Professor Kate Hext
Associate Professor
English and Creative Writing
I am an associate professor in decadent literature and the arts. I mainly write and teach on British and American literature, and cinema, from the late nineteenth century to the early twentieith century.
I have been thinking a lot about Oscar Wilde recently: this year I've finished a book about Wilde and Hollywood, titled Wilde in the Dream Factory: Decadence and Hollywood (Oxford University Press, 2024), a new edition of Oscar Wilde’s plays for Oxford World’s Classics (OUP, 2025), and, with Alex Murray, The Oxford Handbook of Oscar Wilde (OUP, 2025). My interests are though fairly broad, and I have published on various issues -- usually to do with pleasure, style, individualism, and epiphanic moments -- related to modernism and decadence. I am co-Founder and co-Editor of the journal Cusp: Late-19th/Early-Twentieth Century Cultures, published by Johns Hopkins University Press: https://www.press.jhu.edu/journals/cusp-late-nineteenth-and-early-twentieth-century-cultures In January 2024, Cusp was awarded Best New Journal by CELJ at the MLA.
In addition to the academic publications listed on my publications tab, I sometimes write reviews and essays for the TLS. My favourite is this one on Ronald Firbank and Carl Van Vechten because it brings together a literary discovery with the experience of archival research at one of my favoutie places, the New York Public Library: https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/love-affair-letters-carl-van-vechten-ronald-firbank/
For a flavour of decadence and my angle on it, you could take a look at this essay I wrote for Aeon: https://aeon.co/essays/the-danger-of-decadence-is-also-its-value-we-need-more-of-it Beyond my published work, I've organised numerous events in the fields of decadence studies, Victorian studies, and modernist studies. Most recently, as part of a Heritage Lottery Fund grant, I organised a series of talks in the Italian Garden at Great Ambrook: https://www.theitaliangarden.org/the-history I'm currently writing about the garden's queer history and preparing a little exhibition for Spring 2025.
In autumn 2020, I organised an online series of talks, titled ‘Zooming Decadence’, designed to help academics at all levels keep in touch during the pandemic. The talks averaged over 100 attendees each. In April 2015, I and Dr Alex Murray (Queen's University, Belfast) organised the 'Aestheticism and Decadence in the Age of Modernism, 1895-1945' conference (Senate House, London), which led to a book titled, Decadence in the Age of Modernism (JHUP, 2019).
Despite my appetite for decadence and frivolity, I have served in many administrative positions in my departments at Exeter and am, all seriousness, interested in effective modes of leadership in the university sector. My most significant roles to date, since 2016, have been as Director of Research, Head of Department (through the pandemic), and Director of Global Engagement. For some time, most of my teaching has been focused on modernism, cinema and decadence. However, I designed and have run (since 2016) the Social Inequality Grand Challenge as part of Exeter’s pioneering programme aimed to engage students in real-life problems: https://www.exeter.ac.uk/students/grandchallenges/ This was a recent winner of an Advance HE CATE award. My work on this programme indirectly led, too, to an ESRC grant award for a project on gender inequality, on which I was PI.
I have presented my work at dozens of conferences and have been invited to deliver talks internationally on career development and women’s leadership and -- of course -- Oscar Wilde and decadence. In addition to my position at Exeter, I am Visiting Professor of English at Ewha Womans University, in Seoul, 2023-26.
Biography:
I read Philosophy and Literature at the University of Warwick, before completing a Masters in Critical Theory, and PhD on Walter Pater's individualism, both at the University of Exeter. At Warwick I was President of the Athletics and Cross-Country Club, and my love of long-distance running is still only surpassed by a love of long novels and a good G&T (preferably taken at the same time).
Research supervision:
I have supervised or supervise PhD students working on topics that range from gothic collecting at the fin de siècle to decadence and 1970s disco. I would be happy to hear from potential PhD students working of any of the areas touched on in my profile.
