University at Buffalo - The State University of New York

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  Read about the UB Libraries' exhibition of material from its Joyce collection.

By PATRICIA DONOVAN

Published: May 13, 2009

Although his work and life are alive and well in Buffalo every year, 2009 will be a very big one for Irish novelist James Joyce and his legion of fans throughout Western New York.

In June, international attention will be focused on Buffalo’s Joyce scholars; Irish literature and drama; Joyce’s life in Dublin, Trieste, Zurich and Paris; and the extraordinary collection of Joyce’s papers, manuscripts, drafts, page proofs and personal belongings—including eyeglasses, canes and family portraits—held in UB’S Poetry Collection, the largest such collection in the world.

“Eire on Erie,” the North American James Joyce Conference, will be held here for the first time June 12-17, facilitated by a $30,000 grant from the John R. Oishei Foundation and support from UB, the UB Libraries Special Collections and Buffalo State College.

The biannual conference is held in cities with a university or college that, like UB, has a special interest in hosting Joyce scholars. In recent years, they have included the University of California, both Berkeley and Irvine; the University of Texas-Austin; Cornell University; and the University of Tulsa. In even-numbered years, an International James Joyce Symposium is held in major European cities.

The Buffalo event will include readings, films, lectures, receptions, a banquet, a library exhibition, a Bloomsday celebration that is open to the public, and guests from here and abroad.

The conference and its offshoots have involved efforts by more than 20 co-sponsoring or supporting regional institutions working collaboratively for many months to organize what they hope will be a particularly spectacular conference.

The conference will be coordinated with Buffalo’s popular annual Bloomsday celebration. Bloomsday, June 16, celebrates the day in 1904 when James Joyce’s masterwork, “Ulysses,” takes place; Bloomsday scholars, actors and members of the community present performances and readings from the novel.

Accordingly, the event has two chairs, befitting this collaborative emphasis. They are Mark Shechner, UB professor of English, and Laurence Shine, lecturer in English at Buffalo State and organizer of Buffalo’s annual Bloomsday celebration.

Shechner and Shine are working closely with UB librarians Nancy Nuzzo and Michael Basinski, curator of the university’s Poetry Collection, and say that in addition to 250 Joyce scholars, they expect between 500 and 800 members of the public to gather downtown for the Buffalo Bloomsday celebration.

Shechner says conference events will be held primarily in the Hyatt Regency Buffalo downtown, with its proximity to restaurants, bars and cafés.

On the evening of June 13, the UB Libraries will host an opening for the Joyce scholars of the exhibition of its Joyce collection in the UB Anderson Gallery. It will be the largest exhibition of the Buffalo Joyce collection ever mounted. A national tour of the exhibit is being planned for later in the year.

On June 15, the conference will move uptown for a day to the new Burchfield Penney Art Center and the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, which will host an afternoon reception for the visiting Joyce scholars.

On June 12 and 13, the conference will feature two free public readings by award-winning Irish-born fiction writer Colum McCann, whose novels include “This Side of Brightness,” “Dancer” and “Zoli.”

The June 12 event, in collaboration with riverrun productions and Gusto at the Gallery, will feature a screening of Gary McKendry’s 2004 film “Everything in This Country Must,” written by McCann and based on one of his critically acclaimed short stories. McKendry was nominated for an Oscar for the film and received several international festival awards for his direction.

Additional program information will be posted as it becomes available.

“This entire effort is designed to demonstrate Buffalo’s rich cultural heritage,” Shechner says. “It will coincide with the Allentown Art Festival, and the visiting scholars will have ample opportunity to meander through the festival, see the Olmsted park system, visit our museums and galleries, see the waterfront, visit our restaurants and bars, and tour our architectural highlights. Walking tours of the city are being planned, as well as a bus trip to Niagara Falls.”