“Andoring the games, induring the studies, undaring the stories” (FW 368.34-35): A Report on the 2014 Dublin James Joyce Summer School, Dublin, Ireland, 6-13 July 2014

Initiated in 1988 by Augustine Martin, the venerable conclave of Joycean devotees streaming into the capital of Irish studies convened once again last summer, under the auspices of University College Dublin, Boston College-Ireland, the National Library of Ireland, and the James Joyce Centre, Dublin. Novices had their first contact with the city while joining the veterans at registration, leaving the lodgings at UCD village to receive a first sip of “Dobbelin ayle” and a taste of the renowned Irish conviviality at Houricans pub, literally around the corner from “Steving’s grain” (FW 7.12, 550.06). The meeting inaugurated a pilgrimage of attendees through the city, following in Joyce’s footsteps, each day spending every bit of energy discovering literary landmarks and an occasional similarity to their fictionalized versions (for instance, Sweny’s in Lincoln Place, the well-known source of Bloom’s “[s]weet lemony wax”—U 5.512). The series of lectures, seminars, and evening events scheduled by the organizing committee, and forwarded by Thea Gillen’s efficient staff, captivated the participants during the whole week, keeping everybody happily busy and engaging each in fruitful discussions or pleasant social gatherings.

The academic program was imbued with a highly cosmopolitan and multidisciplinary spirit, providing the opportunity to explore the Georgian Newman House and to discover with pleasure that the path leading to the old physics theater no longer culminates in that “chilly grey light that struggled through the dusty windows” (P 184), but instead in a glowing neo-gothic interior with warm canary-yellow wallpaper and light flooding in through three high-arched windows. Anne Fogarty, Director of the Summer School and of the UCD Research Centre for James Joyce Studies, inaugurated the program by discussing “The Transmission of Affects in Dubliners.” She compared the definitions of emotions and affects offered by Fredric Jameson and Teresa Brennan, focusing on the composition of human feelings, and examined the frequently contradictory interchange of body and mind experienced by Joyce’s characters. In a carefully balanced speech entitled “The Role of the Advertisement Canvasser in Joyce’s Dublin,” Matthew Hayward re-considered from an historical and textual point of view the nature of Leopold Bloom’s job, distancing himself from both Ezra Pound’s harsh disapproval of advertising and more recent overstatements about the character’s modernity. The lecture also outlined Bloom’s duties and social position, taking a close look at his working relations with Red Murray, Councillor Nanetti, and Myles Crawford, with reference to the models used in the construction of such characters.

Jed Esty’s “‘Grace,’ Debt, and the Spirits of Capitalism” was a multifaceted analysis of economical, social, and gender aspects of Joyce’s short story. Its argument concerned the concept of indebtedness, which Joyce appears to have treated not as a problem to be solved but in support of a collective ideal as opposed to a more traditional capitalist model. Following an initial close reading of the story, and before concluding with a gender-oriented interpretation in connection with “The Sisters,” Esty supported his thesis by making use of Max Weber’s classic The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism with particular reference to religious-political clashes in early-twentieth-century Ireland.¹ Fritz Senn’s weaving of words about “Hypophany, or Joyce’s Low Key Expertise” called attention to the ubiquity of Joyce’s epiphanic forms of representation and focused on a comparison between their translations, making use of the discrepancies to highlight characteristics of the original texts. He consequently praised the studied openness of Joycean works to interpretation through their close readings, proceeding by free associations rather than logically structured exposition. “There is no conclusion … because there is no thesis” was the witty ending, which, in truth, was consistent with the overall purpose of the Summer School: to deepen the experience of texts while transmitting enthusiasm to a new generation of researchers.

John Brannigan’s “Archipelagic Joyce” interpreted the merely physical, rather than simply metaphorical, mediation of the Irish...