Fin-de-Siècle Modernisms

27th Annual Comparative Literature Conference 

February 28 - March 1, 2025
University of South Carolina 

 

The late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries saw dramatic literary and cultural shifts as writers and artists came to new understandings of themselves as self-consciously modern. But how, when, and where did these new understandings emerge? Conventional accounts of the period’s literary development in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries assert that a series of overlapping fin-de-siècle movements (Aestheticism, Naturalism, Decadence, Symbolism) were superseded by the radical new trends of avant-garde Expressionism and Modernism. Scholars challenging this periodization have begun to trace the continuities amongst these movements, rather than seeing Modernism as a moment of cultural rupture. In what ways might we recognize the persistence of fin-de-siècle sensibilities in post-war texts? In what ways might we glimpse elements of Modernism in work from the 1890s? In what ways might we see these cultural shifts taking place in global contexts? In other words, what new narratives might be possible about the emergence of Modernism or of cultural modernity?

We welcome proposals that address this general topic, with possibilities including but not limited to the following:

• Elements of Modernism in work from the 1880s and 1890s
• Literary inquiries into “the modern”
• Visual and sonic Modernisms of the fin de siècle
• The persistence of fin-de-siècle sensibilities in post-war works
• Modernist reflections on the fin de siècle
• Discourses of Modernism in global contexts
• Transnational Aestheticism, Naturalism, Decadence, Symbolism, or Expressionism (Moderne, Modernismo, Jugendstil, Secessionism, etc.)
• Fin-de-siècle or Modernist temporalities
• The emergence of the New Woman
• Gender, sexuality, race, and fin-de-siècle Modernisms
• The archives of fin-de-siècle Modernisms
• The complexities of periodization and canon formation

With keynote speakers Dr. Kristin Mahoney (Michigan State University) and Dr. Ana Parejo Vadillo (Birkbeck College), this conference will enable participants to share and collaborate as we take stock of current understandings of this dynamic cultural moment while defining new directions for its study.

Sponsored by the USC Department of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures &
USC Program in Comparative Literature

Deadline: 3 January 2025, with notification of acceptance by 10 January 2025. For individual papers, please send 250-word proposals; for panels, please send individual proposals plus a 250-word panel description to conference organizers Dr. Yvonne Ivory (ivory@mailbox.sc.edu) and Dr. Julie Wise (juliew@usca.edu).