160-81.
"Virginia Woolf, Ethel Smyth, and Music: Listening as a Productive Mode of Social Interaction." College Literature. 32.3 (July 2005): 51-71.
"A Different Hearing: Voicing Night and Day." Virginia Woolf Bulletin. 11 (September 2002): 32-39.
"Oscar Wilde's Music: A Critical Response to Walter Pater." The Pater Newsletter. 59/60 (Spring/Fall 2011): 4-16.
"Reconfigured Terrain: Aural Architecture in Woolf's Novels" at Woolf and the City: Nineteenth Annual Conference on Virginia Woolf. New York City, New York. June 2009.
"'As Springy as a Racehorse': Ethel Smyth's Female Pipings in Eden as Rejoinder to Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own" publication of conference proceedings at the International Symposium on Ethel Smyth, University of Paderborn and the Academy of Music Detmold, Germany 6–9 November 2008.
"Aural Understanding: Pater's "wandering waves of sound" at the International Walter Pater Society Conference. Rutgers University, New Jersey. July 2006.
"'Booked Passage': Spatial Agency in James Joyce's 'Eveline'" at Narrative: An International Conference. Ottawa. April 2006.
"Sonorous Performativity in Gertrude Stein and Virgil Thomson's The Mother of Us All" at the Performance Studies International Conference. Rhode Island. April 2005.
"Re-making the Grand Tour(ism): Virginia Woolf's Narrative of Place in Greece" panel presentation at the Modernist Studies Association Conference. Vancouver, B.C. October 2004.
'Reconfigured Terrain: Aural Architecture in Woolf's Novels.' Woolf and the City: Selected Papers from the Nineteenth Annual Conference on Virginia Woolf. Ed. Sarah Cornish and Elizabeth Evans. Oregon: Clemson UP, 2010.
"'As Springy as a Racehorse': Ethel Smyth's Female Pipings in Eden as Rejoinder to Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own." Rock Blaster, Bridge Builder, Road Paver: The Composer Ethel Smyth. Eds. Cornelia Bartsch, Rebecca Grotjahn and Melanie Unseld. Munich: Allitera Verlag, 2010. 55-69.
Elicia Clements is an Associate Professor in the Departments of Humanities and English. She has published several works on the interdisciplinary connections between the art forms of literature and music. A co-edited collection of essays with Lesley J. Higgins entitled Victorian Aesthetic Conditions: Pater Across the Arts was published in 2010 by Palgrave Macmillan, UK. Most recently, with the assistance of a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Standard Research Grant, she has published a book called Virginia Woolf: Music, Sound, Language (University of Toronto Press, 2019). Currently, she is working on a project entitled Modernist Literary Opera with the aid of a SSHRC Insight Grant.
Elicia Clements has published several works on the interdisciplinary connections between the art forms of literature and music. In addition to establishing links between Ludwig van Beethoven’s late compositions and Virginia Woolf’s narrative method in The Waves, she has published on the performative interchange between the words and the music of Gertrude Stein and Virgil Thomson’s opera, The Mother of Us All. She has also co-edited a collection of essays with Lesley J. Higgins titled Victorian Aesthetic Conditions: Pater Across the Arts, which was published in 2010 by Palgrave Macmillan, UK. Most recently, with the assistance of a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Standard Research Grant, she has published a book called Virginia Woolf: Music, Sound, Language (University of Toronto Press, 2019). Additionally, an article, "How to Remediate; or, Gertrude Stein and Virgil Thomson’s Four Saints in Three Acts," came out in the Spring 2019 issue of Modern Drama. Currently, she is working on a project entitled Modernist Literary Opera with the aid of a SSHRC Insight Grant.
Degrees
PhD in English Literature, York UniversityMA in English Literature, York University
BA (Honours) in English Literature, University of Western Ontario
BMus (Honours) in Music Education, University of Western Ontario
Research Interests
Awards
- SSHRC Standard Research Grant - 2007
- SSHRC Insight Grant - 2012
Current Research Projects
-
Summary:
An examination of the literary and musical exchange of ideas and techniques found in the works of Gertrude Stein and Virgil Thomson, Langston Hughes and William Grant Still, and W.H. Auden and Igor Stravinsky.
Project Type: FundedRole: Principal Investigator
Funders:
SSHRC
All Publications
"The Efficacy of Performance: Musical Events in The Years." Virginia Woolf and Music. Ed. Adriana Varga. Bloomington & Indiana: Indiana University Press, June 2014. 180-203.
Introduction. With Lesley Higgins. Victorian Aesthetic Conditions: Pater Across the Arts. Eds. Elicia Clements and Lesley J. Higgins. Palgrave MacMillan, UK, 2010.
"Pater's Musical Imagination: The Aural Architecture of 'The School of Giorgione' and Marius the Epicurean." Victorian Aesthetic Conditions: Pater Across the Arts. Palgrave MacMillan, UK, 2010. 152-66.
Rev. of Virginia Woolf and Classical Music: Politics, Aesthetics, Form, by Emma Sutton, Edinburgh University Press, 2013. Woolf Studies Annual. 20 (2014): 176-179.
Rev. of Words and Notes in the Long Nineteenth Century, eds. Edited by Phyllis Weliver and Katharine Ellis. Boydell Press, 2013. Nineteenth Century Prose. 42.2 (Fall 2015): 434-439.
Rev. of Brad Bucknell's Literary Modernism and Musical Aesthetics: Pater, Pound, Joyce, and Stein. The Pater Newsletter. 46 (Spring 2003): 5-9.
Rev. of Paula Gillett's Musical Women in England, 1870-1914: "Encroaching on All Man's Privileges." Victorian Review. 28.2 (2002): 96-99.
"How to Remediate; or, Gertrude Stein and Virgil Thomson’s Four Saints in Three Acts." Modern Drama. Vol. 62, No. 1, pp. 45-72.
''We Cannot Retrace Our Steps': Sonorous Performativity in Gertrude Stein and Virgil Thomson's The Mother of Us All.' Theatre Annual: A Journal of Performance Studies 59 (November 2006): 1-18.
"Transforming Musical Sounds into Words: Narrative Method in Virginia Woolf's The Waves." Narrative: The Journal of the Society for the Study of Narrative Literature 13.2 (May 2005): 160-81.
"Virginia Woolf, Ethel Smyth, and Music: Listening as a Productive Mode of Social Interaction." College Literature. 32.3 (July 2005): 51-71.
"A Different Hearing: Voicing Night and Day." Virginia Woolf Bulletin. 11 (September 2002): 32-39.
"Oscar Wilde's Music: A Critical Response to Walter Pater." The Pater Newsletter. 59/60 (Spring/Fall 2011): 4-16.
"Reconfigured Terrain: Aural Architecture in Woolf's Novels" at Woolf and the City: Nineteenth Annual Conference on Virginia Woolf. New York City, New York. June 2009.
"'As Springy as a Racehorse': Ethel Smyth's Female Pipings in Eden as Rejoinder to Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own" publication of conference proceedings at the International Symposium on Ethel Smyth, University of Paderborn and the Academy of Music Detmold, Germany 6–9 November 2008.
"Aural Understanding: Pater's "wandering waves of sound" at the International Walter Pater Society Conference. Rutgers University, New Jersey. July 2006.
"'Booked Passage': Spatial Agency in James Joyce's 'Eveline'" at Narrative: An International Conference. Ottawa. April 2006.
"Sonorous Performativity in Gertrude Stein and Virgil Thomson's The Mother of Us All" at the Performance Studies International Conference. Rhode Island. April 2005.
"Re-making the Grand Tour(ism): Virginia Woolf's Narrative of Place in Greece" panel presentation at the Modernist Studies Association Conference. Vancouver, B.C. October 2004.
'Reconfigured Terrain: Aural Architecture in Woolf's Novels.' Woolf and the City: Selected Papers from the Nineteenth Annual Conference on Virginia Woolf. Ed. Sarah Cornish and Elizabeth Evans. Oregon: Clemson UP, 2010.
"'As Springy as a Racehorse': Ethel Smyth's Female Pipings in Eden as Rejoinder to Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own." Rock Blaster, Bridge Builder, Road Paver: The Composer Ethel Smyth. Eds. Cornelia Bartsch, Rebecca Grotjahn and Melanie Unseld. Munich: Allitera Verlag, 2010. 55-69.