The Arts Society, Newnham College

The Arts Society's early life is not well documented, but is remembered for hosting Virginia Woolf's talk 'Women and Fiction' in 1928. Indeed, E. E. Phare, the then-president of The Arts Society, wrote a review of the event in the college paper, Thersites. Both the paper and the society faded into obscurity over the course of the twentieth century. But Viriginia Woolf's talk would become the celebrated text, A Room of One's Own, and E. E. Phare would later be known as Elsie Duncan-Jones, the formidable literary critic and scholar.

In 2008, Pam Hirsch, the graduate tutor at Newnham College, invited students to establish the society once again. Alongside a lively speaker series organised by Rose Hepworth, Holly Corfield-Carr suggested the society organise a journal, in the spirit of both Thersites and A Room of One's Own. Women and the Arts, and now Bodies of Work, as an online and print project between students and writers across different institutions, hopes to reach back to the rich literary heritage of Newnham College and Cambridge University, while exploring the fascinating products of its legacy, embracing a broader vision of 'the arts', practice and scholarship.

Please visit the Art Society's blog: artssoc.wordpress.com