Foss Presents Conference Paper on Wilde

Professor Chris Foss recently presented a paper at the “‘Hideous Progeny’: The Gothic in the Nineteenth Century” conference hosted by the Loyola University-Chicago Victorian Society on October 27, 2018. The talk, entitled “Gothic Mutations of Pity in Oscar Wilde’s ‘The Star-Child,’” aimed at a critical reconsideration of pity through a reading of Wilde’s fairy tale, exploring the ways it replicates stereotypically pejorative assumptions about disability but also contains empowering possibilities as well. Through the gothic mutation of its disability-aligned titular protagonist (initially the embodiment of physical perfection, but eventually transformed into a scaly toad-faced freak), this text requires one to grapple with the extent to which its employment of pity reinforces a hierarchical division between the fortunate and the unfortunate and/or encourages a more progressive conception founded upon love, reciprocity, and action. The paper is part of the larger book manuscript project (“The Importance of Being Different: Intersectional Disability and Emotional Response in Oscar Wilde’s Fairy Tales”) that is the focus of Foss’s 2018-2020 Waple Professorship award.