Curator’s Introduction: Women and the Making of Joyce’s Ulysses
Marking the moment when James Joyce’s “Ulysses” turns 100, Dr. Clare Hutton introduces some of the key ideas, objects, and people featured in the Ransom Center’s centenary exhibition “Women and the Making of Joyce’s Ulysses.” This landmark work of literary modernism owes a considerable debt to the silent behind-the-scenes labour of three gay American women: Margaret Anderson, Sylvia Beach, and Jane Heap as well as that of British publisher Harriet Shaw Weaver. What did these women do to facilitate the making of the work? What actually happened on February 2, 1922? Who were the first readers of Ulysses? How did they obtain their copies and what did they make of the book?
[32 minutes, 2 February 2022]
Finding Miss Weaver: James Joyce and the Patron of Ulysses
Harriet Shaw Weaver (1876–1961) was a noted feminist and littérateur who became associated with Joyce in 1914 when she serialised his work in The Egoist magazine. Independently wealthy, within a few years she began giving Joyce significant financial support in order to complete Ulysses. She also typed and checked manuscripts, undertook to become his publisher in England, and gave other practical assistance, particularly in respect of his health and the support of his family. Without Weaver’s support, Ulysses might never have seen the light of day. Weaver’s papers are held at the British Library, and are one of the world’s most important Joyce archives. The materials document the emotionally and financially complicated relationship behind Ulysses. This talk by Dr Clare Hutton looks at some of the key objects in the archive and sheds new light on Weaver and the making of Ulysses.
[43 minutes, 10 March 2022]
James Joyce and Us: Anne Enright and Eimear McBride in conversation
Two of Ireland’s finest writers, Anne Enright and Eimear McBride come together to share thoughts and feelings on the great modernist masterpiece of literature, James Joyce’s Ulysses, now celebrating its 100th anniversary. Chaired by Dr Clare Hutton. They discuss what Joyce has done for them and for all of us: for women, for Ireland and the wider world. How Ulysses is a book both about the life of the mind and life lived in the mind; how it allowed language to flow and liberated the scope of literature, and how its honesty and provocation have played out over the century.
[120 mins, 24 March 2022]
“a gaud of amber beads” — Ulysses, Feminism, and Biography
Delve into the intellectual context surrounding the Ransom Center’s centenary exhibition Women and the Making of Joyce’s Ulysses in this talk by curator Dr. Clare Hutton, Reader in English and Digital Humanities at Loughborough University. One hundred years after the publication of James Joyce’s Ulysses in Paris triumphed as both cause célèbre and succès de scandale, the field of Joycean literary criticism thrives. But the field of Joycean biography is in sore need of revision. This lecture probes the correlations between biography, feminism, and the act of interpretation. Ulysses encourages biographical readings, but Joyce tended to downplay the significant role which women played in enabling him to realize his ambition. Learn more about key objects in the exhibition as Hutton suggests some revisions to existing views of figures such as Harriet Shaw Weaver, Sylvia Beach, Margaret Anderson, Jane Heap, May Joyce, Josephine Murray, and Nora Barnacle.
[50 minutes 16 June 2022]