University Centre for Victorian and Edwardian Studies (CUSVE)

INTERNATIONAL RESEARCH GROUPS
  • CUSVE-DRC Research Group on “Neo-Victorian Decadence”
  • CUSVE-Institute of Anglo-Italian Studies Research Group on “Anglo-Italian Decadence”
“NEO-VICTORIAN DECADENCE” (CUSVE-DRC)

Neo-Victorianism is an aesthetic category relating to nostalgia for the Victorian period, while Decadence is a multidisciplinary critical concept that is relative to contemporary ideas about decline and decay. Decadent texts often obsess over phantasmagorias of history, yet they transcend the historical moment. As such they particularly lend themselves to Neo-Victorian re-imaginings, perversely fetishizing iconographies of the past. Neo-Victorian texts reconfigure, recast, and sample nineteenth-century decadence as they themselves emerge as the product of decadent practice. In this connection, it is symptomatic of a new sensibility a persistent interartistic element whose impact and resonances can be detected in Neo-Victorian fiction. 

The research group is established (in accordance with point 3.1.5 of MoU signed on 31 March 2021) with the specific purpose to study the multicultural and multilingual aspects of decadence in its Neo-Victorian afterlives. At the same time, it seeks to interrogate periodization by extending the temporal boundaries of Neo-Victorianism backwards and considering what qualifies as a Neo-Victorian text. The 1890s was a self-conscious period, one that was instantly mythologized and culturally consumed, even by its Edwardian successors. By studying the Interwar period to the present day across geographical boundaries, especially Britain and Italy, the research will offer fresh insights into the nature of Neo-Victorian decadence and explore its rich transcultural and cosmopolitan dimensions.

 

Directors

  • Jane Desmarais (Goldsmiths, University of London) 
  • Anna Enrichetta Soccio (Università degli Studi “G. d’Annunzio” Chieti-Pescara)

Investigators

  • Kostas Boyiopoulos (Goldsmiths, University of London)
  • Alice Condé (Goldsmiths, University of London)
  • Joseph Thorne (Goldsmiths, University of London)
  • Enrico Reggiani (Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Milano)
  • Richard Ambrosini (Università degli Studi Roma Tre)
  • Gloria Lauri Lucente (University of Malta)
  • Francesca Orestano (Università degli Studi di Milano)
  • Tania Zulli (Università degli Studi “G. d’Annunzio” Chieti-Pescara)
  • Stefano-Maria Evangelista (University of Oxford)
  • Elisa Bizzotto (Università IUAV di Venezia)
  • Marco Canani (Università degli Studi “G. d’Annunzio” Chieti-Pescara)
  • Renzo D’Agnillo (Università degli Studi “G. d’Annunzio” Chieti-Pescara)
  • Francesca D’Alfonso (Università degli Studi del Molise)
  • Maria Luigia Di Nisio (Università degli Studi “G. d’Annunzio” Chieti-Pescara)
  • Francesca Caraceni (Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Milano)
  • Anja Meyer (Università degli Studi di Verona)

 

“ANGLO-ITALIAN DECADENCE” (CUSVE-Institute of Anglo-Italian Studies)

Crossing cultural and language boundaries, Decadence is grounded in a web of encounters that defy conventional critical categories. Between the fin de siècle and the early twentieth century, artists, critics, and intellectuals exchanged ideas and poetics across nations. Decadence is therefore an inherently cosmopolitan phenomenon, and concepts like reception, circulation, and network seem crucial to investigate its cross-cultural impulses and hyphenated dialogues. While the Anglo-French context has been widely explored, Anglo-Italian networks during Decadence require further examination from a literary, cultural, and linguistic perspective.

This research project is established in accordance with Art. 3.1.5. of the MoU signed on 4 May 2022 and intends to investigate Decadence as a wide-ranging aesthetic and intellectual phenomenon with a focus on the intersections, negotiations, and osmotic relations between Britain and Italy. The research is especially concerned with the circulation of ideas, texts, and other cultural productions, and with the role of language in responding to and representing the contemporary epistemic changes. Undermining the Victorian ideals of civilization and progress, Decadence witnessed a proliferation of new, hybrid poetics; at the same time, shifting paradigms fostered new fields of scientific or pseudo-scientific enquiry that prompted the development of new rhetorical and discursive strategies. By focusing on transnational dialogues and endorsing a multidisciplinary approach, the research aims to redefine Decadence as a porous critical category in its multiple legacies and entanglements from an Anglo-Italian perspective.

 

Directors

  • Marco Canani (Università degli Studi “G. d’Annunzio” Chieti-Pescara)
  • Gloria Lauri Lucente (University of Malta)

Investigators

  • Raffaella Antinucci (Università degli Studi di Napoli “Parthenope”)
  • Elisa Bizzotto (Università IUAV di Venezia)
  • Glen Bonnici (University of Malta)
  • Ivan Callus (University of Malta)
  • Francesca Caraceni (Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Milano)
  • Alberto Carli (Università degli Studi del Molise)
  • Alice Condè (Goldsmiths, University of London)
  • Renzo D’Agnillo (Università degli Studi “G. d’Annunzio” Chieti-Pescara)
  • Francesca D’Alfonso (Università degli Studi del Molise)
  • Jane Desmarais (Goldsmiths, University of London)
  • Maria Luigia Di Nisio (Università degli Studi “G. d’Annunzio” Chieti-Pescara)
  • Stefano Maria Evangelista (University of Oxford)
  • Giuseppe Gazzola (Stony Brook University)
  • Simon Grimble (Durham University)
  • Isobel Hurst (Goldsmiths, University of London)
  • Anja Meyer (Università degli Studi di Verona)
  • Francesca Orestano (Università degli Studi di Milano)
  • Enrico Reggiani (Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Milano)
  • Kim Salmons (St. Mary’s University, Twickenham)
  • Elisa Segnini (University of Glasgow)
  • Anna Enrichetta Soccio (Università degli Studi “G. d’Annunzio” Chieti-Pescara)
  • Tania Zulli (Università degli Studi “G. d’Annunzio” Chieti-Pescara)