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Wilde on the Borders: Symposium, Theatre, and Art
April 2, 2016
On Feb. 8, 1882, after his seventh lecture in America in just over a week, Oscar Wilde traveled north from Buffalo, N.Y., crossing the border by train to Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada, to play the role of tourist. In typical Wilde fashion, his response to seeing the falls was paradoxical, proclaiming it “one of the earliest, if not the keenest, disappointments” of a bride’s married life, yet appreciating its aesthetic and spiritual power as “a sort of embodiment of pantheism.” Wilde’s visit to Niagara Falls is both microcosm and metaphor for all of what might be called Wilde’s ‘border crossings’ – national, classed, sexual, religious, and aesthetic.
“Wilde on the Borders” celebrates Wilde’s complexity through the forms he expressed: essays, theatre and art.
- Please join us at Niagara University, located just four miles north of Niagara Falls, N.Y., along the U.S./Canadian border, for a Wilde day of lively academic discussions hosted by the English department.
- Join us, too, for a performance of Lady Windermere’s Fan, the inaugural production by Niagara University’s acclaimed theatre department in the Leary Theatre.
- As well, the Castellani Art Museum (CAM) of Niagara University will feature two exhibitions in association with “Wilde on the Borders.” Wilde at the Falls: Touring the Falls with Oscar Wilde pairs notable quotations from Wilde with selections from CAM’s own Charles Rand Penney Historical Niagara Falls Print Collection. Also on view through May 29, 2016, will be selections from the CAM’s permanent collection of late 19th– and early 20th-century American and European landscapes.
Symposium topics will include discussions by Wilde scholars from across the country and include themes such as identity formation in a cultural context; Wilde as a personal and social muse; Salome and ‘the Other’ in religious ritual; social class and the gothic novel; morality and the Wilde trials; Wilde and contemporary literary studies; among others.
Registration Required ($60, http://niagara.edu/wilde-on-the-borders)
