Rejoicing For Joyce, Among Others

Irish writer James Joyce likely would have been restricted by a 140-character tweet, but that hasn’t stopped the University of Victoria’s Modernist Versions Project (MVP) from opening up his and other modernist works in pioneering digital form. The MVP celebrates its launch on June 15 on the eve of Bloomsday, the annual celebration of Joyce and his eponymous novel Ulysses.

The MVP digitizes the texts and provides links as well as drill-down options and other interactive analysis in a “first of its kind” for digital humanities studies. Next Friday’s event is a landmark moment for 20th century literature studies and is possible in Canada (but not south of the border) due to this country’s copyright legislation.

The event will kick off a Year of Ulysses (#yearofulysses), which includes a year-month visual arts contest and an open invitation to readers to take a year and read the novel, with a chapter at a time being released online.

Related photo contest: http://www.facebook.com/events/415964535091177/.

This week, UVic is also hosting the 10th annual summer institute for digital humanities. Visit www.dhsi.org or #DHSI2012 on Twitter.

The MVP recently received a SSHRC partnership development grant in the amount of $200,000 over three years, in addition to over $2 million in existing support from the official partners of the MVP. More info: http://web.uvic.ca/~mvp1922/team/.

     What: “Year of Ulysses” – The Launch of UVic’s Modernist Versions Project
     When: Friday, June 15 at 9 p.m.
     Where: Peacock Billiards (formerly the James Joyce Bistro), 834 Johnson St.

The bistro was initially launched five years ago with interior design and artwork by renowned artist and Joyce devotee Robert Amos including hand-painted tables with text from Finnegans Wake as well as stylized versions of quotes from Ulysses.

All are welcome to attend for lively conversation, short speechifying and a presentation of the MVP website plus a new Bloomsday release.

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