We are pleased to announce that Valérie Bénéjam (Nantes Université) will be third speaker in our new Online Lecture Series.
Valérie Bénéjam’s lecture “Joyce and the Easiest Prejudice” will take place on Friday, December 4, 2026, at 6.30 p.m. Zurich time.
After the German invasion of France, and while Joyce was trying to be admitted in Switzerland with his family, he told Maria Jolas that anti-Semitism was, “of all prejudices, the easiest to foment.” In this talk, I would like to reconsider Joyce’s relation to this prejudice, and the response he brought to it in his books. As anti-Semitism is being debated so heatedly today, it seems timely to go back to the interwar period that saw such rise in anti-Jewish hatred in Europe, as well as the publication of a book that provocatively chose to rewrite the most canonical work of European culture around a Jewish Odysseus.
Contact us at info@joycefoundation.ch if you’d like to join the event!
The Zurich James Joyce Foundation Online Lecture Series is kindly supported by the Embassy of Ireland, Switzerland.
