Leafing Back Through a “chapter of moral history” (LettersI 63): A Report on the “100 Dubliners” Conference London, Engla+nd, 31 October-1 November 2014

The centenary of Grant Richards’s landmark publication of Dubliners in 1914 was celebrated throughout the world with events that examined once again the most openly ethical of Joyce’s multifaceted works. The University of London made a substantial contribution, offering a two-day conference hosted by the Institute of English Studies and superbly organized by Joseph Brooker, of Birkbeck College. The majestic venue, Senate House, towering over Bloomsbury with several floors of revered institutions and ponderous books, was probably intended to remind Joycean visitors of the dystopian “Ministry of Truth” described in George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four,¹ but the imposing giant of square stones was not in such a gray mood at the end of October, and the warm lights of Crush Hall that greeted the public were a prelude to an entertaining end to the week. Over the course of two days, the conference gathered around forty speakers, whose papers can be mentioned here only very briefly.

The opening plenary targeted the circumstances of the publication of Dubliners. Steven Morrison reconsidered the collaboration between Joyce and George W. Russell, which led to the publication of “The Sisters,” “Eveline,” and “After the Race” in the pages of The Irish Homestead (referred to as “the pig’s paper”—U 9.321), highlighting that publication’s editorial profile, pointing out its internationalist orientation, and drawing attention to the flexibility of Russell’s guidelines. Bernard McGinley offered a portrait of Grant Richards (“twice married, twice divorced, twice bankrupt”) and analyzed the influence of his publishing venture, while Katherine Ebury, who at the beginning of 2014 began tweeting the complete text of Dubliners (@ Dubliners100), presented to the conference a chart of the interactions that took place during this heroic endeavor.

The following panel focused on precursors. Cóilín Owens interpreted the references to Euclid’s gnomon in Dubliners as a geometrical symbolization of the incompleteness of scientific knowledge and of the imperfection of human nature, and Aki Turan looked for Dantesque echoes, linked specifically with the motif of circulation, in “Two Gallants,” starting with a recording of Thomas Moore’s song “Silent, O Moyle.” Anita Butler picked up the baton, comparing Joyce’s “gallants” with John Marston’s Elizabethan gallants, and ascribed Lenehan and Corley’s immaturity to the difficulties of social mobility. Panel 3 included Zachary Kell, who expanded on R. Brandon Kershner’s essay “ReOrienting Joyce” and, supported by Edward Said’s Orientalism, analyzed how Joyce expressed the “sheer beauty of diversity and multiculturalism” from “Araby” to Finnegans Wake,² and Kuğu Tekin, who compared Joyce’s and Orhan Pamuk’s conflictual relationships with Dublin and Istanbul, respectively, showing parallel forms of representation in the shades, characters, and overall spirits of the two cities.³

Panel 4 explored the description of urban life. Joseph Kelly referred to the differences between European (Max Weber, Georg Simmel, Walter Benjamin) and American (Chicago School) “ecological” studies of literature to characterize Joyce’s description of the relation between his fellow citizens and their own city, particularly in “An Encounter” and “Araby.” David Bradshaw focused on the sociological, historical, and political values of galoshes and, in general, of rubber products in “The Dead,” “After the Race,” and passages from Ulysses, unveiling imperialist dynamics associated with the production of ordinary objects. Helen Saunders interpreted the appearance of Joyce’s characters in the light of Simmel’s “Fashion” and “Adornment,” employing the latter’s definition of fashion as the result of a dialogue between “imitation” and “differentiation.”⁴ Panel 5 included Anthony Jordan, who addressed the dialogue between Joyce and Arthur Griffith; Pauric Havlin, who discussed the commercialization of Joyce’s Dublin in contemporary Ireland, showing how the text lives also through distorted interpretations; and Rafael Oliven, who presented the results of a teaching experience with a group of Brazilian undergraduates, who read Dubliners and found unexpected cultural affinities between their country and Ireland.

Panel 6 brought the discourse back to precursors. Michael Mayo expanded on the influence of the ambivalent teaching and open...