Mark Schenker of Yale College will present three lecture-discussions on James Joyce. Entitled “Longest way round is the shortest way home”: A 3-part Series on How to Read James Joyce, the sessions will be held on three successive Saturday afternoons from 3-4:30 p.m. on Sept. 28, Oct. 5, and Oct 12.
Schenker will discuss how to appreciate Joyce’s own method of detouring—of using indirection to find direction—in the writer’s presentation of the extraordinarily rich dimensions of everyday life. With an overview of Joyce’s method in Dubliners (1914) and A Portrait of The Artist as a Young Man (1916) as a foundation, Schenker will give close attention to 'The Dead' and provide a brief introduction to how the method is extended in Ulysses. Over the course of the three sessions, participants will gain an appreciation of how Joyce’s symbolical realism enables us to see both what is present and what is hidden in the author’s texts.
Each lecture will be followed by a Q&A session. Wine and cheese will be served afterwards for those who wish to stay for refreshment and further discussion.
Participants are strongly encouraged to read the 15 short stories in Dubliners, but at the very least the last story in the volume, 'The Dead.'
Mark J. Schenker has been at Yale College since 1990 and is currently a senior associate dean of the College and Dean of Academic Affairs. A former lecturer in the English Department at Yale, he received his Ph.D. from Columbia University with a concentration in 19th-century and early 20th-century English literature. For over 30 years, Dean Schenker has lectured on literature and film and has led book discussion series in more than 100 venues in Connecticut, including public libraries and retirement communities, museums and cultural centers. For a decade he presented programming at public libraries in association with the annual summer productions by the Shakespeare on the Sound theater company located in Fairfield County, and since 2007 he has conducted Literature and Medicine Programs to health care providers at Connecticut hospitals. His affiliation with the Florence Griswold Museum (Old Lyme) has resulted in over 100 sessions there on literature, film and the visual arts.