{"id":266604,"date":"2025-04-10T09:20:13","date_gmt":"2025-04-10T13:20:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/webarchive.umw.edu\/eagleeye\/?p=266604"},"modified":"2025-04-10T10:57:13","modified_gmt":"2025-04-10T14:57:13","slug":"foss-discusses-psychic-messages-from-oscar-wilde-at-conference-in-new-orleans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/webarchive.umw.edu\/eagleeye\/2025\/04\/10\/foss-discusses-psychic-messages-from-oscar-wilde-at-conference-in-new-orleans\/","title":{"rendered":"Foss Discusses &#8220;Psychic Messages from Oscar Wilde&#8221; at Conference in New Orleans"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_160305\" style=\"width: 160px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"https:\/\/webarchive.umw.edu\/eagleeye\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/04\/Screen-Shot-2022-04-20-at-5.webp\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-160305\" class=\"size-thumbnail wp-image-160305\" src=\"https:\/\/webarchive.umw.edu\/eagleeye\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/04\/Screen-Shot-2022-04-20-at-5-150x150.webp\" alt=\"Professor of English Chris Foss\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" srcset=\"https:\/\/webarchive.umw.edu\/eagleeye\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/04\/Screen-Shot-2022-04-20-at-5-150x150.webp 150w, https:\/\/webarchive.umw.edu\/eagleeye\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/04\/Screen-Shot-2022-04-20-at-5-70x70.webp 70w, https:\/\/webarchive.umw.edu\/eagleeye\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/04\/Screen-Shot-2022-04-20-at-5-100x100.webp 100w, https:\/\/webarchive.umw.edu\/eagleeye\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/04\/Screen-Shot-2022-04-20-at-5-50x50.webp 50w, https:\/\/webarchive.umw.edu\/eagleeye\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/04\/Screen-Shot-2022-04-20-at-5-75x75.webp 75w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-160305\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Professor of English Chris Foss<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Professor of English Chris Foss presented a conference paper entitled \u201cTemporal Fusion(s) in <i>Psychic Messages from Oscar Wilde<\/i>\u201d at last month&#8217;s Nineteenth Century Studies Association Annual Conference in New Orleans.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/webarchive.umw.edu\/eagleeye\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2025\/04\/IMG_7961-scaled.jpeg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft wp-image-266605 size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/webarchive.umw.edu\/eagleeye\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2025\/04\/IMG_7961-300x225.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" srcset=\"https:\/\/webarchive.umw.edu\/eagleeye\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2025\/04\/IMG_7961-300x225.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/webarchive.umw.edu\/eagleeye\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2025\/04\/IMG_7961-1024x768.jpeg 1024w, https:\/\/webarchive.umw.edu\/eagleeye\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2025\/04\/IMG_7961-768x576.jpeg 768w, https:\/\/webarchive.umw.edu\/eagleeye\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2025\/04\/IMG_7961-1536x1152.jpeg 1536w, https:\/\/webarchive.umw.edu\/eagleeye\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2025\/04\/IMG_7961-2048x1536.jpeg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a>Foss explored how Hester Travers Smith\u2019s 1923 book detailing her conversations with the dead man represents a fascinating instance of such fusion, a unique dramatic rendering of Wilde\u2019s afterlife that does not simply preserve a pre-existing particular portrait of the artist but rather seeks to animate a new creation entirely\u2014a discarnate Oscar stitched together from Travers Smith\u2019s own desires to experience direct access to the thoughts and opinions of the (in)famous author.\u00a0 Her otherworldly communicator offered denizens of the Roaring Twenties a \u201cspeaking tour\u201d from the beyond no less carefully curated than all the popular adaptations on stage and screen since.<\/p>\n<p>In the end, <i>Psychic Messages<\/i> reveals more about its author and her own day than it provides new insights into Wilde\u2019s life and work, but far from representing an offensive cannibalization of the great wit and writer, it serves as an engaging example of how Oscar will continue to live on in the hearts and minds of his many admirers.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Professor of English Chris Foss presented a conference paper entitled \u201cTemporal Fusion(s) in Psychic Messages from Oscar Wilde\u201d at last month&#8217;s Nineteenth Century Studies Association Annual Conference in New Orleans. Foss explored how Hester Travers Smith\u2019s 1923 book detailing her conversations with the dead man represents a fascinating instance of such fusion, a unique dramatic [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28559,"featured_media":160305,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[88],"tags":[234],"class_list":{"0":"post-266604","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-professional-notes","8":"tag-cfoss","9":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/webarchive.umw.edu\/eagleeye\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266604","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/webarchive.umw.edu\/eagleeye\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/webarchive.umw.edu\/eagleeye\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webarchive.umw.edu\/eagleeye\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/28559"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webarchive.umw.edu\/eagleeye\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=266604"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/webarchive.umw.edu\/eagleeye\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266604\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webarchive.umw.edu\/eagleeye\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/160305"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/webarchive.umw.edu\/eagleeye\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=266604"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webarchive.umw.edu\/eagleeye\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=266604"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webarchive.umw.edu\/eagleeye\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=266604"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}