The Antwerp James Joyce Centre was founded at the University of Antwerp in 1991, with two main objectives. On the one hand, we are interested in all aspects of the study of Joyce's work, specifically from a genetic point of view, and have established close working relationships with many Joyce centres and individual scholars across the world. On the other hand, closer to home, we try to increase awareness of and generate enthusiasm for Joyce's work in the Dutch-speaking world.

Academic Projects

The main long-term project of our genetic component is a new, fully integrated and cross-referenced edition of The Finnegans Wake Notebooks at Buffalo, edited by Geert Lernout, Vincent Deane, and Daniel Ferrer. The first volume was published by Brepols in the Summer of 2001. Another major international project was a book on the (critical) reception of Joyce's work in European literatures, in cooperation with the School of Advanced Study at the University of London, edited by Geert Lernout and Wim Van Mierlo and published by Continuum Press in 2002. Both projects have received very favourably reviews. Geert Lernout is also working on a book about Joyce's cooperation with others in writing and on a book about Joyce and religion.
     Dirk Van Hulle has published a book on the role of Joyce's (and other modernists') works in the history of editing with the University of Michigan and he has written several articles and a book in Dutch on genetic literary theory and manuscript study in general. He recently completed a book on manuscripts genetics and the writing methods of James Joyce and Samuel Beckett.
     The Joyce Center has also been a clearing house for young academics. Wim Van Mierlo moved from Antwerp to get his doctorate at the University of Miami: he is currently working for the School of English Studies at the University of London. Inge Landuyt successfully defended a dissertation in Antwerp on Joyce's early work on Finnegans Wake. Sam Slote wrote part of his dissertation on the poetics of silence in Dante, Mallarmé, and Joyce at the Center, graciously designing the first version of its website and compiling a bibliography of genetic Joyce studies in the meantime: Bibliography of Genetic Joyce. He now lectures in Joyce and literary theory at Trinity College, Dublin.
     Gert Morreel defended his dissertation on (fictional and non-fictional) encyclopedic projects between the two world wars in 2006 and he is currently doing post-graduate work at the University of Antwerp. Katrien Van Herbruggen created an electronic time-line for the early history of Finnegans Wake, with a detailed account of Joyce's work on the Buffalo Notebooks.

Over the years several young Joyce critics have come from England and the United States to spend periods of up to two years at the Centre: Andrew Treip, Sam Slote, Chris Eagle, Robert Fulton.

Conferences

     The Joyce Centre has organized several conferences on genetic Joyce studies and coordinated quite a number of sessions at Joyce symposiums: the most important conferences were "Genitricksling Joyce" (May 1997), the proceedings of which were published by Rodopi in 1999, and  "Genetic Networks" (December 1998). In March 2001, we hosted two more: "James Joyce in European literatures" (March 26, 27) featured contributors to a book on the reception of Joyce in Europe. "Genetic Joyce Studies" gathered many of the genetic critics working on Joyce's notebooks, some of whom will demonstrated new electronic means of presenting the complex genetic circuitry of Joyce's work.

Joyce in Belgium and the Netherlands

The second important task of the Joyce Centre is to spread the word about Joyce in the Dutch-speaking world. We keep our eyes open for Joyce-sightings in our own backyard and offer advice to translators, to people working with Joyce on stage or in music, and to anyone else who needs our help. Geert Lernout translated Exiles for the Kaaitheater in 1993 and we have a close working relationship with the Dutch tranlators of Finnegans Wake, Robert-Jan Henkes and Erik Bindervoet, who published the fruits of their titanic labor in 2004, with Querido. The Centre also organizes lectures on Joyce's work and its members publish articles in Dutch, in both the popular and academic press.
     To keep Joyceans in Belgium and The Netherlands informed about our activities, we used to publish a newsletter in Dutch, the Gnantwerp Gazette, named after a passage in Richard Ellmann's biography on Joyce's stay in Antwerp: "He went on with his family to Antwerp, which he renamed Gnantwerp, because of the mosquitoes."
 

Volunteers

The James Joyce Centre could not do what it does without the enthusiastic help of students and other volunteers. The most tireless of our non-academic contributors has been Liesbeth van Gool, who hosted a Finnegans Wake reading group in Antwerp and who has talked about Joyce's work on national radio.
     In addition, the Centre can count on assistance from students at the University of Antwerp, who help us to transcribe materials and enter electronic data, both during the academic year and in intensive summer projects.