Presented by the International Walter Pater Society

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.

ALL SESSIONS (EXCEPT FRIDAY KEYNOTE) WILL BE HELD IN HOLLIS E. CORNELL AUDITORIUM, 132 GOLDWIN SMITH HALL

Friday, Sept 5

Johnson Museum tour—10:00-11:00

Kroch Library Hands-On Exhibit—11:00-12:00 noon
https://events.cornell.edu/event/transpater-symposium-and-pop-up-exhibition-in-rmc

Session 1, Pater and Painting at Hollis E. Cornell Auditorium—1:30-3:00**

Moderator:  Ellis Hanson, Cornell University

Lesley Higgins, York University
“The Critic, the Patron, and the Painter: Cosmopolitan Transformations”

Rachel Kravetz, Bard Microcolleges in NYC
“From Pater to Woolf: The Myth of the Seasons”

Meghan Freeman, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University
“Trans-(Art)Historical Fictions: ‘Sebastian van Storck’ and the National Gallery, London”

Session 2, Transsubjectivity and Queer Pater—3:30-5:00

Moderator:  Caroline Levine, Cornell University

Konrad Zaręba, Institute of English Studies, University of Warsaw, Poland
“Transparent Life: Walter Pater’s Diaphanous Character and Queer Performativity”

Hao-Yu Hu, University of Edinburgh
“Transience, Transfixion, Transcendence: Death and the Queer Moment in Walter Pater’s Imaginary Portraits”

Maria Al-Raes, Cornell University
“Transverse Subjectivity: Pater’s Ghostly Child in the House”

Keynote at Johnson Museum—5:15-6:30, by Hilary Fraser, “Pater’s Crossings-out: Inscriptions of Transition in The Renaissance.” Welcome by Ellis Hanson.  Introduction by Lesley Higgins.

Exhibit and Reception in Johnson Museum—Aestheticism and America—6:30-7:30

Saturday, Sept 6

Session 3, Pater and Translation—9:00-10:30

Moderator:  James Eli Adams, Columbia University

S. Pearl Brilmyer, University of Pennsylvania
“Fixation and Submission in ‘Emerald Uthwart’”

Sofia Nestrovski, Universidade de São Paulo
“Translating Walter Pater’s The Renaissance into Brazilian Portuguese: Can a ‘purple prose’ ever be prosa roxa?”

Bénédicte Coste, Université de Bourgogne
“Walter Pater the Translator: Feuillet’s La Veuve”

Session 4, Transtemporal Pater—10:45-12:15

Moderator:  Barbara Black, Skidmore College

Adam Lee, Tyndale University in Toronto
“The Transformative Power of Myth: Pater’s Translation of Cupid and Psyche”

Gabriel Golding, Corpus Christi College, The University of Cambridge
“Walter Pater’s Transtemporal Prose Rhythms: Historical Flux, Textual Impermanence, and the Paterian Revisionary Impulse”

Michael Davis, Le Moyne College
“The Poetry of Michelangelo: The Male Body in Transition” 

Session 5, Pater in Transition—1:30-3:00

Moderator:  Elisha Cohn, Cornell University

James Eli Adams, Columbia University
“Intransitive Pater: In Pursuit of Expression”

Jonah Siegel, Rutgers University
“Transitive Pater”

Thomas Albrecht, Tulane University
“The Transvaluation of Style: Flaubert and Pater”

Session 6, Transnational Pater—3:15-4:45

Moderator:  Maria Al-Raes, Cornell University

Megan Becker, University of Nevada, Las Vegas
“What Is an Essay?: Lukács, Pater, and Plato”

Daichi Ishikawa, Keio University
“‘Transplanted into that green country’: The Reception of Walter Pater in Japan”

Elisa Bizzotto, Università luav di Venezia
“Transcultural Decadence and Aesthetic Transmigration: Pater’s Influence on Giovanni Pascoli”

The Billie Inman Lecture—5:15-6:30, by Laurel Brake, “The Masks and the Faces: TransSocial Pater”

Moderator:  Michael Davis, LeMoyne College

Sunday, Sept 7

Session 7, Transaesthetic, Pater and Other British Aesthetic Critics—9:00-10:30

Moderator:  Theodore Leane, Cornell University

Ana Raquel Rojas, The University of San Francisco
“The Transhistorical Child: Pater, Vernon Lee, and Aesthetic Formation”

Justin Rogers, Texas A&M University
“Walter Pater and Vernon Lee; Close Reading, Aestheticism, and Transhistory”

Kenneth Daley, Columbia College, Chicago
“Appreciations and Pater’s Revisionary Practice”

Session 8, Transfigured/Transfiguring Pater—10:45-12:15

Moderator:  Ana Raquel Rojas, The University of San Francisco

Theodore Leane, Cornell University
“Child Be Strange: From Walter Pater to Folk Horror”

Evan Leonhard, Rutgers University
“A Southern Renaissance: Regional Aestheticism and the Transatlantic Reception of Walter Pater”