BEGIN:VCALENDAR VERSION:2.0 PRODID:-//wp-events-plugin.com//7.4.3//EN TZID:America/Los_Angeles X-WR-TIMEZONE:America/Los_Angeles BEGIN:VEVENT UID:437@1718.ucla.edu DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20240607T091500 DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20240608T160000 DTSTAMP:20240604T164841Z URL:https://1718.ucla.edu/events/wilde-sexuality-and-state/ SUMMARY:Oscar Wilde\, Sexuality\, and the State DESCRIPTION:\nConference organized by Joseph Bristow\, University of Califo rnia\, Los Angeles\n\nThis conference will consider both the fin-de-siècl e contexts and the worldwide consequences of the three trials involving Os car Wilde that took place at the Central Criminal Court (Old Bailey) from 3 April 1895 to 25 May 1895. These trials\, which arguably constitute the most famous criminal proceedings relating to the state prohibition of male homosexuality\, resulted in a brutal two-year sentence for committing act s of gross indecency with other males\, for which Wilde suffered solitary confinement with hard labor. He was tried under the punitive eleventh sect ion of the Criminal Law Amendment Act 1885: a law that underwent partial d ecriminalization in England and Wales in 1967 (somewhat later in Scotland and Northern Ireland).\n\nThe organizer Joseph Bristow has recently publis hed Oscar Wilde on Trial: The Criminal Proceedings\, from Arrest to Impris onment (Yale University Press\, 2022). His book features a comprehensive r econstruction of the trials through a wide range of newspaper and other pr inted sources. This volume–which turns to British press accounts because the official shorthand court records have been missing from the National Archives since at least 1920–is sorely needed. The last comprehensive ac count appeared in 1962\, and it contains very uneven coverage of the ways in which the Crown prosecution used unreasonable methods to persuade the j ury that Wilde was guilty of an easy-to-corroborate crime. More to the poi nt\, the 1962 edition–on which scholars still rely–presents an outdate d view of male homosexual intimacy. Bristow’s volume situates the Wilde trials in relation to several other well-known cases involving homosexual scandal: the Dublin Castle affair\; the male brothel on Cleveland Street\; the trial of Edward de Cobain\; and the Gatty v. Farquharson dispute.\n\n Oscar Wilde\, Sexuality\, and the State takes the occasion of Wilde’s co urtroom ordeal as a starting-point for understanding not only the growing awareness of queer subcultures during the 1880s and 1890s but also the lon g shadow that Wilde’s trials cast upon the proscription of same-sex inti macy in many different parts of the world. The legacy of Wilde’s impriso nment can be felt in divergent areas of the colonial and post-colonial wor ld\, especially in Australia\, New Zealand\, Africa\, South Asia\, Hong Ko ng\, and Singapore. The fact that more than 50\,000 or so men were convict ed under the egregious terms of the 1885 law in Britain speaks to the incr easing ways in which male-male intimacy became prosecutable during a perio d of seventy-two years. The conference provides the opportunity to look at the impact that charges of gross indecency had in Britain\, particularly in relation to persistence of homosexual extortion\, changes in policing m ethods\, and the attempted criminalization of lesbian intimacy. The sympos ium provides a forum for legal and humanities scholars to exchange insight s into this significant current of modern sexual history.\n\nSpeakers\nCar oline Derry\, The Open University\nDustin Friedman\, American University\n Katie Hindmarch-Watson\, Johns Hopkins University\nYvonne Ivory\, Universi ty of South Carolina\nBenjamin Kahan\, Louisiana State University\nSean O' Toole\, Baruch College\, City University of New York\nRobert Spoo\, Prince ton University\nSimon Stern\, University of Toronto\nCharles Upchurch\, Fl orida State University\nChris Waters\, Williams College\n\n\n\nProgram Sch edule\nAll times listed in Pacific Daylight Time\nQ&\;A to follow each presentation\n\nFriday\, June 7\n\n8:45 a.m.\nCoffee and Registration\n\n9 :15 a.m.\nDirector’s Welcome\nBronwen Wilson\, University of California\ , Los Angeles\n\nIntroductory Remarks\nJoseph Bristow\, University of Cali fornia\, Los Angeles\n\nThe Wilde Trials and Nineteenth-Century Sexual Sca ndal\n\n9:30 a.m.\nCharles Upchurch\, Florida State University\n“Why the Early Nineteenth Century Matters to the Wilde Trials”\n\n10:15 a.m.\nCa roline Derry\, The Open University\n“Louise Mourey\, Gross Indecency\, a nd the (Non-)Criminalization of Sex between Women”\n\n11:00 a.m.\nCoffee Break\n\n11:15 a.m.\nYvonne Ivory\, University of South Carolina\n“A Ge rman Sexpert at the Old Bailey? Albert Moll\, Lawson Tait\, and the Trials of Oscar Wilde”\n\n12:00 p.m.\nLunch\nBooks and Manuscripts Exhibition in the North Book Room\n\n“Gross Indecency”: Then and Now\n\n1:30 p.m. \nSimon Stern\, University of Toronto\n“On Knowing It When You See It: F orensic Evidence and the Epistemologies of Gross Indecency”\n\n2:15 p.m. \nChris Waters\, Williams College\n“The Trials of Oscar Wilde and the Se xual Politics of 1950s Britain”\n\n3:00 p.m.\nCoffee Break\n\n3:15 p.m.\ nSean O'Toole\, Baruch College\, City University of New York\n“States of Exception: Gross Indecency and U.S. Sodomy Law after Dobbs”\n\n4:00 p.m .\nReception\n\nSaturday\, June 8\n\n8:45 a.m.\nCoffee and Registration\n\ nOscar Wilde\, Pornography\, and Privacy\n\n9:15 a.m.\nBenjamin Kahan\, Lo uisiana State University\n“Timelines of Sexuality: Oscar Wilde\, A. C. S winburne\, and the History of Pornography”\n\n10:00 a.m.\nRobert Spoo\, Princeton University\n“Infringing Dorian: Copyright\, Photography\, and Privacy in Oscar Wilde’s Novel”\n\n10:45 a.m.\nCoffee Break\n\nObsceni ty\, Empire\, and the Victorian State\n\n11:00 a.m.\nKatie Hindmarch-Watso n\, Johns Hopkins University\n“Obscenity\, Sedition\, and the Victorian Post Office: Archival Fragments of a Liberal Dilemma”\n\n11:45 a.m.\nDus tin Friedman\, American University\n“Myth\, Mimesis\, and the Imperial S tate in Wilde’s A House of Pomegranates”\n\n12:30 p.m.\nProgram Conclu des\n\n\n\nThe conference is free to attend with advance registration\, an d will be held in-person at the Clark Library and livestreamed on the Cent er's YouTube Channel. In-person registration will close on Monday\, June 3 at 5:00 p.m. Seating is limited at the Clark Library\; walk-in registrant s are welcome as space permits.\n\n\n\nImage: Figure 16. “The Arrest of Oscar Wilde: The Pet of London Society\, One of Our Most Successful Playwr iters and Poets\, Arrested on a Horrible Charge\,” Illustrated Police Bu dget\, 13 April 1895: 8. Look and Learn History Picture Archive. Image cou rtesy of Professor Joseph Bristow. CATEGORIES:Conferences LOCATION:UCLA William Andrews Clark Memorial Library & via Livestream\, 252 0 Cimarron Street\, Los Angeles\, CA\, 90018\, United States X-APPLE-STRUCTURED-LOCATION;VALUE=URI;X-ADDRESS=2520 Cimarron Street\, Los Angeles\, CA\, 90018\, United States;X-APPLE-RADIUS=100;X-TITLE=UCLA Willi am Andrews Clark Memorial Library & via Livestream:geo:0,0 END:VEVENT BEGIN:VTIMEZONE TZID:America/Los_Angeles X-LIC-LOCATION:America/Los_Angeles BEGIN:DAYLIGHT DTSTART:20240310T030000 TZOFFSETFROM:-0800 TZOFFSETTO:-0700 TZNAME:PDT END:DAYLIGHT END:VTIMEZONE END:VCALENDAR