Fellow and Tutor in English; Fellow Librarian

Stefano Evangelista

  • Professor in the Faculty of English.

  • I specialise in English and comparative literature, with a special focus on the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

  • I have recently published a monograph on literary cosmopolitanism.

  • I am running an academic network on World Symbolism funded by the Wiener-Aspach Foundation. 

  • I am also a Fellow of the Centre for British Studies, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin.

Stefano Evangelista

Teaching

In Trinity, I teach first-year students in English for Prelims Paper 3 (Literature in English, 1830-1910) and Paper 4 (1910-Present), as well as parts of Introduction to English Language and Literature. For the Final Honours School, I teach Paper 5 (1760-1830), as well as a range of dissertation topics in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In the English Faculty I lecture mostly on the literature of the fin de siècle, aestheticism and decadence, including graduate (MSt) courses in these areas.

Research

I work mostly on the literature of the fin de siècle, and specialise in comparative literature, the reception of classical antiquity, the relationship between literature and visual culture, and the study of gender. I am particularly interested in how texts and ideas are transmitted across space and time, and in the dynamics of cultural exchange, cultural conflict, and translation.

My first monograph, British Aestheticism and Ancient Greece (2009), explored the influence of classical Greek culture on a number of authors, not all of whom had a classical education. After that, I have edited volumes on, among others, Oscar Wilde, the nineteenth-century poet Algernon Charles Swinburne, Walter Pater, literature and sculpture in the fin de siècle, the decadent poet, critic, and translator Arthur Symons, and English writers in Berlin. I am one of the general editors of the MHRA ‘Jewelled Tortoise’ series, which prints scholarly editions of aesthetic and decadent literature in affordable paperbacks.

My most recent book is entitled Literary Cosmopolitanism in the English Fin de Siècle: Citizens of Nowhere (2021). Here I explore cosmopolitanism or world citizenship as simultaneously an object of fascination and controversy in literature. I present English-language literature of the fin de siècle as a dynamic space of exchange and mediation, and argue that our own approach to literary studies should become less national in focus. 

I have received major fellowships from the AHRC and the British Academy, as well as networking grants and public engagement funding, also from the AHRC. I have held a number of visiting professorships in academic institutions abroad, including Paris-Sorbonne, Paris-Nanterre, and Bologna, as well as universities in Japan and Taiwan. In 2021, I curated an exhibition on British writers in Berlin in partnership with the Literaturhaus-Berlin, the Humboldt University and the Bodleian Library. I am currently part of the ERC-funded project 'Chromotope', on the cultural history of colour in the nineteenth century, led by Charlotte Ribeyrol (Paris-Sorbonne); and, together with Clèment Dessy (ULB) and Patrick McGuinness (Oxford), I am running a network on World Symbolism funded by the Weiner-Anspach Foundation.

You can find out more about my work at:

https://dandtnetwork.glasgow.ac.uk/

https://writing1900.org

http://www.mhra.org.uk/series/JT

Selected Publications

‘Japan: Decadence and Japonisme’, in The Oxford Handbook to Decadence (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2022), 264-82

Literary Cosmopolitanism in the English Fin de Siècle:  Citizens of Nowhere (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2021)

Happy in Berlin? English Writers in the City: The 1920s and Beyond / Englische Autor*innen der 1920er und 30er Jahre, co-edited with Gesa Stedman (Göttingen: Wallstein, 2021)

‘Translational Decadence: Versions of Flaubert, Pater, and Lafcadio Hearn’, Victorian Literature and Culture, 49:4 (2021)

‘Literary Cosmopolitanism in the Age of the League of Nations: Vernon Lee, Daniel Halévy and La Revue de Genève’, Journal of European Studies, 51:3-4 (2021)

Arthur Symons: Poet, Critic, Vagabond, co-edited with Elisa Bizzotto (Oxford: Legenda, 2018)

The Reception of Oscar Wilde in Europe (London and New York: Continuum, 2010)

British Aestheticism and Ancient Greece: Hellenism, Reception, Gods in Exile (Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009)

Subjects
Professor Evangelista
stefano-maria.evangelista@trinity.ox.ac.uk