ENG 4938 - Fall 2025 -Stilling

What does it mean to call something “decadent?” In everyday speech, the term “decadent” has taken on a number of meanings, from excessive and luxurious to sexually deviant and morally degenerate. The word has been applied to everything from the Roman Empire to chocolate cake. But since the nineteenth century, the term has also been associated with the ends of great periods in history, the decline of nations and empires, a poetics that turns away from the world, and an obsession with art for art’s sake. In this course, we will examine the idea of “decadence” in art, literature, and popular culture. We’ll examine classic 1890s works of the Decadent Movement in literature by Oscar Wilde and Ernest Dowson as well as later revivals and revisions of decadence in the Harlem Renaissance, postcolonial literature and art, and contemporary film and television.