BEGIN:VCALENDAR VERSION:2.0 PRODID:-//Talks.cam//talks.cam.ac.uk// X-WR-CALNAME:Talks.cam BEGIN:VEVENT SUMMARY:A Decadent Metaphysics: Fin-de-siècle Anxiety and the Cultural Co ntexts of Early Modernism - Jon Stone (Franklin &\; Marshall College) DTSTART:20170124T170000Z DTEND:20170124T183000Z UID:TALK69857@talks.cam.ac.uk CONTACT:21355 DESCRIPTION:The late nineteenth-century artistic movements of Symbolism an d Decadence originate from an impulse to revalue art’s place in society and redirect our encounter with literature. Yet they are not part of a sin gle continuum of early modernism. They function as binaries that indicate divergent paths and distinct reactions to the modern condition. While Symb olism escaped the anxiety of the turn of the century by embracing a spirit of idealism and otherworldliness\, Decadence sought to recast and reclaim the most pessimistic aspects of the era. Decadence is at once the represe ntation of the age’s deep-seated anxieties and a strategy for coping wit h the fears induced by the upcoming end of the era and ensuing prospect of social decline. This talk recasts the story of early modernist literature and culture by drawing out the tension of its simultaneous engagement wit h the otherworldliness of Symbolism and the corporeality of Decadence in w orks of the Russian and European _fin-de-siècle_. \n \n*About the Speake r*\nJon Stone is Associate Professor of Russian and Russian Studies and Ch air of Comparative Literary Studies at Franklin & Marshall College (USA). He studies early Russian modernism and the print and material culture of the _fin de siècle_. He is the author of _The Historical Dictionary of Ru ssian Literature_ and has published articles on Russian Symbolism\, Decade nce\, the history of the book\, and Mikhail Bakhtin. His book _The Instit utions of Russian Modernism: Conceptualizing\, Publishing\, and Reading Sy mbolism_ is forthcoming from Northwestern University Press.\n LOCATION:Latimer room\, Clare College\, Cambridge END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR