Decadence in Culture and Aesthetics

An Interview with Kate Hext and Alex Murray

Authors

  • Kate Hext University of Exeter
  • Alex Murray Queen’s University Belfast

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.18422/77-2551

Keywords:

fin de siècle, Walter Pater, Oscar Wilde, Charles Baudelaire, Christina Rossetti, pre-Raphaelites, The Cusp

Abstract

Kate Hext and Alex Murray are two of the leading figures in the study of literature and the arts in and around the fin de siècle, the period during which the aesthetic as a value in and of itself was most promoted. In this interview they discuss the concept of “decadence”, America’s relation to this formative period, and reflect on cultural diagnostics.

Author Biographies

Kate Hext, University of Exeter

Kate Hext is associate professor of decadent literature and the arts at the University of Exeter. Her most recent monograph is Wilde in the Dream Factory: Decadence and the American Movies (Oxford University Press, 2024). She is co-founder and co-editor of Cusp: Late-19thC/ Early 20thC Cultures.

Alex Murray, Queen’s University Belfast

Alex Murray is Professor of Modern Literature at Queen’s University Belfast and founding co-editor of Cusp: Late 19th-/Early 20th-Century Cultures (Johns Hopkins University Press). His most recent books include Decadent Conservatism: Aesthetics, Politics, and the Past (Oxford University Press, 2023) and with Kate Hext, The Oxford Handbook of Oscar Wilde (Oxford University Press, 2025). He is currently editing Conservatism and Literary Studies for Cambridge University Press and working on his fifth monograph, ‘Creativity and Critique: English Literary History at the fin de siècle’, which is funded by a Leverhulme Research Fellowship.

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Published

2025-10-15

How to Cite

Hext, K., and A. Murray. “Decadence in Culture and Aesthetics: An Interview With Kate Hext and Alex Murray”. New American Studies Journal: A Forum, vol. 77, Oct. 2025, https://doi.org/10.18422/77-2551.

Issue

Vol. 77 (2025): Aesthetics

Section

Articles

License

Copyright (c) 2025 New American Studies Journal: A Forum

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.