Professor Jane Desmarais
Staff details
Jane Desmarais is Professor of English and Deputy Head of Department. Her research is primarily focused on nineteenth-century literature and visual culture, specifically literary and visual Decadence, and Anglo-French cultural relations at the fin de siècle. Her recent publications include Monsters Under Glass: A Cultural History of Hothouse Flowers from 1850 to the Present, published in 2018 by Reaktion Books, a collection of essays, Decadence and the Senses (co-edited with Alice Condé, 2016), and an edition of the Selected Early Poems of Arthur Symons (co-edited with Chris Baldick, 2016). Decadence and Literature, co-edited with David Weir, is published by Cambridge UP in 2019, and she is currently editing with David Weir the Oxford Handbook of Decadence (forthcoming 2021)
Jane also publishes in the fields of history and psychoanalysis. She has worked on the Collected Works of Jeremy Bentham (Oxford) and the journal Utilitas (Edinburgh UP). Her work in psychoanalysis focuses on two principal ideas: resistance and complementarity; and her most recent publication in this field is Presence of Mind in Neurophysiological Processes (with Lawrence Goldie).
Academic qualifications
- 1996, Ph.D., ‘The Beardsley Industry’, Birkbeck, University of London
- 1986, MA, Literature and the Visual Arts, 1840-1940, Reading University
- 1985, BA Hons. English, Reading University
Teaching
Jane is the Convenor of Decadence. She teaches on Literature of the Victorian Period, Introduction to Comparative Literature, Studies in Comparative Literature, Post-Victorian Literature, and Literary London. She also teaches an MA option, European Decadence: Literature and the Visual Arts.
Areas of supervision
Jane welcomes research proposals on any aspect of literary and visual Decadence. Current and recent PhD projects include:
- Writing Masochism and the Cruel Woman in English Decadence, 1860-1900
- Decadent Threshold Poetics: A Comparative Study of Threshold Space in Charles Baudelaire, Joris-Karl Huysmans, Ernest Dowson and Arthur Symons
- Laurence Binyon and the Influence of Paterian Aestheticism 1873-1915
- Truth and Beauty, and the Poetry of Mark Doty
- Seizure as Cipher: a Study of the Significance of Seizures in Fiction and Memoir
Professional activities
Jane is Director of the Decadence Research Unit (DRU) in ECL, and Editor-in-Chief of Volupté: Interdisciplinary Journal of Decadence Studies https://volupte.gold.ac.uk/. She is a core member of both the Decadence and Translation Network and the Aestheticism and Decadence Network, and she is organiser (with Alice Condé and Jessica Gossling) of a regular yearly series of international Decadence conferences, the most recent being Aesthetic Time, Decadent Archives in July 2019. She is a member of the IES London Nineteenth-Century Studies Seminar, co-convening in 2013 (with Isobel Hurst) a series on ‘Decadence: Ancient and Modern’, and is a peer reviewer for various journals, including 19 and Victorian Studies.
Featured work
- Monsters under Glass: A Cultural History of Hothouse Flowers from 1850 to the Present. Reaktion Books, 2018
- Arthur Symons: Selected Early Poems, eds. Jane Desmarais and Chris Baldick. MHRA, 2017
- Decadence and the Senses, eds. Jane Desmarais and Alice Condé. Legenda, 2017
- 'The Musical Aesthetics ("such as it is") of Arthur Symons (1865-1945)', in Arthur Symons: Writing Across the Arts and Culture, eds. Stefano Evangelista and Elisa Bizzotto. Legenda, 2017
- ‘Perfume Clouds: olfaction, memory and desire in Arthur Symons’s London Nights (1895)’. In Economies of Desire at the Victorian Fin de Siècle: Libidinal Lives, eds. Jane Ford, Kim Edwards Keates and Patricia Pulham. Routledge, 2016.
- 'Du Maurier and the Artist’s Model’. In Beyond Svengali: George du Maurier: Illustrator, Critic, Author, eds. Paul Goldman and Simon Cooke. Ashgate, 2015.
Research Interests
My research is primarily focused on nineteenth-century literature, visual culture, and music, specifically literary Decadence, and Anglo-French cultural relations at the fin de siècle. My recent publications include a collection of essays, Decadence and the Senses, (co-edited with Alice Condé, 2016) and an edition of the Selected Early Poems of Arthur Symons (co-edited with Chris Baldick, 2016). My book, Monsters Under Glass: A Cultural History of Hothouse Flowers from 1850 to the Present, was published in 2018 by Reaktion Books, and Decadence and Literature for the Cambridge Critical Concepts series (co-edited with David Weir) appears in 2019.
I also publish in the fields of history and psychoanalysis. I have worked as an editor on the Collected Works of Jeremy Bentham (Oxford), on the journal Utilitas (Edinburgh UP), and as a translator, most recently of manuscript material for Bentham, Law and Marriage (2011) by Mary Sokol. My work in psychoanalysis is both theoretical and clinical in orientation, focusing on two principal ideas: resistance and complementarity; and my most recent publication in this field is Presence of Mind in Neurophysiological Processes, co-written with Lawrence Goldie.
Publications
Book
Desmarais, Jane H.. 2018. Monsters Under Glass: A Cultural History of Hothouse Flowers from 1850 to the Present. London: Reaktion. ISBN 9781780239750
Desmarais, Jane H.. 2016. A Cultural History of Decadence. Cambridge: Polity Press. ISBN 978-0745626000
Goldie, Lawrence and Desmarais, Jane H.. 2013. Presence of Mind in Neurophysiological Processes. Karnac Books. ISBN 9781855758858
Goldie, Lawrence and Desmarais, Jane H.. 2005. Psychotherapy and the Treatment of Cancer Patients: Bearing Cancer in Mind. London: Routledge. ISBN 9781583918579
Desmarais, Jane H.. 1998. The Beardsley Industry: the Critical Reception in England and France from 1893 to 1914. Basingstoke: Ashgate. ISBN 781840142051
Edited Book
Desmarais, Jane H. and Weir, David, eds. 2019. Decadence and Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9781108550826
Desmarais, Jane H. and Condé, Alice, eds. 2017. Decadence and the Senses. Oxford: Legenda. ISBN 978-1-78188-481-2
Desmarais, Jane H. and Baldick, Chris, eds. 2017. Arthur Symons: Selected Early Poems, eds. Jane Desmarais and Chris Baldick. Cambridge: Modern Humanities Research Association. ISBN 978-1-781880-99-9
Baldick, Chris and Desmarais, Jane H., eds. 2017. Arthur Symons: Selected Early Poems. Cambridge: Modern Humanities Research Association. ISBN 9781781880999
Desmarais, Jane and Baldick, Chris, eds. 2011. Decadence: An annotated anthology. Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press. ISBN 978-0719075513
Desmarais, Jane H. and Butler, Marilyn, eds. 2007. An Essay on Irish Bulls. University College Dublin Press. ISBN 9781904558750
Desmarais, Jane H.; Postle, Martin and Vaughan, Martin, eds. 2006. Model and Supermodel: The Artist’s Model in British Art and Culture. Manchester University Press. ISBN 978-0-7190-6662-7
Williams, Gianna; Williams, Paul; Ravenscroft, Kent and Desmarais, Jane H., eds. 2003. The Generosity of Acceptance: Exploring Feeding Difficulties in Children. London: Karnac. ISBN 9781855759343
Williams, Gianna; Williams, Paul; Ravenscroft, Kent and Desmarais, Jane H., eds. 2003. The Generosity of Acceptance: Exploring Eating Disorders in Adolescents. London: Karnac. ISBN 9781855752610
Desmarais, Jane H., ed. 1999. Irish Bulls in The Novels and selected Works of Maria Edgeworth Volume 1. Pickering and Chatto. ISBN 978 1 85196 188 7
Edited Journal
Desmarais, Jane H., ed. 2018. Volupté: Interdisciplinary Journal of Decadence Studies, Volupté: Interdisciplinary Journal of Decadence Studies, 1(1).
Book Section
Desmarais, Jane H.. 2019. 'Symons, Beardsley, and the "Minims and Crotchets" of Art'. In: Stefano Evangelista and Elisa Bizzotto, eds. Arthur Symons: Poet, Critic, Vagabond. 44 Oxford: Legenda, pp. 30-41. ISBN 9781781884973
Desmarais, Jane H.. 2019. Decadence and the Critique of Modernity. In: Jane H. Desmarais and David Weir, eds. Decadence and Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9781108550826
Hurst, Isobel. 2019. Nineteenth-century Literary and Artistic Responses to Roman Decadence. In: Jane H. Desmarais and David Weir, eds. Decadence and Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 47-65. ISBN 9781108426244
Baldick, Chris. 2019. Modern Prophetic Poetry and the Collapse of Civilisations. In: Jane H. Desmarais and David Weir, eds. Decadence and Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9781108550826
Desmarais, Jane H.. 2019. “The quintessence of quintessence”: music and musicality in Ernest Dowson’s Verse’. In: Alice Condé and Jessica Gossling, eds. In Cynara's Shadow: Collected Essays on Ernest Dowson. Oxford: Peter Lang, pp. 245-272. ISBN 9781787076259
Desmarais, Jane H.. 2018. ‘Prig’s prattling’ at the Fin de Siècle: Haldane MacFall and the Decay of English Art’. In: Bénédicte Coste, ed. Politics and Aestheticism. UNSPECIFIED.
Gossling, Jessica. 2017. 'Things worldly and things spiritual': Joris-Karl Huysmans’s A rebours and the house at Fontenay. In: Alice Condé and Jane H. Desmarais, eds. Decadence and the Senses. Oxford: Legenda, pp. 66-82. ISBN 978-1-781884-81-2
Condé, Alice. 2017. Sensory Nullification in the Poetry of Ernest Dowson. In: Jane H. Desmarais and Alice Condé, eds. Decadence and the Senses. Cambridge: Legenda, pp. 200-218. ISBN 9781781884812
Desmarais, Jane H.. 2017. ”The quintessence of quintessence”: Ernest Dowson, music and beauty. In: , ed. UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED.
Desmarais, Jane H.. 2016. Without Memory or desire: the model's progress in du Maurier's Trilby. In: Paul Goldman and Simon Cooke, eds. George du Maurier: Illustrator, Critic, Author. Ashgate Publishing Limited; New edition. ISBN 978-1472431592
Desmarais, Jane H.. 2016. Du Maurier and the Artist’s Model’. In: Paul Goldman and Simon Cooke, eds. George du Maurier: Illustrator, Critic, Author: Beyond Svengali. Farnham: Ashgate. ISBN 9781472431592
Desmarais, Jane H.. 2016. Perfume Clouds: Olfaction, Memory, and Desire in Arthur Symons’s London Nights (1895). In: Jane Ford; Kim Edward Keates and Patricia Pulham, eds. Economies of Desire at the Victorian Fin de Siècle: Libidinal Lives. London: Routledge, pp. 62-79. ISBN 978-1-13-882634-2
Desmarais, Jane H.. 2006. 'Model on the Writers' Block'. In: Jane H. Desmarais; Martin Postle and Martin Vaughan, eds. Model and Supermodel: The Artist’s Model in British Art and Culture. Manchester: Manchester University Press. ISBN 978-0-7190-6662-7
Desmarais, Jane H.. 2006. The model on the writers' block: The model in fiction from Balzac to du Maurier. In: Jane H. Desmarais; M. Postle and W. Vaughan, eds. Model and Supermodel: The Artist's Model in British Art and Culture. Manchester University Press, pp. 47-60. ISBN 071906662X
Desmarais, Jane H.. 2006. ‘Motherless Child and the Refusal of Maternity’ (‘Enfant sans maman et le refus de la maternité’). In: Moira Inghilleri, ed. Swinging Her Breasts at History: Language, Body and Text in Caribbean Women’s Writing. Mango Publishing, pp. 210-223. ISBN 978-1902294216
Desmarais, Jane H.. 2006. The model on the writers' block: The model in fiction from Balzac to du Maurier. In: Jane H. Desmarais; Martin Postle and Martin Vaughan, eds. Model and supermodel: The artists' model in British art and culture. Manchester: Manchester University Press. ISBN 071906662X
Desmarais, Jane H.. 2005. The Model: Susannah Gregory in conversation with Jane Desmarais. In: Jane H. Desmarais; Martin Postle and William Vaughan, eds. Model and Supermodel: The Artist’s Model in British Art and Culture. Manchester: Manchester University Press, pp. 151-161. ISBN 978-0-7190-6662-7
Desmarais, Jane H.. 2004. Charles Baudelaire’. In: Christopher John Murray, ed. Encyclopedia of the Romantic Era 1760–1850 Vol 1. 1 London: Fitzroy Dearborn, pp. 59-61. ISBN 978-1579583613
Desmarais, Jane H.. 2004. Joseph Wright’. In: Christopher John Murray, ed. Encyclopedia of the Romantic Era 1760–1850 Vol 2. 2 London: Fitzroy Dearborn, pp. 1235-1236. ISBN 978-1579583613
Desmarais, Jane H.. 2004. Le Salon de 1846. In: Christopher John Murray, ed. Encyclopedia of the Romantic Era 1760–1850 Vol 2. 2 London: Fitzroy Dearborn, pp. 985-986. ISBN 978-1579583613
Desmarais, Jane H.. 2001. ‘Judge a Book by Its Cover’. In: Warwick Gould, ed. Yeats and the Nineties Yeats Annual No 14: A Special Number. 14 Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 365-371. ISBN 978-0-333-71640-3
Desmarais, Jane H.. 1998. Maria Edgeworth 1768-1849. In: Joanne Shattock, ed. The Cambridge Bibliography of English Literature Volume 4. 1800–1900. 4 Cambridge University Press, pp. 901-907. ISBN 9780521391009
Desmarais, Jane H.. 1997. Honoré de Balzac’. In: , ed. The Novel. University of London. ISBN 07187 14342
Article
Desmarais, Jane H.. 2018. Voluptuous Interventionism: An Introductory Note from the Editor-in-Chief. Volupté: interdisciplinary journal of decadence studies, 1(1), i-vi. ISSN 2515-0073
Desmarais, Jane H.. 2017. Kenneth Grahame: The Wind in the Willows. Literary Encyclopedia, ISSN 1747-678X
Desmarais, Jane H.. 2017. Kenneth Grahame. Literary Encyclopedia, ISSN 1747-678X
Desmarais, Jane H.. 2017. Two articles for the online Literary Encyclopedia on the following: Kenneth Grahame and Wind in the Willows. The Literary Encyclopaedia,
Desmarais, Jane H.. 2016. Shedding light on the ‘Pre-Raphaelite stunners’. The Conversation,
Desmarais, Jane H.. 2015. Review: Kostas Boyiopoulos. The Decadent Image: The Poetry of Wilde, Symons and Dowson. Review of English Studies, 67(279), pp. 393-394. ISSN 0034-6551
Desmarais, Jane H.. 2015. Matthew Potolsky: The Decadent Republic of Letters: Taste, Politics, and Cosmopolitan Community from Baudelaire to Beardsley. Philadelphia: U of Pennsylvania P, 2013. 232 pages. arcadia, 50(2), pp. 464-467. ISSN 0003-7982
Desmarais, Jane H.. 2015. Review: Matthew Potolsky, The Decadent Republic of Letters: Taste, Politics, and Cosmopolitan Community from Baudelaire to Beardsley, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013, pp. 232. ISBN 978-0-8122-4449-6. The Oscholars, ISSN 2045-0753
Desmarais, Jane H.. 2015. Ernest Christopher Dowson. Literary Encyclopaedia,
Desmarais, Jane H.. 2014. Lionel Johnson. The Literary Encyclopedia,
Desmarais, Jane H.. 2014. Lord Alfred Douglas. Literary Encyclopedia,
Desmarais, Jane H.. 2014. John Henry Gray. The Literary Encyclopedia,
Desmarais, Jane H.. 2014. Arthur William Symons. The Literary Encyclopedia,
Desmarais, Jane H.. 2005. Shrinking the Stereotype of Psychoanalysis. Psychotherapy Section Review, 38, pp. 27-36.
Desmarais, Jane H.. 2001. Preferring not to: The Paradox of Passive Resistance in Herman Melville's 'Bartleby'. Journal of the Short Story in English, 36, pp. 25-39. ISSN 0294-0442
Desmarais, Jane H.. 2001. Anorexic and Passive Resistance in Melville’s “Bartleby” (1853): A Literary Case Study’. Soundings: A Journal of Politics and Culture, 18, pp. 82-93. ISSN 1362-6620
Desmarais, Jane H.. 2001. The Paradox of Passive Resistance in Herman Melville's "Bartleby". Journal of the Short Story in English, 36, pp. 25-39.
Desmarais, Jane H.. 1997. The Musical Analogy in Beardsley Criticism 1898-1914. Journal of Pre-Raphaelite Studies, 6, pp. 64-90. ISSN 1060-149X
Desmarais, Jane H.. 1990. The Bentham Project. UCL News,
Conference or Workshop Item
Desmarais, Jane H.. 2015. 'The Musical Aesthetics (‘such as it is’) of Arthur Symons (1865-1945)'. In: Arthur Symons: Writing Across Arts and Cultures. IUAV, Venice, Italy.
Desmarais, Jane H.. 2011. 'Memory and desire in Arthur Symons’ London Nights (1895)'. In: Decadent Poetics. University of Exeter, United Kingdom.
Professional Activity
Desmarais, Jane H.. 2018. Editor-in-Chief of Volupté: interdisciplinary journal of decadence studies.
