In conjunction with his week-long visit to the University of Washington as a Katz Distinguished Lecturer in the Humanities, literary critic and acclaimed Joyce scholar Derek Attridge will conduct a micro-seminar for graduate students. Work for the course is limited to readings and discussion.

The course will serve as a critical exploration of James Joyce's landmark novel Ulysses. Over the course of four sessions, participants will examine a section of Ulysses through a variety of lenses: sessions will include examinations of realist Joyce, post-structuralist Joyce, semi-colonial Joyce, and ethical Joyce, with the guidance of relevant critical and theoretical material.

Derek Attridge is the Leverhulme Research Professor and Professor and Chair of English at the University of York. A distinguished Joyce scholar, Attridge's publications on Joyce include How to Read Joyce (2002), Joyce Effects: On Language, Theory, and History (2000), and Peculiar Language: Literature as Difference from the Renaissance to James Joyce (1988), and four edited or co-edited volumes on Joyce. Attridge has published numerous articles and books on literary theory, many of them reflecting his long association with Jacques Derrida. His most recent theoretical study, The Singularity of Literature (2004), which won a European Society for the Study of English Book Award in 2006, raises the question of the distinctiveness of literature as a linguistic and social practice. Another longstanding interest of his is poetic form, and he has published several books on questions of rhythm in poetry including Meter and Meaning: An Introduction to Rhythm in Poetry (2003). Attridge is on the editorial boards of The James Joyce Quarterly, The Joyce Studies Annual, The Journal of Narrative Theory, Modern Fiction Studies, Interventions, and Language and Literature.