Reading James Joyce: Life, Place, Fiction

Explore Joyce: Portrait of the Artist, Dubliners, Ulysses, and Finnegans Wake

James Joyce was an iconic figure in international modernist literature, renowned for his formal and linguistic experimentation.

On this three-week course from the University of York, explore the works of James Joyce, from his early fiction to his later modernist masterpieces. Along the way, you’ll consider Joyce’s work alongside literary, social and ethical concepts, and the controversies his writing generated.

You’ll read alongside our team of expert academics, who’ll guide you through important moments in Joyce’s work and help to develop an understanding of Joyce in his historical and literary contexts.

Examine James Joyce’s life and most well-known works

Begin this course by examining Joyce as a young man, exploring Joyce’s early life, his influences, and the contexts from which his writing emerged. You’ll also review Joyce’s short story collection, Dubliners, and semi-autobiographical work, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.

Dissect Joyce’s experimentalist approach and influence on modern culture

Explore Joyce’s more experimental works; first, his modernist masterpiece Ulysses, and then, the multilingual achievement, Finnegans Wake.

Along the way, think about Joycean forms, including the short story, Bildungsroman, comedy, epic, and dream writing, as well as Joycean themes, such as religion, colonialism, gender, race and revolution.

Grasp challenging concepts with literary experts

Throughout this course, you’ll feel supported by the University of York’s team of literary experts, specialists in Irish fiction, poetry, and drama.

You’ll also join an international cohort of like-minded learners and readers, offering new perspectives and insights into Joyce’s works.

This course is designed for enthusiastic readers and learners of 20th-century Irish literature. No matter if you’ve read a James Joyce novel before or are exploring his work for the first time, this course will help you break down complex texts with ease.

• Early Joyce
• Welcome
• Joyce's Early Forms
• Joyce and Autobiography
• Joyce and Catholic Ireland
• Joyce and Music
• Looking Back and Looking Ahead
• Joyce and Ulysses
• Welcome Back
• Joyce and Homer: Sons and Fathers
• Israel-Ireland
• Ulysses and Popular Culture
• A Comic Novel
• Looking Back and Looking Ahead (again)
• Joyce: The Modernist Monster
• Welcome back for our final week
• Joyce writing women from Ulysses to the Wake
• Joyce, Beckett, Paris
• Disability, Madness, Lucia Joyce
• Translingual Joyce
• The Final Curtain