"Joyce and the East" 2026 Suzhou James Joyce Symposium
Literature is born of its time. The period around Irish independence and the turmoil that preceded it was the fertile ground on which James Joyce, George Bernard Shaw, William Butler Yeats and many others flourished. Similarly, the turn of the last century up to the 1920s saw brilliant writers such as Lu Xun, Ba Jin, Mao Dun and many others emerge in China. But great literature also transcends its time and has universal appeal. James Joyce, the Irish writer and one of the most significant English-speaking authors of the 20th century, still exerts a profound influence on contemporary writers to this day. While James Joyce drew inspiration from his surroundings and the particular cadence of Irish culture and speech, his genius is universal.
In 2025, the Chinese translation of Joyce's last work, Finnegans Wake, generated a huge response. Following this event, the Institute of Global Humanities at Nanjing University and Yilin Press will jointly host the "2026 Suzhou International James Joyce Symposium" on 6 June, 2026 at Nanjing University, Suzhou campus, with the hope of strengthening exchanges with Joyce researchers at home and abroad, deepening the understanding of Joyce and contemporary Western literature, and thereby further promoting the dialogue between Chinese literature and contemporary Western literature.
The topic of this symposium is "Joyce and the East". Participants are expected to write papers around this theme. The symposium will consist of four panels, namely "Eastern and Western Cultures in Joyce's Works", "Joyce in the East", "Joyce and Contemporary Literature", and "Studies on Finnegans Wake". We hope to explore effective ways of cultural exchange between the East and the West through Joyce's works.
No registration fee will be charged. Participants are responsible for covering their own expenses.
Please click the attachment (at the bottom of this page in the square brackets) to download the reply slip, fill it out and and send it to [email protected] before 6 April, 2026. We welcome papers on this theme, but also high-quality papers related to Joyce in general.
Institute of Global Humanities, Nanjing University
Yilin Pres
