The Finnegans Wake Reading Group as a Model for “Stealth Activities” Between Art and the University

James Joyce’s late work, Finnegans Wake (1939), necessitates shared reading like few others: its phonetic focus requires it to be read aloud, and the multiplicity of languages and fields of knowledge used makes the presence of others indispensable. Since Joyce’s canonization, reading groups of his works have often been led by English Literature scholars, but they do not usually take place in university departments, rather in cafes, book shops and art spaces. What does this mean for the kinds of knowledge referenced and conjured? In 2013, Dora García filmed The Joycean Society. The curator Maria Lind has called both The Joycean Society and the Zurich Finnegans Wake reading group that it documents “stealth activities”. Her essay is entitled “The Triumph of the Nerds”. What modes of knowledge (and, therefore, which politics) does this communal reading practice then entail?