Ulysses 100 years after (Thematic issue of Studia Litteraria Universitatis Iagellonicae)

Jagiellonian University in Krakow, Poland

Deadline for paper proposals: 15th March 2022.

“Science, it cannot be too often repeated, deals with tangible phenomena.
The man of science like the man in the street has to face hardheaded
facts that cannot be blinked and explain them as best he can.
There may be, it is true, some questions which science cannot answer – at present…”
(James Joyce, Ulysses)

On 2 February 2022 the literary world will celebrate the centenary of the publication of James Joyce’s Ulysses, about which the author famously stated that he put so many enigmas and puzzles into it that it will keep the professors busy for centuries. After one hundred years, how much do we actually know about it? How many puzzles have been solved, and which still remain a challenge? What insights have we gained into Joycean enigmas? Which of them are intersubjectively verifiable, and which are just fanciful flights of critics’ imagination barely grounded in rigorously conducted research? Which results obtained in Joycean scholarship have stood the test of time? What are milestones of Ulysses research, which are seminal critical texts, which of them have fruitfully informed other research, and which have been blind paths?

Beyond questions of factual knowledge, accurate information and its deliberate misrepresentation by the author, there is also the question of the reader’s background knowledge, their choice of methodology, and bias. What some critics perceive as highly relevant, others may tend to ignore. This may result not only in different, but even contradictory findings and interpretations. We may comment on this, quoting Joyce again: “though people may read more into Ulysses than I ever intended, who is to say that they are wrong: do any of us know what we are creating?”

This raises questions about soundness, applicability and relevance of various methodological approaches, not only for Ulysses but for literary works in general. Thus, we invite the authors to reflect on the nature of knowledge, its verifiability, deliberate manipulation, and (degrees) of ignorance, with regard to Ulysses, and other Joyce’s texts. The proposed paper may deal with:

• facts and fictions in Ulysses
• science, knowledge, epistemology in Ulysses
• historical reconstructions, accuracies and inaccuracies
• impact of Joycean scholarship on translation reception, and teaching of Ulysses
• genetic Joyce studies
• relevance and Joyce studies

Please send an abstract of approximately 200 words to Katarzyna Bazarnik (k.bazarnik@uj.edu.pl), and/or Dirk Vanderbeke (vanderbeke@t-online.de), and/or Jolanta Wawrzycka (jolanta@radford.edu). The deadline for paper proposals is March 15. Paper proposals will be reviewed and the authors will be notified about their acceptance. Notifications of acceptance will be sent by March 25. The deadline for the final papers is July 15.

Selected, peer reviewed papers will be published in a thematic issue of Studia Litteraria Universitatis Iagellonicae Cracoviensis. The publication is planned for December 2022.

For the journal website, see https://www.ejournals.eu/Studia-Litteraria/.