What is a 'Joycean scholar'?

Nolanger

Where did this term come from? How does one qualify as a 'Joycean scholar'? Do you need a Phd? Write a biography on Joyce? Put on a posh accent and wear a striped-boating jacket? Why aren't other writers given this term?

turgon

Bertie Ahern? David Norris?

http://www.independent.ie/national-news/portrait-of-bertie-as-a-joycean-scholar-87357.html

Lame Lantern

In academia, Joycean scholars are distinct from Joyce critics only being painstaking weirdos. It describes a certain self-important, contrived eccentricity.

Anouilh

There are so many experts on Joyce nowadays:

http://www.literarytraveler.com/ireland_tours/the_artist_his_canvas.aspx

I was surprised when I started reading his work in 1970 as it seemed to describe a world that was long gone. Those who wish to become serious Irish writers still defer to him, but this is changing, I think.

http://moderntwist2.blogspot.com/2009/10/sociopathology-of-everyday-life.html#links

The desire to fly by nets is probably the sign of a true artist.
However, few have the ability to be so exigent when it comes to practicing their art as Joyce was.

dedalus13

...Anyone who studies Joyce and his work. Thumbing through Ulysses or knowing a few quotes from Portrait or dressing up on Blooms day doesn't constitute study*. It's all very well to sneer at the likes of these nobs and sneer at them we should but we should choose our words wisely given that not doing so might come across as though devaluing Joyce's work itself. I find the sneerers who don't have a clue a lot more irritating however than the likes of those getting on the band wagon as at least they will get to have a taste of Joyce. Ends justify the means no?

bigsmokewriting

You do get Shakespearean scholars too...

I think we hear the term Joycean scholar mostly because of David Norris, though, who clings on to his academic background even though he's in politics. It's a media term rather than anything else. Most specialists in anything stay in academia or in a related field, and tend not to be featured in media reports all that often.

Permabear

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