Two New Books About James Joyce and the Law

Colm Toíbín reviews two new books about James Joyce and the law, Joyce in Court (Head of Zeus), and The Ulysses Trials: Beauty and Truth Meet the Law (Liliput), for The Guardian. 

A New Book On Joyce and Law From Adrian Hardiman (Head of Zeus Books) @JJ_Gazette @HoZ_Books

Just published by Head of Zeus Books: Adrian Hardiman, Joyce in Court (2016). Here from the publisher's website is a description of the book's contents.

Books about the work of James Joyce are an academic industry. Most of them are unreadable and esoteric. Adrian Hardiman's book is both highly readable and strikingly original. He spent years researching Joyce's obsession with the legal system, and the myriad references to notorious trials in Ulysses and Finnegans Wake. Joyce was fascinated by and felt passionately about miscarriages of justice, and his view of the law was coloured by the potential for grave injustice when policemen and judges are given too much power. Hardiman recreates the colourful, dangerous world of the Edwardian courtrooms of Dublin and London, where the death penalty loomed over many trials. He brings to life the eccentric barristers, corrupt police and omnipotent judges who made the law so entertaining and so horrifying. This is a remarkable evocation of a vanished world, though Joyce's scepticism about the way evidence is used in criminal trials is still highly relevant.

The late Adrian Hardiman was a judge of the Irish Supreme Court. He died in 2016.

James Joyce and Law: Some Readings

It's Bloomsday! Here are some references on the topic of James Joyce and the law.

On James Joyce and censorship:

A. Craig, The Banned Books of England and Other Countries: A Study of the Conception of Literary Obscenity (Allen & Unwin, 1962).

Paul Vanderham: James Joyce and Censorship: The Trials of Ulysses (Macmillan Press, 1998).

On copyright:

Robert Spoo, Copyright Protectionism and Its Discontents: The Case of James Joyce's "Ulysses" in America, 108 Yale L.J. 633-667 (1998).

Robert Spoo, Without Copyrights: Piracy, Publishing, and the Public Domain (Oxford, 2013) (Modernist Literature and Culture). Chapters 4-6.

On James Joyce and law generally:

Adrian Hardiman, Joyce in Court (Head of Zeus, 2016).

Joseph Valente, James Joyce and the Problem of Justice: Negotiating Sexual and Colonial Difference (Cambridge University Press, 1995).


Tips of the beret to @JJ_Gazette.

Randazza on Ulysses as a Hero in the Fight for Freedom of Expression

Marc J. Randazza  @marcorandazza, Randazza Legal Group, World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), and Università di Torino Faculty of Law, is publishing Ulysses: A Mighty Hero in the Fight for Freedom of Expression in volume 11 of the University of Massachusetts Law Review (2016). Here is the abstract.

My high school teacher unceremoniously dropped Dubliners on our desks and insisted that we read it, or we would not pass the class, would not graduate, and would then never amount to anything. I resisted, finding no interest whatsoever, instead (most ironically) preferring to bury my nose into the works of Anthony Burgess. The irony lies in the fact that while I might have found Burgess more appealing to my teenage punk-rock nature, Burgess himself may have been the greatest Joyce fan in history. He so adored Ulysses that he smuggled a copy in to England, where it was banned at the time, by literally clothing himself in it — "As a schoolboy I sneaked the two-volume Odyssey Press edition into England, cut up into sections and distributed all over my body." That is what I call dedication. It was not until many years later, while I was working on a fishing boat off the coast of Alaska that Joyce took me captive. With no modern communication on the boat, I was left with two categories of reading materials — a collection of 3D pornographic comic books and the works of James Joyce. After devouring the comic books, I reluctantly picked up Joyce. I did manage to graduate from high school without reading Joyce, but at that moment, I regretted having done so. Years later, as a First Amendment attorney, I then realized that a large portion of what we consider to be modern freedom of expression would not be with us, but for Joyce's masterpiece. This article might not be more interesting than 3D Pornographic comic books to some, but with any luck the right people will put down the red and blue glasses and read it. If you're still reading this abstract, you are probably one of the right people.

Download the article from SSRN at the link. Hmmm. That particular type of comic book has never held any appeal for me, and I've always found James Joyce a hard slog, but, okay, I'll give him another try.

Spoo on Piracy, Publishing, and Copyright

Now in paperback:

Robert Spoo: Without Copyrights: Piracy, Publishing, and the Public Domain (Oxford University Press, 2016). 

• Provides a thorough historical survey of the impact of U.S. copyright law on transatlantic modernist authors
• Documents the growth and development across time of the American public domain, as shaped by the historically protectionist and formalistic U.S. copyright law
• Gives fresh insights drawn from unpublished materials-letters by Joyce, John Quinn, Ezra Pound, Sylvia Beach, John M. Price, and others-and makes extensive use of hitherto unknown legal archives

Robert Ferguson's New Book: Practice Extended

Robert Ferguson, Professor of Law, Columbia University, is publishing Practice Extended: Beyond Law and Literature (Columbia University Press, 2016). Here is a description of the book's contents from the publisher's website.

Practice Extended helps general readers navigate the intricacies of legal language and thought, strengthening their grasp on law's relationship to society and culture. The book details how judicial opinions are written, how legal thought and philosophy inform ideas, and how best to appreciate a courtroom novel. With chapters on immigration, eloquence, the Constitution, Ulysses, and mercy, Practice Extended is a far-ranging work on the importance of language in law and the interrelation of law and literature.

HT to Simon Stern @ArsScripta

James Joyce's Engagement With Nature In "Finnegans Wake"

Alison Lacivita, University of Southern Mississippi, has published The Ecology of Finnegans Wake (University Press of Florida, 2015) ( Florida James Joyce Series). Here is a description of the contents from the publisher's website.

In this book--one of the first ecocritical explorations of both Irish literature and modernism--Alison Lacivita defies the popular view of James Joyce as a thoroughly urban writer by bringing to light his consistent engagement with nature. Using genetic criticism to investigate Joyce's source texts, notebooks, and proofs, Lacivita shows how Joyce developed ecological themes in Finnegans Wake over successive drafts. Making apparent a love of growing things and a lively connection with the natural world across his texts, Lacivita's approach reveals Joyce's keen attention to the Irish landscape, meteorology, urban planning, Dublin's ecology, the exploitation of nature, and fertility and reproduction. Lacivita unearths a vital quality of Joyce's work that has largely gone undetected, decisively aligning ecocriticism with both modernism and Irish studies. 

 

More Bloomsday!

A lovely Bloomsday post from our friend Jose Calvo Gonzalez of the University of Malaga at his blog, Iurisdictio-Lex Malacitana. Lots of excellent Joyce and the law citations to peruse here!

Bloomsday!

It's Bloomsday! More here from the James Joyce Centre, here from the Rosenbach Museum and Library.
Selected Joyce and the Law Bibliography here.

Balsamo, Gian, Legitimate Filiation and Gender Segregation: Law and Fiction in Texts By Derrida, Hegel, Joyce, Pirandello, Vico (Dissertation, Vanderbilt University, 1994).
Bauerle, Ruth, Date Rape, Mate Rape: A Liturgical Interpretation of The Dead,, in New Alliances in Joyce Studies 113 (Bonnie K. Scott, ed., 1988).
Denvir, John "Deep Dialogue"--James Joyce's Contribution to American Constitutional Theory, 3 Cardozo Studies in Law and Literature 1 (1991).
In the Name of the Law: Marital Freedom and Justice in Exiles, 834/839 La Revue des Lettres Modernes 39 (1988).
Lowe-Evans, Mary, "The Commonest of all Cases: Birth Control on Trial In the Wake, 27 James Joyce Quarterly 803 (Summer 1990).
Lowe-Evans, Mary, The Mime Against Fecondité: Joyce Encodes the Code de la Famille, 37 (3/4) James Joyce Quarterly 509 (Spring/Summer 2000).
McMichael, James, Ulysses and Justice (1991).
Valente, Joseph, James Joyce and the Problem of Justice: Negotiating Sexual and Colonial Difference (1995).