Preface

Abstract

This is our fourth pandemical issue, and Omicron (the disease not the trouble-shooting doctor in Trollope unfortunately) moves about the world causing misery and uncertainty. It’s difficult to be upbeat about the state of things at the moment, but we hope that this special issue of Volupté reassures our readers that even in periods of cultural and political decline there is a pleasure to reading and constant invention. It was the original ambition of this journal to expand the field of decadence studies and to be a space for new voices, material, and interpretations. While it is true, as Adam Alston reminds us, that ‘the field’s interdisciplinary ambitions are yet to reach their full potential’, this issue consolidates the ‘diffusionist model’ of decadence studies that was celebrated in the summer issue of 2021 and marks another exciting moment.