A bold reimagining of the literary history of Decadence through a close examination of the transnational contexts of Oscar Wilde's classic novel The Picture of Dorian Gray. Building upon a large body of archival and critical work on Oscar Wilde's only novel, Dorian Unbound offers a new account of the importance of transnational contexts in the forging of Wilde's imagination and the wider genealogy of literary Decadence. Sean O'Toole argues that the attention critics have rightly paid to Wilde's backgrounds in Victorian Aestheticism and French Decadence has had the unintended effect of obscuring a much broader network of transnational contexts. Attention to these contexts allows us to reconsider how we read The Picture of Dorian Gray, what we believe we know about Wilde, and how we understand literary Decadence as both a persistent, highly mobile cultural mode and a precursor to global modernism. In developing a transnational framework for reading Dorian Gray, O'Toole recovers a subterranean network of nineteenth-century cultural movements. At the same time, he joins several active and vital conversations about what it might mean to expand the geographical reach of Victorian studies and to trace the globalization of literature over a longer period of time. Dorian Unbound includes chapters on the Irish Gothic, German historical romance, US magic-picture tradition, and experimental English epigrams, as well as a detailed history and a new close reading of the novel, in an effort to understand Wilde's contribution to a more dynamic idea of Decadence than has been previously known. From its rigorous account of the broad archive of texts that Wilde read and the array of cultural movements from which he drew inspiration in writing Dorian Gray to the novel's afterlives and global resonances, O'Toole paints a richer picture of the author and his famously allusive prose. This book makes a compelling case for a comparative reading of the novel in a global context. It will appeal to historians and admirers of Wilde's career as well as to scholars of nineteenth-century literature, queer and narrative theory, Irish studies, and art history.

A bold reimagining of the literary history of Decadence through a close examination of the transnational contexts of Oscar Wilde's classic novel The Picture of Dorian Gray. Building upon a large body of archival and critical work on Oscar Wilde's only novel, Dorian Unbound offers a new account of the importance of transnational contexts in the forging of Wilde's imagination and the wider genealogy of literary Decadence. Sean O'Toole argues that the attention critics have rightly paid to Wilde's backgrounds in Victorian Aestheticism and French Decadence has had the unintended effect of obscuring a much broader network of transnational contexts. Attention to these contexts allows us to reconsider how we read The Picture of Dorian Gray, what we believe we know about Wilde, and how we understand literary Decadence as both a persistent, highly mobile cultural mode and a precursor to global modernism. In developing a transnational framework for reading Dorian Gray, O'Toole recovers a subterranean network of nineteenth-century cultural movements. At the same time, he joins several active and vital conversations about what it might mean to expand the geographical reach of Victorian studies and to trace the globalization of literature over a longer period of time. Dorian Unbound includes chapters on the Irish Gothic, German historical romance, US magic-picture tradition, and experimental English epigrams, as well as a detailed history and a new close reading of the novel, in an effort to understand Wilde's contribution to a more dynamic idea of Decadence than has been previously known. From its rigorous account of the broad archive of texts that Wilde read and the array of cultural movements from which he drew inspiration in writing Dorian Gray to the novel's afterlives and global resonances, O'Toole paints a richer picture of the author and his famously allusive prose. This book makes a compelling case for a comparative reading of the novel in a global context. It will appeal to historians and admirers of Wilde's career as well as to scholars of nineteenth-century literature, queer and narrative theory, Irish studies, and art history.

The vivid and powerful expressionist paintings of Irma Stern were a key factor in the modernization of early 20th-century South African art. Although she was widely recognized during her lifetime, Stern's posthumous fame has dwindled outside her home country, and this beautifully produced monograph serves to correct that injustice. A master of color and composition, Stern is best known for her portraits and still lifes that reflected her passion for travel and devotion to home. Drawing from letters, journals, the artist's own illustrated travelogues as well as the latest scholarship, this volume traces Stern's childhood in South Africa and her family's flight to Germany in the wake of the South African War (1899-1902). Readers will learn of her artistic development at the center of Weimar, Germany's expressionist avant-garde, her return to her homeland and the derisive reaction to her early work, and finally her productive travels throughout the African continent and the acclaim she achieved. The book also focuses on the political and cultural forces that shaped Stern's work, including the unification of South Africa, the rise of expressionism in Germany, the interplay between indigenous and colonial art in the African continent, and Stern's continued influence on contemporary South African artists.

The Marquis of Mooikloof is a collection of short stories that rings true with consistency and subtlety. Describing the experiences of mixed new South Africa, they flit across moments or episodes of suburban angst and ennui - but in a manner completely without histrionics or wasted sentiment. The stories are mostly short - some appear as mere fragments, others more as narratives. In the title story a deposed Robert Mugabe and his wife move to Mooikloof and their recently divorced businessman neighbour plans an elaborate, but, as it turns out, ill-conceived meat braai to welcome them to the neighbourhood. In 'The magic of numbers' an elderly widow endlessly travels around townships and settlements, protected by her gardener, buying lotto tickets in the belief that the SA lotto is rigged to favour black people. The effectiveness of this collection lies in its attention to detail; its observation of the intimacies, the particularities, the painful truths, and the unsaid, of local life and existence.

uber(W)unden: Art in Troubled Times is a wide-ranging and illustrationrich investigation into how writers, visual artists, theatre practitioners, musicians, filmmakers, choreographers and photographers from various sub-Saharan countries, including Ivory Coast, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya, Rwanda, South Africa, Sudan and Zimbabwe, as well as their counterparts in Germany, have creatively engaged with social traumas. How does social trauma impact on the making of works by artists? What role do artists play during times of crisis and social change? What aesthetic vocabularies do artists develop to engage with social traumas? And, in societies recovering from war, mass killings, xenophobia or racism, can the arts play a healing role? This volume presents a range of responses that intellectually and imaginatively engage these pressing issues. Although largely historical in nature, the line of enquiry in this book is particularly relevant to the turbulent times of the present. uber(W)unden: Art in Troubled Times immerses the reader in an urgent dialogue around culture and conflict.