Finnegans Wake Reading Group [REGISTRATION CLOSED]

Registration

• This Reading Group is full and registration is now closed. Please contact [email protected] to be added to our wait list, or register for a different Reading Group.
• Tuition for this reading group is $450.
• Rosenbach members at the Contributor level and above will receive a 10% discount on tuition.
• Not a member? We invite you to join upon registration. Click here for more information about membership.

Description

Once James Joyce had finished Ulysses, he embarked on “Work in Progress,” the project that would occupy him for the remaining seventeen years of his writing life. Finally titled Finnegans Wake when it was published in 1939, the book has since been recognized as the most challenging, inventive, playful, polyglot book of the twentieth century. It’s like nothing else you’ve ever read, a gorgeous and alien “collideorscape” of punning coinages drawn from many languages. The Wake also marries micro with macro. It’s the story of a single night but also a “meanderthalltale” of all human history—the story of the Earwickers, a family of Dublin pub keepers, but also of all of us. The best way to encounter it is with a group of others willing to enter the dream logic of Joyce’s epic of the night. Come join us for the read of a lifetime!

Syllabus

Finnegans Wake Syllabus

October 8 Supplemental Reading

About the Instructor

Paul K. Saint-Amour is a Professor of English at the University of Pennsylvania. He works on Victorian and modernist literature and has special interests in the novel, law, trauma, visual culture, and sound studies. A few years ago, Saint-Amour chaired a fact-finding panel initiated by the International James Joyce Foundation (IJJF) to study the permissions history and criteria of the Estate of James Joyce and the general problem of scholarly fair use. The panel produced a detailed FAQ, “James Joyce: Copyright, Fair Use, and Permissions.” Saint-Amour is currently a trustee of the IJJF. He was previously an instructor for the Rosenbach’s Ulysses Reading Group.

In the event of inclement weather, the Rosenbach will announce any closures on rosenbach.org. Please call 215-732-1600 x0 if you have questions about program status.