Professor Anne Fogarty – In the spirit of James Joyce
“Joyce… can distil from everything around him a new spirit of optimism. A kind of radical vision.”
One of the BA groups heard an account of UCD alumnus James Joyce as a graduating student. In her address, Professor Anne Fogarty shared with graduates and their families an insight into a student whose learning continued outside of the conventional classroom, and who faced at his graduation an uncertain world.
Professor Fogarty feels that the vision of UCD founding rector Cardinal John Henry Newman helped Joyce to flourish, “In his very famous treatise about the Idea of a University, he [Newman] told people studying at the university that he hoped that they would come to UCD not merely to be taught but, as he said, to learn… He told them also that they should not just listen to the lectures, but make their own of them.”
Anne Fogarty is Professor of James Joyce Studies in the UCD School of English, Drama & Film, and President of the International James Joyce Foundation. She is Director of the UCD James Joyce Research Centre and editor of the Irish University Review. With Luca Crispi she is editor of the newly founded Dublin James Joyce Journal, a co-publication with the National Library of Ireland which was launched in Autumn 2008.
Hear Professor Fogarty’s Scholarcast on James Joyce and Popular Culture.