Joyce Scholar From Dublin Visits Exeter

The annual Haley Lecture, held Tuesday night at Rockefeller Hall, featured Professor Anne Fogarty from University College Dublin. A scholar in the works of James Joyce, Fogarty gave a talk about the relevance of history and memory in The Dead, the final short story of James Joyce’s book Dubliners.The Haley Lecture, which is hosted by the English Department, was a required appointment for all English teachers and some students. Works by Joyce such as A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and Dubliners are currently being discussed by students in 320 and 420 English classes.Students found Fogarty’s lecture captivating because of her in depth analysis.“It felt like a sophisticated, college-level lecture,” upper Robert Connor said. “The speaker really brought to life the beauty of Joyce, and she did a great job putting Joyce's text into the most relevant Irish historical and cultural context.”Upper Marcos Dymond agreed and credited the lecture with helping him understand Joyce’s often complex writing. “I thought the firsthand knowledge and background history gave me great new insight into James Joyce’s “The Dead,” he said.English instructor Rebecca Moore commented on Fogarty’s ability to show students a very full example of how studying the history for the setting and the country can add more understanding when studying particular texts.“[Fogarty] pointed out specific historical events between the war of Protestants and the Catholics in Ireland and how those historical events helped to show Dublin as a city that was under colonial power and feeling oppressed,” Moore said.In addition to the lecture, Fogarty visited some upper English classes to answer questions and participate in students’ discussions of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.Fogarty was struck with Exonians’ ability to delve into the specifics of Joyce’s writing, which has traditionally been viewed as hard material to fully understand.“I was really impressed by the way group discussions work here—I’ve never seen the Harkness method live, but I’ve read descriptions of it,” she said.Moore felt her students can learn from Joyce’s unique writing style.“I think Joyce is one of those writers for whom we read the narrative voice, where it shifts from character to character. That very smooth transition between the points of view is very characteristic of Joyce,” she said.Fogarty started studying Joyce when she got a job at University College Dublin, where she was a head of the Joyce Summer camp.“I came to Joyce late, but I was lucky to learn about Joyce through the summer schools, which involve lots of workshops, seminars and lectures.”Students appreciated the English department’s decision to focus on Joyce’s works, as they found his writing style and content interesting. “His writing is really vivid and it almost always addresses cultural and political tension within Ireland,” upper Connor Bloom said.