Decadence Conference/Victor Erofeyev at Columbia University

[Kirsten Lodge]

A Leap from the Temple of Culture into the Abyss:
Decadence in Central and Eastern Europe
March 15-17

Free and Open to the Public
For more information, please contact Kirsten Lodge at
klb57 at columbia.edu or Jonathan Stone at jcstone at berkeley.edu.
RSVP appreciated but not required.

Thursday, March 15
6 p.m.
Victor Erofeyev, “Russian Decadence Is My Literary Motherland”
Julius Held Auditorium, Barnard Hall, Barnard College

Reception

Friday, March 16
Philosophy 301, Columbia University

9-10 a.m.   Breakfast

10-11:30 a.m.
Precursors of Decadence
Chair/Discussant: Jonathan Stone, University of California, Berkeley
∑ David Goldfarb, Barnard College, “Sacher-Masoch: Between the
Romantic and the Decadent Sublime”
∑ Elizabeth Valkenier, Columbia University, “Russian Realist
Painters on Decadence: The Xenophobic Factor”
∑ Michael Wachtel, Princeton University, “Vladimir Solovyov on
Symbolism and Decadence”

11:45 a.m.-1:15 p.m.
Decadent Music and Drama
Chair/Discussant: Christopher Harwood, Columbia University
∑ Steve Downes, University of Surrey, “On Polish Musical
Decadence”
∑ Anastassiya Andrianova, CUNY Graduate Center, “The Dionysian
Lyre in Lesya Ukrainka’s Orgiya”
∑ Julia Przybos, Hunter College, CUNY, “Leopold Staff's
Igrzysko (Game) in the European Context.”

Lunch Break

2:15-4:15 p.m.
History and Modernity
Chair/Discussant: Bernice Rosenthal, Fordham University
∑ Kevin M. F. Platt, University of Pennsylvania, “Russian
History and Decadent Temporality”
∑ John McCole, University of Oregon, “Georg Simmel and the
Central European Culture of Decadence”
∑ Michael du Plessis, University of Southern California,
“Decadent Commodities and Narrative Objects in Gustav Meyrink’s
‘Strange Tales’ (Sonderbare Geschichte)”
∑ Evgenii Bershtein, Reed College, “Why is Larion Shtrup an
Englishman?  Mikhail Kuzmin’s Wings and European Decadence”

4:30-6 p.m.
The Visual and Performing Arts
Chair/Discussant: Catharine T. Nepomnyashchy, The Harriman Institute
and Barnard College
∑ J. Trygve Has-Ellison, University of Texas at Dallas,
“Janus-faced Decadents: Nobles and the Fine Arts in Fin-de-Siècle
Germany”
∑ Otto M. Urban, The School of the Art Institute of Chicago,
“In Morbid Colors (Part II): The Idea of Decadence and Art in the
Bohemian Lands, 1880-1914”
∑ Lynn Garafola, Barnard College, “Decadence and the
Iconography of the Male Body in Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes”

Saturday, March 17
Philosophy 301, Columbia University

9-10 a.m.   Breakfast

10-11:30 a.m.
The 1890s
Chair/Discussant: Kirsten Lodge, The Harriman Institute, Columbia
University
∑ John Malmstad, Harvard University, “Breviary of Decadence:
The Early Verse of Valery Briusov”
∑ Don La Coss, University of Wisconsin - La Crosse,
"Przybyszewski’s Psychic Naturalism, Berlin/Kraków 1894-1901"
∑ Neil Stewart, University of Bonn, “The Czech Journal Moderní
revue and the Aesthetics of Decadence: The Uses and Usefulness of a
Controversial Concept”

11:45 a.m.-1:15 p.m.
The Legacy of Decadence
Chair/Discussant: Carol Ueland, Drew University
∑ George Gasyna, University of Illinois, “When Decadence Met
the Avant-Garde: Witkacy, the Dwudziestolicie, and the Atrocity
Museum”
∑ Irene Masing-Delic, The Ohio State University, “Soviet
Sophiology: Pil’niak’s ‘Trotskyite’ Struggle with Decadence”
∑ Polina Barskova, Hampshire College, “Against the Grain of
Leningrad: Writing Decadent Petersburg of the 1930s”

This conference is sponsored by:
The Harriman Institute of Columbia University
The Department of Slavic Languages of Columbia University
The Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures
of the University of California, Berkeley
and The Institute of Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies
at the University of California, Berkeley

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