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Elizabeth Switaj builds on biographical, conceptual, and critical work on Joyce and pedagogy in order to make exciting contributions to our understanding of the Joyce's major works. Switaj's focus - Joyce as teacher coupled with his knowledge of language learning and how these shaped his narrative and stylistic practices - serves to further claims about power, authority, and education. Well-researched with readings that are original and persuasive, this is a highly engaging and important study. - Janine Utell, Professor of English, Widener University, USA

Elizabeth Switaj builds on biographical, conceptual, and critical work on Joyce and pedagogy in order to make exciting contributions to our understanding of the Joyce's major works. Switaj's focus Joyce as teacher coupled with his knowledge of language learning and how these shaped his narrative and stylistic practices serves to further claims about power, authority, and education. Well-researched with readings that are original and persuasive, this is a highly engaging and important study. - Janine Utell, Professor of English, Widener University, USA Janine Utell, Associate Professor of English, Widener University, USA Review of 'Professore Joyce' by Elizabeth Kate Switaj: REVISION Note: I have attached my original review below for reference; my comments here will concern themselves with the revisions made in response to that review. Switaj has made a number of revisions to 'Professore Joyce,' following the recommendations made upon initial review. (Weaknesses and recommendations were discussed in the initial review; please see that review below also for an overview of the project and its strengths.) Based on these revisions, I recommend that the manuscript be accepted for publication. I do have a few further suggestions for additional revisions, but these should be taken as suggestions to strengthen the final manuscript; my recommendation to publish is not contingent upon the suggestions being taken. I will begin by commenting on Switaj's points detailing the revisions made in response to the recommendations of the initial report: * I have rewritten the introduction to include less review-of-the-literature material and more of the overall argument, including a paragraph on page five dealing with the role of the Berlitz schools and alterations to the final paragraph that clarify the thesis. I have also mentioned here how the closer use of Berlitz in Portrait than in the later works reflects Joyce's development as a teacher and a writer. o The introduction is much sounder due to these revisions. The thesis is clearly articulated, the entryway into the book as a whole is much more welcoming and engaging, and the situating of the novels in the context of the argument (especially Portrait) is more effective. * I have added a discussion of the intellectual context of Berlitz (and other Direct Method approaches to language teaching) on pages 35 to 36. o I found the positioning of Berlitz within the wider context of contemporary pedagogy to be most helpful. * To the discussion of free indirect discourse on page 62, I have discussed how Joyce may have used observed learner language rather than just borrowing from Berlitz and how this interpretation of the language of Portrait is compatible with the idea of an adult narrator whose voice becomes blended with Stephen. o I still find this section, as well as other moments in the Portrait chapter, problematic, but I do not think those moments substantially weaken the reading. Below can be found some comments specifically keyed to pages, paragraphs, and sentences in the Portrait chapter where I have difficulty with the argument. I might recommend Switaj consider the notes further as a way to possibly strengthen the discussion, but overall I find the revisions made do render the reading of Portrait more convincing. The changes to the introduction also help to set up the reading of Portrait more effectively, which helps a great deal. * I have also added brief discussions of the erotics of pedagogy throughout: to the first chapter (pages 25-26), to the discussion of negative depictions of pedagogy in Portrait (pages 86-87), and to the analysis of the children's 'Night Lessons' in Finnegans Wake (pages 186-187). o These discussions, though brief, are well-integrated and address the issue of the erotics of pedagogy effectively. They are positioned and woven into the overall discussion in such a way as to add to the discussion of Joyce's liberatory pedagogy. A nitpicky point: in at least two of the additions, Switaj transitions out of the erotics of pedagogy back to the rest of the discussion with the phrase 'In any case'; this makes the additions seem tangential, and I might suggest editing for this. Also, a small comment that Switaj can take or leave: the erotics of pedagogy seems to be framed mostly in terms of the power of the pedagogue in the Portrait section and the Wake section, but the first section (pp. 25-26) does account for more nuanced or fruitful ways of thinking about this: namely, that students use the erotics of the teaching dynamic productively. I wonder if there is room for that nuance in the Wake section, especially given the emancipatory nature of teaching elucidated so well there. Some specific notes offered in the spirit of suggesting additional revisions to strengthen the manuscript but upon which acceptance does not hinge: p. 68, five lines from top, starting with 'Generally speaking' and going to the start of the first section: 1. Stephen acquires English through being a native speaker/user. Can we really talk about it the same way? 2. object lessons for what? language or something else? it seems that what could be said here is that teaching is being used to show learning of something other than language, and the representation of teaching is taken from the teaching of language in order to show the learning of something else (power, etc.); 3. Needs another sentence connecting the depiction of teaching with power/anti-authoritarianism. Sort of gestured towards with 'sort of authoritarian style,' but I'm still left with a so what. p. 71, end of first paragraph, 'Berlitz myth': myth or method? or belief about how language works? pp. 71-72: sentence beginning 'The adult, fluent in English': not exactly: if it's the author, then, yes, he might be concerned with creating a believable representation. if it's a narrator, then that figure is a mediating function that approaches language differently from the 'child learner' character figure. the author might want to represent Stephen's language, but the narrator might have a different relationship to language entirely. p. 72: paragraph beginning 'Second,' sentence beginning 'Such observation' and ending with 'childhood language': 1. why does he need a system at all? why wouldn't he make generalizations about children from his own two? people (parents) do that all the time. 2. this would be more convincing if it were suggested that there might be a combination of both the experience of raising children - especially bilingual children - and the background of being a teacher at work in Joyce's representation of child language use. This might also temper my ongoing issue with this argument: a child learning a native language is not the same as an adult learning a second language. Joyce might have used the Berlitz experience, as well as the experience of raising two children to speak Italian by Irish parents, but this might be because this is what he had to hand - not because the phenomena are identical. p. 74, end of first paragraph: prefer the move towards more qualified language I'm seeing throughout this chapter, rather than the assertions noted above p. 88, paragraph beginning 'Even in the final section of chapter one': would this be a place to return briefly to the idea of the narrator? p. 91, end of first paragraph: why is this different from earlier instances when 'scarlet' and 'scalding' are used when young Stephen would not have used them? why do we stop seeing a blending of child and adult / Stephen and narrator at this later stage? because it's convenient? because it makes sense developmentally? because it follows the Berlitz program? again: this is a narrator/discourse issue that to my mind is not fully resolved. p. 92, 'vision of squalor and insincerity': narrator or Stephen? also not sure I see squalor as concrete due to its valence, nuance, associations, etc., and even leaving the specific abstract/concrete concepts aside, to have a 'vision' is decidedly abstract. it's not simply 'to see'. p. 93: whether or not Parnell did die: could he not actually be thinking about how Parnell DID fade away? it seems more to me that Stephen is thinking about Parnell fading away, a kind of dying away even before his actual physical death. pp. 94-95: 'He dutifully reviews': this seems to have more to do with how he understands the topoi of his religion and its rituals than with his use of language p. 97: transitioning into 'Portraits of Pedagogy' section: seems you could leverage the discussion of power that ends the previous section to amplify the part of your thesis that has to do with antiauthoritarianism in teaching/the classroom - that would help connect those two parts of the thesis, especially since the power/authority part hasn't been addressed as much up to now - although it is woven into the method + ethos focus of the previous chapter. So now would be a good time to remind us that those are the stakes. happens at the end of the this graf but I don't think it's strong enough. Review of 'Professore Joyce' by Elizabeth Kate Switaj Submitted by: Janine Utell 8 September 2014 I am very glad to have had the opportunity to review Switaj's monograph 'Professore Joyce.' In brief, I recommend that the manuscript be resubmitted after some revision, primarily to the first three chapters. This is an important study, building on biographical, conceptual, and critical work others have done on Joyce and pedagogy in order to make original and exciting contributions to our understanding of the whole of Joyce's oeuvre. With some strengthening of the main argument, some deepening of historical context, and some reconsideration/refining of certain of the readings, this book will make a welcome and significant intervention into an understudied aspect of this important author. 1. Outline of the Project: In 'Professore Joyce,' Switaj argues that Joyce's experience as a teacher of English (particularly through employment at the Berlitz School and use, albeit haphazardly and inconsistently, of its methods) had a profound impact on his writing, both in terms of how he saw education and the ways it develops (or thwarts) the subject, and in how he sought to reinvent language, its uses, and the reading experience in ever more radical ways. Ultimately, Joyce's pedagogy is anti-authoritarian and liberatory. Switaj pursues a double approach to this issue. One, she considers representations of pedagogical encounter - classroom practice, engagement (or lack thereof) with students, the figure of the instructor, the teaching of subjects, particularly English or language - in order to comment on Joyce's stance regarding authoritarianism and power. Second, she analyzes Joyce's style and narrative technique in a series of close readings in order to show how Joyce's texts demand the application and practice of a liberatory teaching and learning. The approach is founded upon a detailed investigation into Joyce's own teaching career. Switaj delves into available archival and biographical material to create a portrait of the artist as a teacher. In doing so, she refutes (mostly for good, I think) the notion that Joyce was not a committed or skilled teacher. Overwhelmed at times by personal exigency and bureaucratic mishaps, yes. Desperate to get back to writing, yes. But certainly also capable of developing good relationships with his students and working effectively towards their education in the teaching of English. Switaj uses this biographical background to then trace Joyce's fictional representations of teachers and classroom experiences, most notably in Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, the 'Nestor' episode of Ulysses, and the 'Night Lessons' portion of Finnegans Wake. The connecting idea among these three important textual moments is that Joyce advocates a liberatory pedagogy, a stance towards teaching that privileges a kind of fluidity, an ability to critique rather than an unquestioning assumption of authority. Switaj also claims that Joyce's experience as a teacher, especially his knowledge of the Berlitz method of language learning, led him to put his philosophy of teaching into practice in his fiction. His fiction, in this argument, becomes realia: an example, a model, for learning a Joycean 'lect.' Beginning with Portrait, in which she sees young Stephen Dedalus as a depiction of a language learner, she then deepens and elaborates the frequently asserted critical donnee that Joyce's books teach us how to read them. In taking this literally, she makes a number of interesting observations and ultimately mounts a convincing case in the second half of her study. There, building particularly on the work of Roy Gottfried, Hugh Kenner, and Tom Rice, Switaj looks at Ulysses and Finnegans Wake. In her chapter on Ulysses, she claims that Joyce dismantles the distinction between native and non-native speaker by showing that all users of English are challenged by its many linguistic contingencies, its polysemy: characters are often shown grappling for an elusive meaning. She takes especial note of Molly Bloom as a figure valuing an anti-authoritarian approach to language and education, and uses her to make broader arguments about Joyce's refusal to be co-opted by a pedagogical impulse that insists on privileging the 'standard.' The culmination of the study is a chapter on Finnegans Wake, where Switaj argues for the book as a means of teaching 'Wakese,' a lect created by Joyce that resists the scaffolding of authority and standardization, that pushes against the attempt of the pedagogue to privilege written language over spoken language, that can only be taught and learned through use. As Switaj puts it, 'With Wakese, he created a lect that could only be taught in the way he desired to teach' (167). Here the double approach of Joyce as pedagogue/Joyce's work as realia really comes together in one of the more persuasive readings of Finnegans Wake I have seen. Finally, in her conclusion Switaj realizes the stakes of her argument. In a well-argued and elegant few pages, she articulates the profound implications, even urgency, for the study. She makes clear that her work not only points a way to rethink Joyce's vision of education as emancipatory, but that there is work to be done in this area for modernist studies more broadly: the imperative of 'reclaiming [ ] the difficulties of modernism by making its most complex texts into spaces in which anarchic exuberance and the embracing of error as creativity can be practiced because...possibilities for learning and teaching appear as soon as there is uncertainty' (202). With these words Switaj gestures towards future work to be done in modernist studies along these lines, and sets the stage for further interventions into pedagogical Joyce. 2) Strengths and Weaknesses Strengths: The strengths of this work are many. The author's double approach - Joyce as teacher and how this shaped his representation of and attitudes towards teaching/Joyce's knowledge of language learning and how this shaped his narrative and stylistic practice - works best to further the overarching claims about power, authority, and learning in the chapters on Ulysses and Finnegans Wake. The readings there are original and persuasive. The author is also to be commended for doing the legwork necessary to radically revise the vision of Joyce as teacher that has dominated the field's understanding of his biography. While the first chapter does lapse into speculation more than one might like, overall it works well to imagine a very different 'Professore Joyce.' The book is also, in general, written in an engaging, clear style. Weaknesses: Here are the major weaknesses, along with some suggestions for revision: * The Introduction does more to point out the shortcomings and lapses in other scholars' work than it does to clearly articulate the author's thesis, or, honestly, get the reader excited about an interesting and original work of scholarship. First of all, the main works of scholarship to which Switaj is responding appear with enough frequency in the body of the text for readers to see where exactly the lacunae in those works are. More strangely, however, it seems the Introduction concludes without ever once clearly stating the thesis. Ideas and claims that appear in the Conclusion are along the lines of what should be in the Introduction - the Introduction really should state what the stakes are for this project, the central guiding idea, and how the different approaches taken to thinking about Joyce's pedagogy are connected and applied. * While the biographical context is helpful, as is the deep background on Berlitz, this would benefit a great deal from further contextualization, specifically regarding ideas about education and pedagogy beyond Berlitz at the time. What were some prevailing theories about education? What thinkers were shaping the field? Are there connections to be made between theories of education at the time and modernism? The latter question is one that has cropped up as a new direction of scholarly interest in the field, and Switaj has the opportunity to make some interesting interventions there. * Overall, the readings of Ulysses and Finnegans Wake are quite persuasive. I especially like the notion of the Wake as a pedagogical text and a space for pedagogical performance, as Switaj argues in her discussion of Wake reading groups. However, the reading of Portrait does not hold up, in my mind. The analysis suffers from two shortcomings. First, it seems that the author is conflating two different aspects of language learning: that of the acquisition of a first, 'native' language by a child, and that of the acquisition of another language by an adult learner. Second, the author seems to be neglecting the possibility that differences in language or diction or tone might come not from Stephen's wavering or emergent grasp on language but from the difference between the representation of Stephen's consciousness and a wholly distinct narrative persona. Stephen and his narrator are not always the same, and Switaj will need to do more convincing to persuade that we can read their uses of language as interchangeable. Examples appear on pp. 78 and 81: Stephen may be at a stage where 'abstract symbolic meanings are beyond him,' but while Stephen may feel the physical sensation of 'flaming' and know to put a word to it that resides in the realm of the concrete or physical, the narrator (or implied author if you prefer) may certainly elect to use a word that can reside in both realms simultaneously. Stephen's consciousness is not necessarily the only one at work here. Likewise, on p. 81, the 'dark rosy light' might be the interpellation of the narrator. None of this is to say that the readings of Portrait do not stand, but these are oddly literal readings, and the author may need to do more to at least engage with the idea of the Joycean narrator in order to make more convincing claims regarding language and style. * The author suggests that there is more to be done with the 'erotics of teaching' but that she elected to limit herself to what could be explicitly connected back to Joyce's teaching (201). This makes sense; one does, when dealing with Joyce, need to set limits somewhere. However, by immersing herself so entirely in the Berlitzean archive, the author runs up against some theoretical and conceptual problems that limit her study too much. This final note here is a larger comment that might actually connect the points made above about the weakness of the work. By limiting the discussion to Berlitz, we seem to be ultimately lacking: o a clear thesis about the implications of all this: some theorizing, some engagement with theoretical work about the erotics of teaching, power relationships, violence, and on the other hand the place in pedagogy for creativity and an emancipatory impulse - all of this might make for a richer articulation of the central claim, and make the stakes of the discussion more visible o a less literal reading of some of Joyce's texts o useful context regarding other aspects of education at the time and more detailed discussion about how these aspects connect to the modernist moment In order for me to wholeheartedly recommend this book for publication, I would want to see these weaknesses addressed in revision. While I wouldn't say the author needs to take the precise suggestions for every point, at least some rethinking and reworking is in order, I believe. 3) Recommendation: Resubmitted after reworking - this has the potential to be an important contribution to Joyce studies, and perhaps even to the broader engagement of modernist studies with the history and theory of education and pedagogy which has been emerging as an area of interest in the field recently. I've seen work from scholars investigating such figures as Virginia Woolf and W. H. Auden from this perspective, and I think it's a very exciting development. I would love to see a similar intervention in Joyce studies, and I would love to see this particular intervention gesture more fully towards the broader field of modernism and what this turn means. If the quick point made in the Conclusion as noted above is any indication, there is certainly more to be said.

Author Information

Elizabeth Switaj is a Liberal Arts Instructor at the College of the Marshall Islands. Her previous publications include essays on Joyce, which have appeared in the Journal of Modern Literature and the Joyce Studies in Italy series, and a collection of poetry, Magdalene and the Mermaids.

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