At the end of the Nineteenth Century, some of the most privileged and culturally sophisticated Americans developed a desire for the base, the vulgar, the artificial and the diseased. Some of them adopted the label of Decadent. They wanted to associate themselves with the Decadent movement then flowering in Europe, which celebrated the culture and society of empires at the end of their lives. The writers, artists, and thinkers who aligned themselves with Decadence deliberately set themselves against the main American cultural currents and social norms, adopting a variety of affectations to identify themselves and shock others. One such characteristic was the decadent love of illness and suffering. This craving ranged from a morbid interest in descriptions of illness to a sexual fetish for disease. Commentators often found this the most threatening aspect of Decadence in America and noted its decidedly sexual overtones. Nosphilia, the name coined by Austrian doctor Max Nordau to mean love of disease, offers a starting point to help understand the ways that these ideas circulated. This paper investigates the cultural meanings and work done by the representations of this love of illness. The material for this paper comes from both popular and little magazines of the 1890s as well as popular sexology. Specifically I will focus on why these artists, largely from or aspiring to the upper classes, might crave disease and illness. What did they hope to accomplish with this identification? How and why was this so dramatically pathologized by authorities?
About the presenterNicolette Gable
I am a PhD Candidate in the American Studies Program at the College of William and Mary. My interests include the history of science and the history of sexuality. I am writing my dissertation on the Decadent movement in America.