Event: The Santa Fe Opera Presents "Oscar Wilde: Celebrity or Notoriety" (7/25-28/2013)

In preparation for the world premiere of Theodore Morrison’s production of Oscar: The Love that Dared (an opera based on the life and loves of Oscar Wilde) the Santa Fe Opera will be hosting a symposium on Wilde.

Merlin Holland, biographer, editor, and only grandchild of Wilde will give the keynote address on Thursday, July 25 to kick-off the symposium. The next few days will include a variety of events, including papers, staged readings, round table discussion, all leading up to the world premiere.

Registration is $85. For more information contact Chad.Thomas@uah.edu or call 505-946-2417.

For more on Morrison’s production see the Santa Fe Opera’s page on: http://www.santafeopera.org/tickets/production.aspx?performanceNumber=5682

CFP: The Importance of Being Wilde (3/31/2013; 6/12/2013)

The Importance of Being Wilde: 

Day Symposium on Oscar Wilde and Fin de Siècle Culture University of Limerick, Ireland. 12th June 2013

Plenary Speakers:
Professor Margaret D. Stetz (University of Delaware)
Professor Joseph Bristow (University of California Los Angeles)


Call for Papers:
On the 8th of January 1884 Mr Oscar Wilde appeared before a Limerick audience in the Theatre Royal  (Henry Street). His lecture ‘On the House Beautiful’ was not well attended; according to the Limerick Chronicle, the audience ‘was select and small and would have damped the ardour of many public speakers’. Nonetheless, Wilde appeared onstage again the following night to deliver a talk on ‘Personal Impressions of America’. Over a century later, this day symposium commemorates Wilde’s visit to Limerick, focusing primarily on Wilde as public intellectual and cultural critic.

A key figure at the fin de siècle, Wilde was a literary writer, radical thinker, and cultural icon all at once. His works, and his legacy, are associated with disruptions of norms of gendered behaviour, sexual identities, class alignments, and aesthetic issues. Today, the flourishing of a diverse and interdisciplinary body of scholarship is testament to his importance. The continued production of Wilde’s work, particularly his plays, attests to the sustained interest of a general audience in his ideas. Our symposium aims to contextualize Wilde’s work in relation to other scholars, literary writers, radical ideas, and avant garde movements of his day.

Papers may address, but are not limited to the following topics:

• Wilde and his contemporaries
• The Irish Wilde
• Wilde and the New Woman
• Wilde: public intellectual
• Wilde and aestheticism
• Wilde and socialism
• Wilde the European
• Wilde: our contemporary

Abstracts (300 words, for papers of twenty minutes), accompanied by a brief bio, should be sent to wilde@ul.ie by March 31st 2013.

Organisers: Dr Tina O'Toole, Dr Eoin Devereux, and Dr Kathryn Laing.

Lecture: Oscar Wilde in the Market Place (1/31/2013)

UCLA Center for 17th- & 18th- Century Studies presents:

The William Andrews Clark Lecture on Oscar Wilde:
Oscar Wilde in the Market Place

(a lecture at the William Andrews Clark Memorial Library)

—given by Dr. Rick Gekoski, Rare-book dealer and Writer

Thursday, January 31, 2013, 4:00 p.m.

From the very start of his career, Oscar Wilde wanted to be noticed. He was the leading literary celebrity of his day, honed his epigrams, and ensured that his books were issued in beautiful limited editions, which would be attractive to collectors. Following his death an enormous market in Wilde books, manuscripts, letters and memorabilia developed, and a number of unscrupulous forgers took advantage of the burgeoning market for Wilde items. In the 1920s and 1930s a number of major collections were formed, of which William A. Clark's holdings were the most significant. Oscar is still avidly sought after, and, as a rare book dealer, Dr. Gekoski has been able to help several collectors put together noteworthy collections.

Dr. Rick Gekoski is one of the world’s leading bookmen: a writer, rare-book dealer, broadcaster and teacher. He is the author of three books which trace his major enthusiasms, Staying Up: A Fan’s View of a Season in the Premiership, Tolkien's Gown and Other Stories of Great Authors and Rare Books and Outside of a Dog: A Bibliomemoir, as well as a critical study of Joseph Conrad and a bibliography of William Golding. An American who left for England in 1966, he was for some years a member of the English Department at the University of Warwick, and chair of their Faculty of Arts. He has established two private presses, The Sixth Chamber Press and The Bridgewater Press, which issue finely printed editions of leading writers, novelists and poets. As a broadcaster, he has written and delivered two series for BBC Radio 4: Rare Books, Rare People and Lost, Stolen, or Shredded: The History of Some Missing Works of Art.

This biennial lecture on Oscar Wilde is made possible by a generous endowment founded by Mr. William Zachs.

Please fill out a registration form on our website: http://www.c1718cs.ucla.edu/wilde12-r.htm