Friday, November 22, 2002, 6 p.m.
Cóilín Owens
George Mason UIniversity
"The Odour of Corruption: A Theological Reading of 'The Sisters'"
he death of his intellectual and spiritual mentor provokes a crisis of faith in the boy-narrator. The language and structure of the story reveal its Gnostic premises. The priest is a pneumatic, his sisters hylics. Its conclusion: the psychic boy becomes agnostic.
When Joyce wrote to Grant Richards that "people might be willing to pay for the special odour of corruption which, I hope, floats over my stories" (Oct 15, 1905), he was not making reference either to Dublin’s garbage or political chicanery. Rather, he was coining a phrase drawn from the theological lexicon of his time ("the odour of sanctity" and "the corruption of the flesh"), by which he indicated his purpose was to reveal the phenomena of original sin. For all the critical attention these stories have received, these implications have been largely ignored, especially in recent readings of Dubliners.
Read in the light of the Christian understanding of grace shaped by the language of Saints Paul and Augustine--"The Sisters" presents us with a priest who has fallen into Quietism, a latter-day version of Gnosticism, the first major heresy in the history of the Church. A close examination of the text of "The Sisters" shows it to be structurally and thematically informed by the idea of knowledge proposed by the Gnostics, a notion that divided humanity into three parties: the pneumatics, the psychics, and the hylics: those who lived by the spirit, the rational mind, and the flesh, respectively. The boy’s fascination with the terms simony, gnomon, and paralysis in the opening paragraph implies these correspondences, and the body of the story develops their implications. These terms correspond, in turn, with the three procedures by which the narrator attempts to comprehend the physical death of his spiritual and intellectual mentor: through dreams, rational analysis, face to face, and finally through silent mediation. The issues in the story are therefore the relationships between soul, mind, and body, and the modes of knowledge appropriate to each. By comparing his memories and fantasies about Fr Flynn with the overheard conversations between his relicts, the boy moves from a fascination with the Christian promise of eternal perfection, to a radical skepticism about all forms of human knowing. As a disciple of Fr Flynn, therefore, he moves from a fascination with latter-day Gnosticism to modern agnosticism. This reading helps us to gloss an epiphany that Joyce reported to Stanislaus from Trieste: "While I was attending the Greek mass here last Sunday, it seemed to me that my story ‘The Sisters’ was rather remarkable" (February 28, 1905). The development of the implications of this reading of "The Sisters" for the general design of Dubliners and Portrait is the subject of a book in progress.
Cóilín Owens was born in Ireland. Educated by his parents, the Cistercian monks at Roscrea, Notre Dame and University College, Dublin, he studied Joyce with Bernard Benstock at Kent State. He has been teaching at George Mason since 1976, and has published widely on Irish drama, literature, and language. Among his publications are Family Chronicles: Maria Edgeworth’s Castle Rackrent (1987), Irish Drama 1900-1990 (1990), and Irish/Gaeilge (1994), and numerous essays on Joyce that have appeared in Eire-Ireland, The James Joyce Quarterly, and The Irish University Review. A longtime member of the James Joyce Foundation, he has been an officer on the national committee of the American Conference for Irish Studies. Over the past 25 years he has been active in the affairs of the Irish American Cultural Institute and the Gaelic League in the Washington area. He lives in Mount Vernon, Virginia, with his wife, Julianne Mahler, and sons Seamus and Conor.
Friday, 25 October, 6:00 pm
Michael Groden, University of Western Ontario
New Joyce Manuscripts at the National Library of Ireland
"The New Joyce Manuscripts at the National Library of Ireland," or
"25 New Joyce Manuscripts! Hear All About It: A Report for Non-Specialists"
In May 2002 the National Library of Ireland announced that it had purchased
25 previously unknown Joyce manuscripts for about $12 million (US). These
documents, a couple of early notebooks, some typescript and proof pages for
Finnegans Wake, but mostly early notes and drafts for Ulysses,
which will greatly enrich our knowledge of Joyce's creation of his works.
Michael Groden, who examined the papers for the National Library as it was
considering purchasing the collection, will talk about the manuscripts and
their significance.
Michael Groden is Professor of English, University of Western Ontario.
He is also instructor of an annual course, "Reading Ulysses" each spring at the
92nd Street Y. In addition, he did manuscript work on Joyce: "Ulysses" in Progress"
(1977), general editor of The James Joyce Archive and editor of the 16
Ulysses volumes (1977-79). He was consultant to the National Library of Ireland
on its purchase of these newly discovered Joyce manuscripts, and currently he is
co-editor of Digital "Ulysses": Ulysses in Dublin | Dublin in Ulysses 1904-2004:
An Annotated Hypertext and Manuscript Archive: "
His web pages are http://publish.uwo.ca/~mgroden/ and
http://publish.uwo.ca/~mgroden/ulysses/.
Friday, October 4, 6:00 pm
Chris Lombardi,
"Notes from a blue:season:
A novelist falls in love with Lucia Joyce."
"Diaphanous L & Bab working at c&d."
A journey in researching and writing
a narrative of Joyce's daughter --
from Ellmann's biography
to immersion in Lucia's hospital journals
to squinting at the Buffalo notebooks
to volunteering at a psychiatric hospital.
Chris Lombardi studied Joyce with Suzette Henke and
Barry Wallenstein. She writes for the "Village Voice,"
"The Nation," "Women's Enews," and "American Book Review."
Her novel "The Suicide Project" was a finalist for
Barbara Kingsolver's Bellwether Prize. She is currently
working on a novel based on the life of
Jehanne Darc (Joan of Arc).
Tues., 11 June 2002, 5:30 pm
Nora: the Film
The Donnell Library Center
2nd floor conference room
20 West 53rd Street
New York, NY 10019
Tues. 20 August 2002 (6:00 pm)
Apocalyptic Catallactics: The Political Economy in Ulysses' Oxen
Ian Kennedy White, Professor of English, Bradford University, UK
Fri., 3 May 2002, 6:00 pm
A Little Snob: Pretension and Failure in Ulysses
Sean Latham, Editor, James Joyce Quarterly
Fri., 12 Apr. 2002, 7:30 pm:
Theoretical Bloom: Cloacal Aesthetics
` Bowen, Professor of English, University of Miami
(Past President of The James Joyce Society)
Wednesday, 20 February 2002 7:00 pm
Heyward Ehrlich
Associate Professor of English, Rutgers University in Newark, NJ
Rewriting Homer Through Celtic Myth: "Matriarchy v. Patriarchy" in Joyce's Ulysses
and
In preparation for an open discussion
Simon Loekle
will read the water catalogue
from Ithaca (U 17:185-228, Gabler edition)
in observance of
the final days of Aquarius: The Water Carrier (Jan 20 - Feb 18)
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Friday, April 12, 2002, 7:30 pm
Zack Bowen
Professor of English, University of Miami
(Past President of The James Joyce Society)
Theoretical Bloom: Cloacal Aesthetics
and
Poet Michael Graves
Reading from a Selection of His Joycean Poems
Friday, 3 May 2002, 6:00 pm
Sean Latham, Editor, James Joyce Quarterly
A Little Snob: Pretension and Failure in Ulysses
and
The Ending of "Araby"
Discussion led by Heyward Ehrlich
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The James Joyce Society
A. Nicholas Fargnoli, President
Simon Loekle, Tyler
Yearly membership: $20.00
Visitors at meetings: $5.00
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