James Joyce Digital Library

Intertextuality is less a matter of writing than a matter of reading, as Michael Riffaterre noted. He defined the concept of 'intertextuality' as the reader's perception of the links between one work and others, which preceded or followed it. This project builds on his definition, but adjusts one important detail: 'the' reader is a generalisation, which this project replaces by a concrete reader, a reader who is also a writer: James Joyce. The fact that we study not just a reader, but a writing reader, offers us the opportunity to use material traces to examine how intertextuality operates. In concrete terms, this will result in a monograph published by Oxford UP and a Digital Library of James Joyce, the first project to study the library in its entirety.

This project is a collaboration between several partners, including the Centre for Manuscript Genetics (University of Antwerp), the Oxford Centre for Textual Editing and Theory (University of Oxford), the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center (Austin, TX), and the James Joyce Collection (University at Buffalo).