To celebrate the 100-year anniversary of James Joyce’s Ulysses, MML Co-Director J. Andrew Armacost and recent Core Faculty Affiliate Helen Solterer have curated a pop-up exhibit on the collection of Joyce’s writing available at the Rubenstein Rare Book and Manuscript Library. Those interested can browse the exhibit in the Hubbard Case at Perkin’s Library Lobby; the exhibit is planned to show from January 28 to February 28, 2022. Their efforts will culminate in a February 8, 2022 event at the Carpenter Conference Room (RL 249), from 12:00 – 1:30 PM, where all with DukeCard access are welcome. The Lab is happy to publish on efforts like this, endeavors which highlight the amazing works which have traveled across an ocean to wind up in the Rubenstein’s collection and demonstrate the importance of preserving and sharing the personal lives touched by literary texts. An inscription from the margins of a Joyce in the Solterer-Curran Collection reads “A happy New Year to you and Yours from us both” signed James Joyce. Content like this emphasizes that the lives of authors to great manuscripts, even when printed, cannot escape the context of their production. The Lab is extremely grateful to Andy and Helen’s curatorial efforts, and is excited to see where an expansive consideration of the manuscripts which migrate takes it.
Read more about the Solterer-Curran Collection, and the process of these texts’ migration from Ireland and the University College Dublin, here. Of particular interest, Core Faculty Associate and Professor of French and Francophone Studies in the Department of Romance Studies at Duke University, Helen Solterer writes “[t]oday, I like to imagine readers discovering these letters, enjoying new insights, as I do with students in other library collections from Durham, North Carolina to Paris. Opening up family archives offers more than public access to data. It’s an invitation to meet new people in old things released from decades of cold storage. It’s also a good challenge to recognise different sides of those people you thought you knew inside out. That’s why I believe history – and family history – is always worth rewriting. What emerges is open-ended.” How delightful to think of the students who must migrate to study certain manuscripts held in particular special collections libraries! The Lab is thankful to have Professor Solterer on the Team.
Link, Rubenstein Library website, “ReJoyce” exhibit:
https://library.duke.edu/content/rejoyce-2022.
Manuscript pictured: Lucia Joyce’s lettrines in A Chaucer ABC; location TBA.