B
etween 11 and 16 June 2018, the University of Antwerp’s Centre for Manuscript Genetics will host the 26th International James Joyce Symposium in the city that Joyce and his family visited in the summer of 1926. Belgium is small, so much so that all of the sites Joyce toured that year (Ostend, Bruges, Ghent, Brussels and, most importantly, Waterloo) are within a 100-kilometre radius of the conference venue.
In his earliest prose writings, James Joyce described himself as an artist. His brother Stanislaus’s diary and Richard Ellmann’s 1959 biography reinforced this image of Joyce as the lone and dedicated creator who was prepared to give up everything for his art. We interpret the title of this conference as both an objective and a subjective genitive – from Joyce’s aesthetic or artistry to pictures of Cork in cork frames – and as a reminder of Joyce’s long afterlife in the creative arts. We want to explore the role of art as a socially constructed commodity in Joyce’s work as well as trace his fortunes in the fine art and rare book marketplace; we invite studies of the ways in which Joyce crafted his oeuvre, in the wake of The Art of James Joyce, A. Walton Litz’s pioneering study of the creation of Ulysses and Finnegans Wake; and we are also interested in contributions that, creatively or critically, address the impact of Joyce’s artistic persona and work on other artists, in various forms and different mediums. Given the increased visibility of the digital humanities in Joyce studies and the proliferation of multimedia responses to his work, we also encourage contributions that do not necessarily conform to the traditional scholarly paper.
The symposium invites proposals for individual papers and fully-formed panels and multimedia/digital exhibitions. Participants are limited to one paper and one non-paper panel appearance (e.g. as panel chair or respondent). Please keep in mind that all participants must be members in good standing of the International James Joyce Foundation: non-members or members whose registration has lapsed will not be scheduled.
To propose an individual contribution, please submit a 250-word abstract that includes the speaker’s name and academic affiliation (if applicable) alongside the paper or project title. To propose a panel, the panel chair should submit a 500-word abstract on the panel as a whole that includes the names, academic affiliations, and email addresses of all participants; the title of the panel as well as the titles of each individual contribution; and the name and affiliation of the panel chair and respondent (if any). Please note that panels should have a maximum of four speakers. The panel chair may also give a paper – but please note that in this case it is customary for the panel chair to be scheduled last. Please note any date restrictions for individual panelists.
The deadline for paper or panel proposals will be 2 February 2018, Joyce’s birthday. Proposals can be sent to joyce2018@uantwerpen.be. For more information on the conference, please visit uahost.uantwerpen.be/joyce2018.