Filed under: People
The Joyce community recently lost one of its more prolific German members when Helmut Bonheim passed away after a protracted illness earlier this month. The author or editor of eight books and Professor of English at the Universität zu Köln, he was best known to the readers of JJQ as the author of A Lexicon of German in Finnegans Wake (1984) and Joyce’s Benedictions (1964). He will be missed and his passing marked in the journal’s next issue by our customary black box.
Filed under: Uncategorized
Suzy Bell, poet, artist, art columnist, and cultural activist, will be exhibiting two works, together entitled Sun Flung, at artSpace Gallery in Durban, South Africa. The works will be an iPhoneographic representation of the line “On his wise shoulders through the checkerwork of leaves the sun flung spangles, dancing coins” from Joyce’s Ulysses. To create her images Bell shoots a series of light paintings on an iPhone 4 and, though her medium is technological, she feels the project serves as a “reminder that we are intrinsically part of nature.” Bell is drawn to Ulysses because, as she says, it “is a wonderful, generous literary work for an artist to leave behind for humanity to explore.” Access more information on Bell’s Sun Flung here.
Filed under: Publications
Over the years JJQ has received a steady trickle of submissions from scholars working in Iran where copies of the journal surprisingly seem to make their way through the regime’s censors. Although (to my knowledge) there have not yet been Persian translations of either Ulysses or Finnegans Wake, much of the rest of Joyce’s corpus is available to Iranian readers in their own language. This includes A Portrait, several of the short stories, and even Exiles. This week also saw the release of a translation of several poems in a volume entitled She Weeps Over Rahoon. The work was done by Payam Fotouhieh and published by Afraz. These efforts are encouraging and we certainly look forward to the time when all of Joyce’s works can be read in Persian.
The 50th anniversary issue of the James Joyce Quarterly in now approaching and we are currently in the process of planning a variety of way to mark this significant milestone. Among these will be the appearance in issue 50.1 of the “greatest hits” from the journal’s first fifty years accompanied by headnotes explaining their significance and continuing importance as critical touchstones.
To assemble this list, we have solicited nominations from our editorial advisory board, but we would also like to hear from the larger Joyce community. So if you are interested, please take a moment to look back over those old issues and reflect on pieces of criticism you think need to be brought back for a second run. These might be from our earliest days or it might be something that appeared in just the last few years. To nominate something, feel feel to email <sean-latham@utulsa.edu>, message me on Twitter <@seanplatham>, or just leave a comment for this post.
And keep an eye out here for additional anniversary plans, including a planned special issue on Joyce and new media, a fresh new look for the journal, new digital features, and a number of other events.
Filed under: Uncategorized
The Ithys Press of Dublin has just published a little-known story by Joyce entitled “The Cats of Copenhagen” in a fine press edition. (Very fine, actually: the cheapest copy available coming in at €300.) This short work of fiction was written in a letter to Joyce’s grandson Stephen in 1936 and found amid the large amount of material given by Hans Jahnke to the Zurich James Joyce Foundation in 2005.
As the Irish Times reports, however, the publication has been met with significant protest by the Foundation. Its Director, Frtiz Senn, has written that “the Zürich James Joyce Foundation was left completely in the dark, it never permitted, tolerated, condoned or connived at this publication, and it rigidly dissociates itself from it.” A response from the Ithys Press arguing that no permission was necessary appears on their site.
Although the story might be in the public domain in some jurisdictions, the dispute nevertheless reveals the difficulties and tensions that continue to attend the questions of ownership and intellectual property that still bedevil Joyce’s work. No doubt as the post-copyrightgold rush on Joycean archive begins, further such disputes will arise.
As part of the celebrations leading up to this year’s Bloomsday, the James Joyce Research Centre at University College Dublin has assembled a wonderful site called James Joyce 2012. From here you can find links to a twitter stream of Joyce quotes and information about the year’s events.
Among the more interesting offerings is a section called “Writings on Joyce” that features short essays by an array of notables ranging from former JJQ-editor Robert Spoo and Joyce Foundation president Anne Fogarty to Declan Kiberd and Roddy Doyle. The individual pieces are cast as a kind of sliding mosaic that offer provocative mediations on the complexity of Joyce’s work, its legacy, and its new availability to scholars, artists, and readers.
Filed under: Uncategorized
Call For Papers: International James Joyce Foundation at MLA 3-6 January 2013
Joyce and Lawrence
Papers are invited which reflect anew on parallels between Joyce and Lawrence including: educational institutions; taboo; animal imagery; the Everyman; social sterility; language; gender; sexuality; politics; environment. Send abstract, title and short bio by 3 March 2012 to Anne Fogarty (anne.fogarty@ucd.ie) and Holly Laird (holly-laird@utulsa.edu)
“The Cords of all Link Back”: Joyce and Intertextuality
Papers are invited on diverse aspects of intertextuality in Joyce including: influences; comparative readings; historical, social and political sources; archival traces; use of visual media and popular culture. Send abstract, title and short bio to Anne Fogarty by 10 March 2012 (anne.fogarty@ucd.ie)
Filed under: Exhibits & Displays
To celebrate the expiration of copyright on Joyce’s works in the European Union, Steve Cole has launched a project entitled LiberateUlysses. Here’s how he describes it:
Revisit a chapter, a scene, a theme, or a line from Ulysses and render the impression it made on you in the medium or art form of your choice. Illuminate what you saw, what you felt, so that others can experience what you did as Joyce took you deep into the heart of his Hibernian metropolis. ThisLiberateUlysses blog will chronicle the creative experience of your work in progress and bring the results together in an online exhibition on Bloomsday, 16 June 2012.
This “virtual gallery” of new work inspired by Ulysses looks fascinating and so we gladly pass along the news to our readers in the hope some of you will contribute. When the full collection has been assembled, JJQ will provide a review. In the meantime, Mr. Cole will present the gallery at this year’s Joyce Symposium in Dublin and we will continue to follow the project’s blog and twitter stream (@2lysses) with interest.
Filed under: Uncategorized
Alison Vodnoy Wolf of Cincinnati, Ohio has begun work on a theater production of Ulysses. The project has assembled a director and cast and will premier at the Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music on April 26th-28th. The project’s goal is to make the “highly intellectual” text into an accessible two-hour performance that foregrounds what is “human and universal” in Joyce’s text. In the effort to expand the project beyond the premier in Cincinnati and spread the adaptation internationally, Vodnoy Wolf is soliciting funds through kickstarter.com. A link to the project can be accessed here.
