Joyce and the Idea of Europe

Friday, October 7, 2022 – Saturday, October 8, 2022
Conference and Public Reading

Joyce and the Idea of Europe
Bard College Berlin, 7-8 October 2022

A two-day conference organized by Laura Scuriatti (Bard College Berlin) and Annalisa Volpone (CEMS, University of Perugia) in collaboration with the ICI Berlin and with the support of the Jan Michalski Foundation and the Embassy of Ireland.

Keynote speakers:
Prof. Luisa Passerini (European University Institute)
Prof. Ástráður Eysteinsson (University of Iceland)

Panelists: Antonio Bibbò (University of Trento), John McCourt (University of Macerata), Tekla Mecsnóber (University of Groningen), Claudia Olk (Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich), Laura Pelaschiar (University of Trieste), Catherine Toal (Bard College Berlin), Dirk Vanderbeke (Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena), Annalisa Volpone (CEMS, University of Perugia). 

2022 marks the centenary of the publication of Joyce’s Ulysses, the work that more than others challenges the very idea of Europeanness. The conference centres on the exploration of how Joyce’s corpus of works offers a complex notion of Europe as a geopolitical and cultural space of exchange. Set against contemporary existential threats to a shared notion of Europe, this conference intends to revisit Joyce’s vision of European identity, one distinct from a notion of European cosmopolitanism, which is often associated with European modernism and to Joyce himself. The notion of Europe will be explored from the perspective of Joyce’s polyglot style, of his attempts to mediate Irish and European cultures to one another as a journalist and intellectual, of his reflections on nationalism, imperialism and the consequential colonialism.  

In Joyce's corpus Europe is treated as a kind of Foucaultian heterotopia, a combination of other spaces both disturbing and reassuring, which invite the reader to an ongoing process of reassessment of the very notion of culture and cultural belonging. Joyce's works propose an idea of Europe that continues to change and transform against the author’s tumultuous cultural-political context.


Please email Laura Scuriatti ([email protected]) and Annalisa Volpone ([email protected]) if you wish to attend the conference.

A public reading with Irish authors Nuala O'Connor and Adrian Duncan will take place at 7.00 pm at the ICI Berlin, as part of the conference. Please register here for the event. 

CONFERENCE PROGRAM

Venue: Bard College Berlin - Lecture Hall, Platanenstr. 98A, 13156 Berlin

Friday, 7 October 2022

9.00-10.00 Registration and coffee
10.00-10.30 Welcome address

10.30-12.00 Keynote

Prof. Luisa Passerini (European University Institute)
Europe and Europa: The Heritage of Myths for a Critique of Euro-essentialism and Euro-skepticism

(Chair Annalisa Volpone)

12.00-13.30 Lunch break

13.30-15.00 Session 1 
Irishness and Nationalism 

John McCourt (University of Macerata)
Ernest   Boyd and the Essential Irishness  of Joyce's European Vision

Catherine Toal (Bard College Berlin)
The People Who Mistook a Bank for a Parliament: Joyce and the Fights of European Nationalism

(Chair Laura Scuriatti)

15.00-15.30 Coffee break

15.30-17.00 Session 2 
Joyce and European Culture

Antonio Bibbò (University of Trento):
Who's He When He's Abroad? Joyce and the Irish in Italy

Claudia Olk (Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich):
Shakespearean Legacies in Joyce and Beckett

(Chair Francesco Lupatelli)

19.00 ICI Berlin (Christinenstr. 18-19, Haus D-10119 Berlin)
Reading “After Joyce: Rethinking Contemporary Irish Literature in Europe” with Nuala O’Connor and Adrian Duncan 
https://www.ici-berlin.org/events/after-joyce/ 
https://berlin.bard.edu/news/events/after-joyce-rethinking-contemporary-irish-literature-in-europe
Organized by Bard College Berlin and the Centre for European Modernism Studies (CEMS, University of Perugia), in collaboration with the ICI Berlin and with the support of the Jan Michalski Foundation and the Embassy of Ireland.

Saturday, 8 October

9:00-10.30 Keynote

Prof. Ástráður Eysteinsson (University of Iceland)
Europe Ends Here: Borders, Continents, Islands
 
(Chair Laura Scuriatti)

10.00-11.00 Coffee break

11.00-12.30 Session 3 
Europe and Characters

Dirk Vanderbeke (Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena)
The European Background of Leopold and Molly Bloom

Laura Pelaschiar (University of Trieste)
Joyce's Watery European Women

(Chair Annalisa Volpone)

12.30-14.00 Lunch break

14.00-15.30 Session 4 
Migration and Exile 

Tekla Mecsnóber (University of Groningen)
Mutable Linguistic Landscapes and Migrant Nationalisms in Joyce and Europe

Annalisa Volpone (CEMS, University of Perugia)
Euro pra nobis:  Isolation and Connectivity  in Joyce’s Idea of Europe

(Chair Sara Sullam)

15.30-16.00 Coffee break

16.00-17.00 Final discussion


 

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Email: [email protected] Website: https://www.ici-berlin.org/events/after-joyce/