Unfortunately the Fin du Globe conference has been indefinitely postponed due to the Covid-19 crisis.
further information about the future of the project will be circulated in due course.
The Department of English, Cornell University
10-13 September 2020
Keynote: Elizabeth Carolyn Miller (UC Davis)
‘The Long Exhaustion: Extraction Ecologies and Fin-de-Siècle Speculative Fiction’
Keynote Seminars:
Elisha Cohn & Caroline Levine on Olive Schreiner, The Story of an African Farm; Elizabeth Carolyn Miller on William Morris, News from Nowhere; Marion Thain on Arthur Symons, London Nights, & Paul Bourget, “The Example of Baudelaire”; Douglas Mao on Gertrude Stein, Tender Buttons, & Donald Evans, Sonnets from the Patagonian; and Ellis Hanson on DBC Pierre, Lights Out in Wonderland, & Catulle Mendès, “What the Shadow Demands”
“I wish it were fin du globe,” said Dorian with a sigh. “Life is a great disappointment.”
“Ah, my dear,” cried Lady Narborough, putting on her gloves, “don't tell me that you
have exhausted life. When a man says that one knows that life has exhausted him.”
~ Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray
When Dorian Gray heaved a French sigh over not merely the fin de siècle, but also the end of the planet, could he truly imagine it or the way his own culture was already causing it? When Baudelaire describes his readers’ laying waste to the world with an opiated yawn, how do we take up now his invitation to recognize ourselves in this monstre délicat? What does it mean for us now to enjoy, teach, and even create Decadent literature, Decadent visual arts, criticism about Decadence, in an age when global warming and climate catastrophes have become our most urgent political crisis? What are the Decadent art forms and theories that speak to the current century and its numerous catastrophes? How does Decadence signify differently now, along with other related terms of the fin de siècle such as Aestheticism, Symbolism, Impressionism, and Modernism, as we contemplate our own fin du globe? How has Decadence figured globally in the political crises and aesthetic migrations of the past two centuries?
This is the third annual international conference of the British Association of Decadence Studies (BADS) and the Aestheticism and Decadence Network; it will consider the phenomenon of Decadence from its emergence as a social theory and an aesthetic movement in the 19th century to its current resurgence and refiguration in the art and criticism of our present moment and environment.
Please send all queries and reservations for the seminars (by 1 August) to Ellis Hanson at eh36@cornell.edu
We are offering discounted tickets for BADS members. To purchase membership (via PayPal), please click here to be taken to the shop.
Registration details to follow.
Contact Us
Please email Ellis Hanson at eh36@cornell.edu with any queries about Fin du Globe.
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Conference Committee
Ellis Hanson (Cornell University)
Elisha Cohn (Cornell University)
Jane Desmarais (Goldsmiths, University of London)
Kate Hext (University of Exeter)
Caroline Levine (Cornell University)
Kristin Mahoney (Michigan State University)
Alex Murray (Queen’s University, Belfast)