Posts
COSMOPOLITANISM, AESTHETICISM,
AND DECADENCE, 1860-1920
Kent
Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities (KIASH)
University of Oxford
June 14-18, 2014
March 3, 2014
Plenary Speakers:
Dr Stefano Evangelista (Trinity College, Oxford)
Professor Jonathan Freedman (University of Michigan)
Dr Michèle Mendelssohn (Mansfield College, Oxford)
Professor Jonathan Freedman (University of Michigan)
Dr Michèle Mendelssohn (Mansfield College, Oxford)
Over the past twenty years, the term “cosmopolitanism” has
been the focus of intense critical reflection and debate across the humanities.
For some, it represents a potential remedy for oppressive and antagonistic
models of national identity and a means of addressing the ethical, economic,
and political dilemmas produced by globalisation. Others consider it a
peculiarly insidious form of imperialism, and argue that it advocates an
untenable ideal of a privileged, rootless observer, detached from — and
disposed to romanticise or commodify — very real injustices and inequalities.
Meanwhile, the “transatlantic” has emerged as a popular critical framework and
field of inquiry for historians and literary scholars. But the “transatlantic”
is also sometimes perceived as a problematic category insofar as it can serve
to reinforce the narrow focus on Anglo-American culture that the “cosmopolitan”
ideal aspires to overcome.
Aestheticism and decadence, which flourished as broad
artistic tendencies in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, speak
directly to the issues at stake in contemporary debates about “cosmopolitanism”
and “transatlanticism”. This is firstly because they evolved out of
transnational dialogues between artists, writers, and critics. But it is also
because aestheticism and decadence tended to celebrate an ideal of a
disaffiliated artist or connoisseur whose interests ranged freely across
history, language, and culture, and who maintained an ironic distance from the
conventional determinants of identity. Over the last two decades, nineteenth-
and early twentieth-century aestheticism and decadence have become established
and extremely lively areas of research in the fields of literary studies,
cultural studies, and art history. Our conference aims to bring together
established as well as emerging scholars in these fields, and to explore how
the attractions and problems of “cosmopolitanism” illuminate, and can be
illuminated by, current scholarly debates about aestheticism and decadence.
Possible topics for papers include, but are not restricted to:
- Border crossing/flânerie/tourism/expatriatism
- Aestheticism/Decadence and the Ideals of World Citizenship/Literature
- Cosmopolitan Communities and Identities
- Cosmopolitan Forms and Formalisms
- The Poetics of Cross-Cultural Influence/Translation
- The Politics of Aestheticism, Decadence, and/or Cosmopolitanism
- Networks of Artistic and Scholarly Exchange
- Anti-cosmopolitanisms: Nationalism, Philistinism, and Xenophobia
- Visual Culture and the Consumption of Art
- Salons, coteries, and clubs
- Print culture and the circulation of texts beyond national borders
- Exile, Hospitality, Assimilation, and Strangers
- Consumerism and Mass Culture
- Elitism, Democracy, and Culture/Kultur
- Transatlantic Fashion and the Circulation of Commodities
- The ethics of Aestheticism, Decadence and/or Cosmopolitanism
- World Religions, Alternative Spiritualities, and Cosmopolitan Secularisms
- Regional Writing/Forms of Localism/Homelands
- Cosmopolitan Detachment/Aesthetic Disinterest
- Decadent/Aesthetic Cities
- The aesthetics of particularity/universality
- The pathologisation of Decadence/Cosmopolitanism
- Transatlantic Celebrity/The Cult of the Artist
We will provide four fee-waiving places at the conference:
two are reserved for graduate students who wish to attend and serve as
conference reporters, and two are reserved for early career researchers (i.e.,
graduate students or scholars who have recently completed a PhD but do not
currently have a supportive institutional affiliation) who wish to deliver a
paper and would otherwise struggle to attend. If you would like one of these
fee-waiving places, please write to us and briefly explain (in less than 500
words) how the conference relates to your research.
Please send proposals (of 500 words or fewer) as pdf or
Word attachments to cosmopolitanism.conference@gmail.com by March
3. For more information visit:
Organisers: Dr. Emily Coit (Worcester College, Oxford), Dr.
Sara Lyons (University of Kent) and Dr. Michael Collins (University of Kent)
