"And trieste, ah trieste ate I my liver!": A Report on the 2023 Trieste Joyce School, 25-30 June 2023, Trieste, Italy

Abstract

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

• "And trieste, ah trieste ate I my liver!":A Report on the 2023 Trieste Joyce School, 25-30 June 2023, Trieste, Italy
• Adam King

On 25 June, an ensemble of Joyceans congregated in the port-city of Trieste, hailing from places both near and far, to meet in anticipation of the coming week. On the first evening of the 2023 Joyce School, an event that celebrated a quarter-century milestone this year, pleasantries and formalities were exchanged over refreshments while many of us adjusted to the Adriatic sun and its reach. The reception was generously provided by the Embassy of Ireland and took place just outside the grand Museo Revoltella where the school had just been officially opened. For first-time attendees and speakers alike, the striking characteristics of our environment, with its pale walls, coastal air, unique architectural blend, and constant murmur captivated the senses and much of the conversation. Even in the short time since arriving in Trieste, it felt as if many of us were already finding ourselves drawn to the city that Joyce inhabited and loved for such a formative decade of his life. Our next five days entailed three talks each morning at the Museo, interspersed with coffee breaks, a seminar in the afternoon after lunch, and then an evening activity planned by the school. Each day's scholarship was routinely followed by a welcome abundance of engaging and openminded conversation, food, and drink.

Throughout the week, every paper was met by an eager audience and followed by enthusiastic and thorough questions. Subsequent discussions often spilled over into lunch and dinner. Despite certain recurring ideas, there was no overarching theme for the school, and, as such, there was no subject out of bounds. The collection of speakers attending saw a host of experts from the academy, with focuses ranging from musicology to the blue humanities and the medical humanities, alongside representation from the James Joyce Centre in Dublin and a cofounder of the Newspaper and Periodical History Forum of Ireland. In other words, the extent of differing relationships with Joyce and approaches to his work on display during the week felt like a prized asset of the school. It was formidable to experience, and the variety within the programming offered both complement and contrast. I will briefly outline and summarize each day's talks, which can provide no overview of the depth of what was on offer.

The founder of the school, John McCourt, commenced the week's proceedings on Monday with a talk close to the heart of the event, "Joyce, Svevo, and the Making of Modernism in Trieste." He [End Page 9] expanded on his work which originally asserted the influence and importance of the triangular relationship between both authors and their residual city. Sophie Corser followed with "The Joyce of Close Reading," in which she addressed the metacritical implications of reading practices, demonstrating ways in which Ulysses demands self-conscious acts of interpretation that foreground questions of textual authority. The paper referenced a Barthesian conception of textuality to reassert the importance of readership and reading, with their various implications, in the maintenance of an open text. Nicholas Allen ended the morning's affairs with "Blue Joyce" in which he proposed the centrality of Dublin's coastal location and Ireland's oceanic outlook to Joyce's conception of the city. Outlining how a deeply felt relationship with the sea could sculpt linguistic and social models for maritime places, he demonstrated how a nautical sensibility and fluidity alike provide an ever-present context that seeps into Joyce's writing.

Richard Barlow began Tuesday's session with "Finnegans Wake and the Irish Revival." His paper presented correlations, overlaps, and imbrications between Joyce's latter text and the early-twentieth-century movement. In doing so, he challenged historicist assumptions about revivalism, its reach, and its chronology. After her talk "'Poor old Balfe': Joyce and Popular Music" asserted the importance of musicality, performance, and song-sharing to Joyce and his texts both culturally and personally, Michelle Witen offered instances from Ulysses and Dubliners that illustrated how an understanding of nineteenth-century popular song can enhance and reveal further implications of both narrative and character in both texts...