Revealed: the truth about Victorians and sex

Monday, 28 January 2002

The Victorians and Sex: Myths, Legends, Errors and Scandals is the title of a free public lecture to be delivered at Adelaide University by a visiting British academic on Thursday 31st January (Lecture Theatre 102, Napier Building, North Terrace, 7.30pm).

The address by Dr Lesley Hall from London's Wellcome Library for the History and Understanding of Medicine will be among the highlights of a four-day conference entitled The Erotic Empire: Sexuality, Gender and Power in Britain and Beyond. The conference, which starts on Wednesday, has been organised by the Australasian Victorian Studies Association.

Dr Hall is Senior Assistant Archivist at the Wellcome Library for the History and Understanding of Medicine. She has published widely on the history of sexuality and medicine, and her most recent book is Sex, Gender and Social Change in Britain Since 1880.

In conjunction with the exhibition currently running at the Art Gallery of South Australia, the conference will host a symposium on Sunday 3 February entitled Love and Death: Art in the Age of Queen Victoria. It will feature national and international speakers, including Peter Trippi (Brooklyn Museum of Art, New York), Pamela Gerrish Nunn (University of Canterbury, Christchurch), Alison Inglis (University of Melbourne) and Martin Gallon (Sotheby's Australia).

Other speakers at the conference include:

C. Robert Holloway, US film and television designer, playwright and author of a book on Oscar Wilde

Dr. Leigh Summers, author of a book on the corset, entitled Bound to Please

Ass. Prof. Pamela Gerrish Nunn, foremost authority on nineteenth- century women's art

Ass. Prof. Susan Magarey, author of a recently-released book on suffragists (Australian suffragettes), Passions of the First Wave Feminists

Adelaide University Law Associate Lecturer Laura Grenfell, who will speak on menstruation and nineteenth-century vampire narratives.

For full program details, visit:

http://www.arts.adelaide.edu.au/ARCHSS/AVSA.asp

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