S.J. Stubbs Lecture in English Literature
‘A Touch of Soft Yearning’: Shipboard intimacies from Herman Melville to E. M. Forster
Join us for an informative and engaging lecture presented by University of Oxford Professor Santanu Das. Professor Das serves as Professor of Modern Literature and Culture at Oxford University and Senior Fellow at All Souls College, Oxford. His lecture will focus on three works from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries: Billy Budd by Herman Melville (1891 but published in 1924), Boy (1931) by James Hanley and finally a short story, ‘The Other Boat’ (1957-58, but published in 1972), by E.M. Forster. Two impulses will guide this talk: first, to investigate the relationship between the historical and the literary in re-imaging a largely hidden past; and, second, to understand the fusion and confusion of different kinds of desire—perverse, political, narrative, sexual—as each writer explores the thresholds between eros, intimacy and abuse and their connection with social structures.
Wednesday, March 29, 2023
4:30 – 6:00 PM EDT
The 2022-23 S.J. Stubbs Lecture in English Literature is being held in-person at University College, as well as streaming live online for home viewers.
Paul Cadario Conference Centre at Croft Chapter House
University College
15 King’s College Circle, Toronto, ON M5S 3H7
Please register by Monday, March 27, 2023
Faculty, students, staff, and the public are cordially invited to this hybrid lecture.
For more information, contact uc.rsvp@utoronto.ca.
Kindly let us know if you require accessibility accommodations when you register.
Please note that masks are not required at U of T at this time, but as communicated by Ontario's Chief Medical Officer of Health, masking indoors is strongly recommended.
The Stubbs Lectures were founded in 1988 by Helen Eunice Stubbs, a graduate of University College, in honour of her father, Samuel Stubbs, also a UC graduate. The lectures commemorate his love of Classics and English Literature.