Ulysses at 100: Event at the University of Lausanne
In association with the Irish Embassy, the Swiss Association of University Teachers of English, the Max Geilinger Foundation, and the Faculté des Lettres, University of Lausanne, we are planning an evening of lectures, music and dramatised readings from James Joyce’s Ulysses to celebrate 100 years since the book was first published, and 75 years of Joyce studies in Switzerland.
Joyce’s novel was published on his 40th birthday, February 2 1922; we will celebrate the centenary on February 25 2022, at the University of Lausanne. Professor Anne Fogarty, Director of the James Joyce Centre at University College Dublin, will give a lecture on Ulysses at 100, followed by a talk by Fritz Senn, Director of the Zurich James Joyce Foundation, on the place of Joyce Studies in Switzerland.
Of course, Joyce wrote many of the episodes of Ulysses while living in Zurich during the First World War, and there is a strong tradition of Joyce Studies in Switzerland, notably through the work of Fritz Senn and the Zurich James Joyce Foundation. David Spurr is another prominent Joycean in the SAUTE network, and there are several early career Joyce scholars in Switzerland, including Alberto Tondello, Michelle Witen and Sangam MacDuff. Joyce is also taught widely across Switzerland, at both university and high school level, with reading groups in Zurich, Geneva, and Lausanne.
After Fritz Senn’s talk on the history of Joyce studies in Switzerland, we will hand over to students, teachers and readers of Joyce for a series of readings, dramatic sketches and songs from Ulysses. We will conclude the evening with a live concert from Tale of the Gael, with a Ulysses-inspired apéro to celebrate the occasion.
