Trans/Pater: International Walter Pater Conference

About This Event

Taking its cue from the current cultural and intellectual concern with the concept of “Trans,” this conference focuses on the theme of Trans/Pater, in order to explore how this idea might be operating within and “across” Pater and how it might be in play “beyond” or “on the other side” of Pater. Pater was deeply interested in historical, cultural, and intellectual transitions (including the epochal transition from the pagan to the Christian, from the Medieval to the Renaissance, and, indeed, from the Medieval to the Modern), and was himself a major figure in the transition from the Victorian to the Modernist period. Some of his most important ideas concerned the transitory nature of modern experience, the transition points among different modes of art (“transaesthetics”), as well as various kinds of transformation. As a prose stylist, he was concerned with ways to transmit knowledge, while the singularity of his style raises questions of translation—of both affective and linguistic conversion.

The full program is available on the conference website.

Featured Guests

• Hilary Fraser, Professor Emerita, Birkbeck College, University of London
• Laurel Brake, Professor Emerita, Birkbeck College, University of London