Lecture by Robert Spoo on “James Joyce’s Ulysses in New York”
September 27 @ 4:30 pm - 6:00 pm
Free“James Joyce’s Ulysses in New York: A Counterfactual View from Fifth Avenue”
James Joyce’s Ulysses was famously first published as a book in 1922 in Paris, France, by the American bookseller Sylvia Beach (who had lived in Princeton as a young woman and is buried here). The centenary of this momentous literary event has recently been celebrated throughout the world. But what if Ulysses the book had first been published, not in Paris, but in New York, New York? After all, it came close to happening just that way. The history of Ulysses—and of New York’s role in modernist literature—would have been vastly different had Joyce’s masterpiece debuted from Fifth Avenue or West 40th Street rather than the rue de l’Odéon in Paris.
This talk by Robert Spoo, Princeton’s Leonard L. Milberg ’53 Professor in Irish Letters, will perform the thought experiment of substituting New York for Paris as the birthplace of the unexpurgated Ulysses. Along the way, a lively cast of characters will take the stage: lavish patrons, overworked lawyers, timid and courageous publishers, a shameless literary pirate, censors and smuthounds, and the famous Irish author himself. Spoo co-chairs the 2024-25 Fund for Irish Studies Series with Jane Cox, Director of the Program in Theater & Music Theater in the Lewis Center.
About Robert Spoo
Robert Spoo is the Leonard L. Milberg ’53 Professor in Irish Letters at Princeton University. Previously, he held an endowed chair in Law at the University of Tulsa, where he was also Professor of English and edited the James Joyce Quarterly. He earned his Ph.D. in English at Princeton and his J.D. from Yale Law School. Spoo’s research and teaching merge interdisciplinary interests in literature, law, and theories of intellectual property and the public domain. His writing focuses on modern Irish figures, notably James Joyce and Oscar Wilde, and he is actively involved in the law-and-literature movement within modernist studies. Pairing his academic career with work as a practicing lawyer, he has assisted scholars, writers, and creative artists with the challenges of copyright and fair use and served as co-counsel in a groundbreaking lawsuit to free scholars from unwarranted copyright threats by the Estate of James Joyce. His books include James Joyce and the Language of History: Dedalus’s Nightmare (Oxford University Press, 1994); Without Copyrights: Piracy, Publishing, and the Public Domain (Oxford University Press, 2013); Modernism and the Law (Bloomsbury Academic, 2018); and (with Omar Pound) Ezra Pound and Margaret Cravens: A Tragic Friendship, 1910-1912 (Duke University Press, 1988) and Ezra and Dorothy Pound: Letters in Captivity, 1945-1946 (Oxford University Press, 1999). Spoo is the recipient of numerous awards and fellowships, including a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship for 2016-2017; a Law and Public Affairs (LAPA) Fellowship at Princeton for 2020-2021; and an Oklahoma Center for the Humanities Fellowship for 2022-2023.
Admission & Details
The lecture is free and open to the public; no advance tickets or registration required.
Directions
Get directions to the James Stewart Film Theater, located on the first floor at 185 Nassau Street.
Accessibility
The James Stewart Film Theater is an accessible venue. Visit our Venues and Studios section for accessibility information at our various locations. Guests in need of access accommodations are invited to contact the Lewis Center at 609-258-5262 or email LewisCenter@princeton.edu at least one week in advance of the event date.
