For Whom Is the Russian Joyce?: Alternative Receptions of James Joyce in Russia(n)

Join the Theorizing Colloquium Series in welcoming Dr. José Vergara, an associate professor of Russian at the Bryn Mawr College and the author of All Future Plunges to the Past: James Joyce in Russian Literature (Cornell University Press, 2021). The story of James Joyce’s presence in Russian literature has often been told as a tale of literary influence long disrupted by Soviet power, though ultimately incorporated into the tradition. But who is left out of such a history? Beyond serving as a modernist icon for predominantly male writers, how else has Joyce impacted Russophone letters? During his visit to U Penn, Dr. Vergara will explore how Joyce’s iconoclastic approaches to parenthood, gender, and exile have yielded equally significant responses from a mother who lost a son to the Gulag, a group of lesbian writers, and a Ukrainian refugee.