| Disgusting Civilisations: Decay, Degeneracy, and the Aesthetics of Revulsion 14-15 May 2026 Institute of English Studies Senate House, University of London |
| “Civilisation is a disease produced by the practice of cleanliness.” – Friedrich Nietzsche From the sickly perfume of overripe empires to the aesthetic pleasures of putrefaction, decadence has always flirted with disgust. This conference invites scholars to explore how civilisations rot – and how that rot becomes legible, legendarily so, through literature, art, and cultural production. Disgust, in the decadent imagination, is not merely a symptom of decline – it is a form of knowledge, a style, even a politics.This conference aims to bring together voices from literature, philosophy, visual culture, performance studies, and cultural history to consider the abject, the filthy, the grotesque, and the revolting – not only as signs of civilisational breakdown but as the very material from which decadent visions are born.What does it mean to call a civilisation ‘disgusting’? Is it a moral judgement? A sensory one? An aesthetic or ideological label? We invite papers that interrogate the forms and functions of disgust in decadent art, literature, and philosophy, as well as its broader role in narratives of decline, degeneracy, and collapse.Possible topics may include: The Aesthetics of Disgust: from Baudelaire to Bataille Corruption and the Corpse: death, putrefaction, and the erotic in decadent literature Revulsion and the Empire: colonial disgust, orientalist fantasies, exoticized decay Roman Decadence and its Reception: civilized barbarism, moral degeneration, excess Moral Filth: perversion, vice, and the politics of taste Sick Cities: urban squalor, pollution, and fin-de-siècle malaise Gender and the Grotesque: femininity, hysteria, and bodily excess Decadence and the Abject: Kristeva, psychoanalysis, and cultural production Entropic Aesthetics: entropy, ruin, and the decline of form Diseased Bodies, Diseased States: illness, degeneration theory, and eugenics Eco-Disgust: decadent nature, environmental rot, and the Anthropocene sublime Lurid Pleasures: excess, nausea, and aesthetic overindulgenceWe welcome proposals from scholars working in Decadence Studies, Classical Studies, Comparative Literature, Cultural History, Philosophy, Gender and Queer Studies, Art History, Psychoanalysis, Live Art and Performance Studies, and related fields. Creative-critical approaches and experimental formats are also encouraged. Submission Details Please send a 250-300 word abstract and a brief bio (max 100 words) to bads@gold.ac.uk by 31 January 2026. Notifications will be sent by 28 February 2026. |
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