“Caliban’s Mirror”: The 2022 Wilde and Joyce Symposium

 In June 1906, James Joyce wrote to his publisher Grant Richards, who suggested changes to Dubliners for mitigating the text’s supposed ‘indecency’, “I seriously believe that you will retard the course of civilization in Ireland by preventing the Irish people from having one good look at themselves in my nicely polished looking-glass.” Joyce’s metaphor recalls the popular Wildean aphorism, first published in the preface to The Picture of Dorian Gray: “The nineteenth century dislike of Realism is the rage of Caliban at seeing his own face in a glass. The nineteenth century dislike of Romanticism is the rage of Caliban not seeing his own face in a glass.” From Caliban’s mirror in “Caliban’s Mirror”: The 2022 Wilde and Joyce Symposium will be held May 5-7, 2022 at Trinity College Dublin’s Long Room Hub. The three-day in-person conference will host speakers that bring these two Irish writers together in innovative ways. to Stephen Dedalus’s “cracked lookingglass of a servant” in Ulysses and everything in between, Oscar Wilde and James Joyce, both voluntary exiles from Ireland, are reflections of each other, of Dublin, and of a particular moment in Irish writing and history. Separately, they are two of the best-known writers to come out of Ireland; together, they paint a portrait of Ireland’s literary history and influence generations of writers to come.

“Caliban’s Mirror”: The 2022 Wilde and Joyce Symposium will be held 5-7 May 2022 at Trinity College Dublin’s Long Room Hub.

Never before has there been an academic conference on the relationship between these two Irish writers. Perhaps even more startling is the knowledge that there has never been an edited collection of essays on Joyce and Wilde. Dozens of volumes Joyce Studies appear every year, many of which are ‘Joyce and ____’ books; we’ve seen Beckett and Joyce, Shaw and Joyce, Derrida and Joyce, Joyce and Aquinas, Joyce and Lacan, Joyce et Mallarmé, Vico and Joyce, Joyce and Jung, Virgil and Joyce, Joyce/Shakespeare, Joyce/Foucault, Re: Joyce’n Beckett… the list goes on. So why not Joyce and Wilde? It is our intention to publish a selection of papers from this symposium in order to fill this obvious gap.

The three-day in-person conference will host speakers that bring these two Irish writers together in innovative ways. Keynote Speaker Margot G. Backus will be discussing state removal of children as punishment for political/artistic dissent and how the threat of losing custody of their children impacted Wilde and Joyce, both personally and professionally. We are excited to be able to include a special interview with playwright Frank McGuinness on the program as well.

Registration opens 2 2/22. Fee of €30 (€15 concession fee for non-EU students, unwaged ECRs, and those in financial hardship). The registration fee will include access to the full three-day academic program, small refreshments (coffee/tea), and a wine reception, as well as a complimentary ticket to a local museum.