Oscar Wilde and the Culture of Childhood

—a conference organized by Joseph Bristow, University of California, Los Angeles

“I am rather afraid that I have annoyed him,” answered the Linnet. “The fact is, that I told him a story with a moral.”

“Ah! that is always a very dangerous thing to do,” said the Duck.

—Oscar Wilde, “The Devoted Friend” (1888)

Recent scholarship on Wilde’s fairy stories has brought to our attention their political links with Irish national politics, their continuation of the Wilde family’s established interests in collecting Irish folklore, their connections with folk-Catholicism in the West of Ireland (where the Wilde family had two vacation homes), and their participation in a socialist tradition of children’s writing, especially in relation to the Fabian Society (whose members included Evelyn Sharp and E. Nesbit, and whose writings A. S. Byatt explores in her prizewinning novel, The Children’s Book [2010]). This conference brings together emergent and established scholars whose research has had a palpable impact on the field. The program will enable audience members to comprehend, on the one hand, recent insights into the formal and political ambitions of Wilde’s 1888 and 1891 volumes, and, on the other hand, ideas about the author’s place within broader traditions of modern children’s writing that believe—as the Duck observes in ‘The Devoted Friend”—that it is “dangerous” to propagate morals.

Speakers:
Lorraine Janzen Kooistra, Ryerson University
Diana Maltz, Southern Oregon University
Perry Nodelman, University of Winnipeg
Lindsay Smith, University of Sussex
Margaret D. Stetz, University of Delaware
Jessica Straley, University of Utah
Maria Tatar, Harvard University
Virginia A. Walter, University of California, Los Angeles

Registration Deadline: May 26, 2015

Registration fees:
All students (with ID), Center & Clark Affiliated Faculty, UC faculty and staff: no charge
General public and other faculty: $20.

*Students should be prepared to provide their current University ID at the conference.

Complimentary lunch and other refreshments are provided to all registrants.

Please be aware that space is limited and that registration closes when capacity is reached. Confirmation will be sent via email.

Program

8:30 a.m.
Morning Coffee and Registration

9:00 a.m.
Barbara Fuchs, University of California, Los Angeles
Welcome

Joseph Bristow, University of California, Los Angeles
Opening Remarks

9:15 a.m.

Session 1: The Aesthetic Child

Lindsay Smith, University of Sussex
“The Image of the Child”

Diana Maltz, Southern Oregon University
“The Good Aesthetic Child”

10:45 a.m.
Coffee Break

11:00 a.m.

Session 2: Aestheticism and Children’s Literature

Lorraine Janzen Kooistra, Ryerson University
“Renovating the House Beautiful: Laurence Housman Builds The House of Joy for Fin-de-siècle Children”

Perry Nodelman, University of Winnipeg
“The Young Know Everything: Oscar Wilde’s Fairy Tales as Children’s Literature”

12:30 p.m.
Lunch

1:45 p.m.

Session 3: Oscar Wilde’s Fairy Tales

Jessica Straley, University of Utah
“Savvy Birds, Spoiled Fruits: Wilde’s Fairy Tales and the Decay of Nature”

Maria Tatar, Harvard University
“The Aesthetics of Altruism in Oscar Wilde’s Fairy Tales”

3:15 p.m.
Coffee Break

3:30 p.m.

Session 4: The Afterlives of Wilde and the Culture of Childhood

Virginia A. Walter, University of California, Los Angeles
“Visualizing The Selfish Giant for Twenty-First Century Children: Books, Movies, and Apps”

Margaret D. Stetz, University of Delaware
“Greater Than the Mystery of Death: Rewriting Oscar Wilde for Young Audiences”

5:00 p.m.
Reception