Watch, Read, Listen

The Ridge Lecture in Literature featuring Ato Quayson
Ato Quayson, the Jean G. and Morris M. Doyle Professor in Interdisciplinary Studies and Professor of English at Stanford, discusses James Joyce’s use of physical space in Ulysses. Joyce’s Ulysses situates Leopold Bloom’s perambulations as the conduit for thinking about semi-imperial Dublin in the early 20th century. They also raise implications about the complex configurations of space and temporality in the wider Empire in the same period. This talk uses this spatially introverted and extroverted quality of Ulysses to rethink both formalist and Marxist theories of space for literary analysis in the 21st century, offering new readings of other postcolonial literary writers of urban spaces, such as Salman Rushdie (Midnight’s Children), Ayi Kwei Armah (The Beautyful [sic] Ones are not Yet Born), Naguib Mahfouz (Midaq Alley), and Toni Morrison (Jazz), among many others.

This video is part of the proceedings of the “Joycean Cartographies: Navigating a New Century of Ulysses” conference, which took place at The Huntington to mark the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the publication of Ulysses in February 2022.

This conference is co-hosted by the President’s office and by the Research Division of The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens in collaboration with the Library Division. We are grateful for additional support from the Consulate General of Ireland in Los Angeles and the Pomona College Department of English.

A 322-year-old house from Marugame, Japan is being added to the Japanese Garden. This well-preserved structure is an exquisite example of a working magistrate’s residence that once served as the center of village life and home to generations of the same family.

Edward Kamens, professor of Japanese Studies at Yale University, considers the aesthetics of viewing and reading early modern Japanese calligraphy albums—tekagami—in which fragmentary samples of writing by notable writers are brought together for appreciation and display. Focus will be placed on the content of a tekagami in the collection of the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University.

Sandy Rodriguez’s YOU ARE HERE / Tovaangar / El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles de Porciúncula / Los Angeles is a multilingual map of the greater Los Angeles area, representing the topography, language, flora, fauna, and land stewardship in the region over time and illustrating the movement and histories of peoples who have called—and continue to call—the area home.

This work is part of “Borderlands,” a new permanent collections installation that explores a more expansive view of American art history.