The past few years I’ve been working here and there on a book about Oscar Wilde and anarchism. As I don’t have a publisher — and therefore also, don’t have a deadline or an advance — my output has mostly taken the form of short pieces that I can publish in article form now and (I hope) somehow fit together later to create a complete whole.
My two most recent installments are:
“The Soul of Man Under. . . Anarchism?” New Politics. Winter 2011.
and
“The Anarchist Aphorist: Wilde and Gottesman, Paradox and Subversion.” Anarchist Studies. 2010.
The first is an examination of the few times that Wilde described himself as an anarchist, compared to his more common use of the socialist label.
The second is a comparison of Wilde’s aphorisms and some others published in Mother Earth, with attention to the use of paradox to create subversive meanings. (It’s not on the web; sorry.)
In relation to this Wilde project, I’ve also written:
“Why Does Your Lily Droop?” OutSmart. August 2010. (A review of Oscar Wilde in America: The Interviews.)
“Pictures of Dorian Gray, Images of Oscar Wilde.” The Comics Journal. May 2010. (A nine-part series on Wilde’s depiction in, influence on, and relationship to cartooning.)
“The Roots of Wilde’s Socialist Soul: Ibsen and Shaw, or Morris and Crane.” The Oscholars. Spring 2010. (An investigation into the inspiration for “The Soul of Man Under Socialism.”)
“Dorian Gray and the Moral Imagination.” The Common Review. Winter 2010. (A critical study of the ethical perspective of The Picture of Dorian Gray.)
“Reading Oscar’s Books.” Anarchy: A Journal of Desire Armed. 2010. (A review.)
and
“‘A Criminal with a Noble Face’: Oscar Wilde’s Encounters with the Victorian Gaol.” 2009. (A thorough look at Wilde’s prison writing, and his anti-prison writing.)
This last one was written thanks in part to a grant from the Institute for Anarchist Studies. Thanks are also owed to the Ludwig Vogelstein Foundation for its support.