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.

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.

Please register by Monday, March 27, 2023. Register here.

Faculty, students, staff, and the public are cordially invited to this virtual lecture.
For more information, contact uc.rsvp@utoronto.ca.