The Importance of Reading Oscar Wilde

18.06.2024

Why could Shakespeare represent queer desire in his plays quite openly, but Oscar Wilde, writing 300 years later, could not?

These are some of the questions explored in the Proseminar Feminist Literary Theory and Queer Theory, led by Dobrota Pucherova in Summer Semester 2024. In the picture, the students Aki Zenzius and Nyx Ferrand took the opportunity to dress up as Oscar Wilde for their presentation about a queer reading of The Importance of Being Earnest (1895). And why are references to the German language and culture in the play coded allusions to queerness? All of this and more was discussed in the Proseminar, which is part of Modul 3: Literaturtheorie.

Foto der Studierenden

(c) Pucherova

Foto der Studierenden

(c) Pucherova