Morris Beja

This series of books offers accounts of the literary careers of widely read British and Irish authors. Volumes follow the outline of the writers' working lives tracing the professional, publishing and social contexts which shaped their writing. This book is about the Irish author James Joyce.

Not Even Past: A History of the Department of English, The Ohio State University, 1870-2000 provides a thorough and fascinating institutional history of a program central to the mission of the university and a history of an entire complex discipline. OSU's Department of English is one of the largest and most prominent in the US and, in fact, the world. Inevitably, then, a study of that department entails an account of the role of English and American literature in higher education from the nineteenth century to modern and contemporary times; an exploration of the expanding role of the modern "English" department and discipline; the role-or, at times, the lack of a significant role-of women and minorities within the department; and the careers and accomplishments of numerous prominent critics, scholars, and creative writers-including, for example, James Thurber and his work with a number of OSU faculty. Due attention is paid to the controversies and troubles of the late 1960s and the shutdown of the university in 1970. In addition to the two major authors, ten experts provide extended sections on the history of their own fields. The result is both comprehensive and deeply felt.

June 16, 2004, was the one hundredth anniversary of Bloomsday, the day that James Joyce's novel ""Ulysses"" takes place. To celebrate the occasion, thousands took to the streets in Dublin, following in the footsteps of protagonist Leopold Bloom. The event also was marked by the Bloomsday 100 Symposium, where world-renowned scholars discussed Joyce's seminal work. This volume contains the best, most provocative readings of ""Ulysses"" presented at the conference. The contributors to this volume urge a close engagement with the novel. They offer readings that focus variously on the materialist, historical, and political dimensions of Ulysses. The diversity of topics covered include nineteenth-century psychology, military history, Catholic theology, the influence of early film and music hall songs on Joyce, the post-Ulysses evolution of the one-day novel, and the challenge of discussing such a complex work amongst the sea of extant criticism.