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IPP Workshop Series: How to Read Ulysses and Other Complex Texts (Marija Spirkovska)

When

Dec 03, 2019 from 02:00 to 04:00 (Europe/Berlin / UTC100)

Where

Phil I, Building B, R.025

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The workshop will aim to provide participants with the basic equipment for accessing lengthy, dense, and demanding literary texts in a way that dispels some of the myths that surround them. The most present example will be James Joyce’s epic Ulysses. Nearly a hundred years since its publication in 1922, this work still ignites equal parts frustration and fascination among the general public and scholars alike. The density of its references and allusions, the variety of literary styles, and generations of readers who have picked it up and put it quickly down in defeat, have earned it the status of a heavyweight of 20th-century literature and also a reputation of impenetrability.

 

The basic tools to access such complex texts will spring from intertextuality, novelistic form, and editing history. In particular, we will land on notions such as the role of auxiliary texts –for instance, annotations- in the reading and interpretation of seemingly impenetrable texts, as well as the influence of editorial decisions on interpretations of a novel. Taking Ulysses as a case study, we will briefly discuss its genesis, the relationships with Homer’s Odyssey, and the schemata that Joyce provided to help readers grasp the fundaments of the novel’s structure. Readings of various excerpts will be performed in groups, and the ensuing discussion will revolve around whether textual aids are truly helpful and indeed indispensable for grasping a novel’s multiple significations, or the reading experience alone is sufficient to afford value and meaning.

 

If you are interested, please register via ipp@ggk.uni-giessen.de

 

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