Biography
My primary areas of research are in the works of James Joyce and Samuel Beckett and, by extension, in European Modernist studies more generally. My contributions to this field focus - but not exclusively - on Joyce and Beckett's manipulation of languages and literary styles and my work is informed by a number of theoretical and critical perspectives, such as genetic criticism (the study of literary manuscripts), textual studies, deconstruction, and translation studies.
In 2013 my monograph Joyce's Nietzschean Ethics was published by Palgrave. In 2012 my annotated edition of Ulysses was first published; this includes 9,000 all-new notes with a word count approximately equal to that of Ulysses itself. In her review for the James Joyce Quarterly, Jeri Johnson writes that my annotations are 'exacting, full, textured, and, yes, economical of expression' and they 'expand our understanding of the extraordinary breadth of Joyce's encyclopedic range of reference'.
I am currently working on three different large-scale projects. The first is a monograph on the nature of the political in Joyce and Beckett's works, primarily Finnegans Wake and How It Is. The aim of this project is to use Joyce and Beckett to think through a conceptualisation of the political that is not simply partisan or ideological, but rather to be understood in terms of community and communication. This book begins with a genealogy of philosophical considerations on the nature of the political from Aristotle, through Hobbes and Hegel, and to Jean-Luc Nancy, John Rawls, and Richard Rorty. At present two chapters have been drafted. My next project is editing the first ever collection of Joyce's own translations, which span his career as a writer and include his translations of French poetry, his translation of Gerhart Hauptmann's play Vor Sonnenaufgang (Before Sunrise), and his translation into Italian of the 'Anna Livia Plurabelle' chapter of Finnegans Wake. Because Joyce's translations have never been collected before into one volume, they represent the only aspect of his output that has been almost entirely ignored by critics. My last ongoing project is an online and expanded version of my annotations to Ulysses.
I am the founding co-director of the International Samuel Beckett Summer School, which has been held annually at Trinity since 2011 and is aimed primarily (but not exclusively) at postgraduate students. This brings together students, scholars, and performers of Beckett from all over the world. Building upon the networks already established with the Summer School, I have established the Trinity Centre for Beckett Studies along with my colleague Nicholas Johnson in the School of Creative Arts.
In 2008 I was elected to a six-year term as a Trustee of the International James Joyce Foundation and in 2016 I was elected to a second six-year term. I have served on the organising committees of two past International James Joyce Symposia: in 2008 at the Université François-Rabelais in Tours and in 2012 here in Dublin, jointly held at Trinity and UCD. I am also on the academic committee for the 2018 International James Joyce Symposium, which will be held at the University of Antwerp. I am in the early stages of planning for the 2022 Symposium, which is to be held at Trinity; this conference will mark the centennial of Ulysses's publication.
In addition to my work on Joyce and Beckett, I have published on Virginia Woolf, Vladimir Nabokov, Raymond Queneau, Dante, Mallarmé, and Elvis.
I am interested in hearing from prospective graduate students who are considering working on Joyce or Beckett.
Publications and Further Research Outputs
Peer-Reviewed Publications
The Multiplications of Translation in, editor(s)Catherine Flynn , The New Joyce Studies, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2022, pp79 - 94, [Sam Slote]
Sam Slote, `Eumaeus": Literally the Antepenultimate Episode, Joyce Studies Annual, 2022, p319 - 337
Proteus in, editor(s)Catherine Flynn , The Cambridge Centenary 'Ulysses', Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2022, pp81 - 89, [Sam Slote]
Sam Slote, Marc Mamigonian, John Turner, Annotations to James Joyce's Ulysses, 1, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2022
Sam Slote, All the Way from Gibraltar, James Joyce Quarterly, 57, (1-2), 2020, p115 - 126
Epic Modernism: Ulysses and Finnegans Wake in, editor(s)Liam Harte , The Oxford Handbook of Modern Irish Fiction, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2020, pp151 - 166, [Sam Slote]
Derrida and the Phantom Yeses of Ulysse in, editor(s)Jolanta Wawrzycka and Erika Mihálycsa , Retranslating Joyce for the 21st Century, Leiden, Brill, 2020, pp308 - 318, [Sam Slote]
Sam Slote, Stuck in the Middle with Ulysses, James Joyce Literary Supplement, 34, (2), 2020, p2 - 2
Ulysses May Be a Legal Fiction in, editor(s)Philip Kitcher , Joyce's 'Ulysses': Philosophical Perspectives, New York, Oxford University Press, 2020, pp132 - 157, [Sam Slote]
Emma-Louise Silva, Sam Slote, and Dirk Van Hulle , James Joyce and the Arts, 1, Leiden, Brill, 2020, 219pp
Sam Slote, Finnegans Wake, However Basically Translated, Translation Studies , 12, (1), 2019, p78 - 88
Namelessness from Artaud to Beckett in, editor(s)James Little, Georgina Nugent-Folan, Emilie Morin, and Mark Nixon , Draff/Résidu, Ledien, Brill, 2019, pp130 - 146, [Sam Slote]
Derrida's Joyce in, editor(s)Jean-Michel Rabaté , Understanding Derrida, Understanding Modernism, New York, Bloomsbury Academic, 2019, pp111 - 125, [Sam Slote]
Beckett and Joyce: Two Nattering Nabobs of Negativity in, Olga Beloborodova, Dirk Van Hulle, and Pim Verhulst , Beckett and Modernism, London, Palgrave, 2018, pp69 - 80, [Sam Slote]
Correcting Joyce: Trial and Error in the Composition of Ulysses in, editor(s)Genevieve Sartor , James Joyce and Genetic Criticism: Genesic Fields, Leiden, Brill, 2018, pp55 - 68, [Sam Slote]
Sam Slote, The Texts of Finnegans Wake: An Annotated List of the Correction of Misprints, James Joyce Quarterly, 55, (3-4), 2018, p115 - 150
"Affirmations and negations invalidated as uttered" in Ulysses and How It Is in, editor(s)Jolanta Wawrzycka and Serenella Zanotti , James Joyce's Silences, London, Bloomsbury, 2018, pp105 - 113, [Sam Slote]
Seeing the Venus Effect and Shakespeare in "Circe" in, editor(s)Frances Ilmberger, Penelope Paparunas, and Martin Heusser , Parallaxing Joyce, Tübingen, Narr Francke Attempto Verlag, 2017, pp154 - 167, [Sam Slote]
Sam Slote, "And That's Another Reason That I Left Old Skibbereen", or, The Eye of the Eagle, the Thrill of the Fight, Dublin James Joyce Journal , (10), 2017, p103 - 112
The Recidual Remainder in, editor(s)Dennis Duncan , Tom McCarthy: Critical Essays, London, Glyphi, 2016, pp121 - 135, [Sam Slote]
Sam Slote, Review of James Joyce and Catholicism , by Chrissie Van Mierlo , James Joyce Quarterly , 53, (3-4), 2016, p355-357
Felicitating the Whole of the Polis in Finnegans Wake in, editor(s)Onto Kosters, Tim Conley, Peter de Voogd , A Long the Krommerun, Leiden, Brill, 2016, pp118 - 126, [Sam Slote]
The Economy of Joyce's Notetaking in, editor(s)Ronan Crowley and Dirk Van Hulle , New Quotatoes: Joycean Exogenesis in the Digital Age, Leiden, Brill, 2016, pp163 - 170, [Sam Slote]
Bilingual Beckett: Beyond the Linguistic Turn in, editor(s)Dirk Van Hulle , The New Cambridge Companion to Samuel Beckett, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2015, pp114 - 125, [Sam Slote]
Sam Slote, Review of The Making of Samuel Beckett's 'L'Innommable'/'The Unnamable' , by Dirk Van Hulle and Shane Weller , Modernism/modernity , 22, (2), 2015, p411-412
Loving the Alien: Egoism, Empathy, Alterity, and Shakespeare Bloom in Stephen's Æsthetics in, editor(s)Laura Pelaschiar , Joyce/Shakespeare, Syracuse, Syracuse University Press, 2015, pp128 - 139, [Sam Slote]
Espacement, the Final Frontier in, editor(s)Elizabeth M. Bonapfel and Tim Conley , Doubtful Points: Joyce and Punctuation, Amsterdam, Rodopi, 2014, pp33 - 41, [Sam Slote]
Pain Degree Zero in, editor(s)S. E. Gontarski , The Edinburgh Companion to Samuel Beckett and the Arts, Edinburgh, University of Edinburgh Press, 2014, pp54 - 63, [Sam Slote]
Elvis Presley: The Sun King in, editor(s)Gerald Dawe, Darryl Jones and Nora Pelizzari , Beautiful Strangers: Ireland and the World of the 1950s, Bern, Peter Lang, 2013, pp51 - 61, [Sam Slote]
Derrida and Joyce: On Totality and Equivocation in, editor(s)Andrew J. Mitchell, Sam Slote , Derrida and Joyce: Texts and Contexts, Albany, State University of New York Press, 2013, pp1 - 16, [Andrew J. Mitchell, Sam Slote]
Joyce's Resonance in Glas in, editor(s)Andrew J. Mitchell, Sam Slote , Derrida and Joyce: Texts and Contexts, Albany, State University of New York Press, 2013, pp133 - 144, [Sam Slote]
Daniel Ferrer, Sam Slote, and André Topia, Renascent Joyce, Gainesville, University Press of Florida, 2013
Andrew J. Mitchell, Sam Slote, Derrida and Joyce: Texts and Contexts, Albany, State University of New York Press, 2013
Sam Slote, Joyce's Nietzschean Ethics, New York, Palgrave, 2013, 205pp
The Joyce Circle in, editor(s)Anthony Uhlmann , Samuel Beckett in Context, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2013, pp150 - 159, [Sam Slote]
Continuing the End: Variation between Beckett's French and English Prose Works in, editor(s)Mark Nixon , Publishing Samuel Beckett, London, The British Library, 2011, pp205 - 218, [Sam Slote]
The Thomistic Representation of Dublin in Ulysses in, editor(s)Valérie Bénéjam and John Bishop , Making Space in the Works of James Joyce , New York, Routledge, 2011, pp191 - 202, [Sam Slote]
An Imperfect Wake in, editor(s)Matthew Creasy , Errears and Erroriboose: Joyce and Error, Amsterdam, Rodopi, 2011, pp135 - 149, [Sam Slote]
Sam Slote, Stuck in Translation: Beckett and Borges on Dante, Journal of Beckett Studies, 19, (1), 2010, p15 - 28
The Life of Brion's 'Idea of Time in the Work of James Joyce' in, editor(s)Tim Conley , Joyce's Disciples Disciplined, Dublin, University College Dublin Press, 2010, pp15 - 23, [Sam Slote]
Stephen's Nietzschean Ethics in, editor(s)Franca Ruggieri , James Joyce: Metamorphosis and Re-Writing, Rome, Bulzoni, 2010, pp15 - 26, [Sam Slote]
Structuralism, Deconstruction, Post-Structuralism in, editor(s)John McCourt , James Joyce in Context, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2009, pp65 - 75, [Sam Slote]
Sam Slote, On the Nabokovian Resonance of "The Proustian Theme in a Letter from Keats to Benjamin Bailey", English Text Construction, 2, (2), 2009, p161 - 172
Buffalo Wakes in, editor(s)James Maynard , Discovering James Joyce, Buffalo, The Poetry Collection, 2009, pp63 - 72, [Sam Slote]
Sam Slote, Protean Phenomenology and Genealogy, Dublin James Joyce Journal, 2, (1), 2009, p128 - 142
Sam Slote, Garryowen and the Bloody Mangy Mongrel of Irish Modernity, James Joyce Quarterly, 46, (3-4), 2009, p545 - 557
Sam Slote, 1904: A Space Odyssey, Joyce Studies Annual, 2008, 2008, p163 - 171
Introduction in, editor(s)Luca Crispi and Sam Slote , How Joyce Wrote "Finnegans Wake": A Chapter-by-Chapter Genetic Guide, University of Wisconsin Press, 2007, pp3 - 48, [Crispi L., Van Hulle D. and Slote S.]
Blanks For When Words Gone: Chapter II.1 in, editor(s)Luca Crispi and Sam Slote , How Joyce Wrote "Finnegans Wake": A Chapter-by-Chapter Genetic Guide, University of Wisconsin Press, 2007, pp181 - 213, [Slote S.]
Luca Crispi and Sam Slote, How Joyce Wrote Finnegans Wake: A Chapter-by-Chapter Genetic Guide, Madison, University of Wisconsin Press, 2007, 522pp
Sam Slote, Questioning Technology in "Ithaca", Hypermedia Joyce Studies , 8, (2), 2007
Thoroughly Modern Modernism: Modernism and its Postmodernisms in, editor(s)Astradur Eysteinsson and Vivian Liska , Modernism, Amsterdam, John Benjamins, 2007, pp233 - 249, [Sam Slote]
Sam Slote, Prolegomenon to the Development of Wakean Styles: New Acquisitions at the National Library of Ireland, James Joyce Quarterly, 42-43, (1-4), 2006, p21 - 30
Slote S., Prolegomenon to the Development of Wakean Styles: New Acquisitions, James Joyce Quarterly, 42-43, (1-4), 2006, p21 - 30
Sam Slote, Epiphanic "Proteus", Genetic Joyce Studies, (5), 2005
Sam Slote, A Eumæan Return to Style, Hypermedia Joyce Studies, 6, (1), 2005
Sam Slote, On "Worstward Ho", Journal of Beckett Studies, 13, (2), 2004, p188 - 205
Sam Slote, "Ulysses" in the Plural: The Variable Editions of Joyce's Novel, Dublin, National Library of Ireland, 2004
Joyce and Science in, editor(s)Jean-Michel Rabaté , Palgrave Advances in James Joyce Studies, New York, Palgrave, 2004, pp162 - 182, [Sam Slote]
Sam Slote, Gillet lit le Joyce dans la Woolf: Genre in "Orlando" and "Ulysses", Journal of Modern Literature, 27, (4), 2004, p27 - 36
'Après mot le déluge' 1: Critical Responses to Joyce in France in, editor(s)Geert Lernout and Wim Van Mierlo , The Reception of James Joyce in Europe, volume 2, London, Thoemmes Continuum, 2004, pp362 - 381, [Sam Slote]
'Après mot le déluge' 2: Literary and Theoretical Responses to Joyce in France in, editor(s)Geert Lernout and Wim Van Mierlo , The Reception of James Joyce in Europe, volume 2, London, Thoemmes Continuum, 2004, pp382 - 410, [Sam Slote]
No Symbols Where None Intended: Derrida's War at "Finnegans Wake" in, editor(s)Laurent Milesi , James Joyce and the Difference of Language, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2003, pp195 - 207, [Sam Slote]
The Medieval Irony of Joyce's "Portrait" in, editor(s)Lucia Boldrini , Medieval Joyce, Amsterdam, Rodopi, 2002, pp185 - 198, [Sam Slote]
"Odd's without Ends": Raymond Queneau and the Twisted Language of the "Wake" in, editor(s)Dirk Van Hulle , James Joyce: The Study of Languages, Brussels, Peter Lang, 2002, pp23 - 35, [Sam Slote]
Sam Slote, A Second Look at the "First-Draft Version of 'Finnegans Wake'", Genetic Joyce Studies, (2), 2002
Sam Slote, Preliminary Comments on Two Newly Discovered "Ulysses" Manuscripts, James Joyce Quarterly, 39, (1), 2001, p17 - 28
Sam Slote, A Sound-bite Against the Restoration, Genetic Joyce Studies, (1), 2001
Sam Slote, The Prolific and the Devouring in "The Ondt and the Gracehoper", Joyce Studies Annual, (11), 2000, p49 - 65
Sam Slote, Reading "Finnegans Wake" Genetically, Text, (13), 2000, p203 - 220
Sam Slote and Wim Van Mierlo, Genitricksling Joyce, Amsterdam, Rodopi, 1999
Imposture Book Through the Ages in, editor(s)Sam Slote and Wim Van Mierlo , Genitricksling Joyce, Amsterdam, Rodopi, 1999, pp97 - 114, [Sam Slote]
Sam Slote, The Silence in Progress of Dante, Mallarmé, and Joyce, New York, Peter Lang, 1999
Did God Be Come?: The Definitive Exgenesis of HCE in, editor(s)Daniel Ferrer , Writing its Own Wrunes For Ever: Essais de génétique joycienne / Essays in Joycean Genetics, Tusson, Du Lérot, 1998, pp103 - 118, [Sam Slote]
Sam Slote, "Nulled Nought": The Desistance of Ulyssean Narrative in "Finnegans Wake", James Joyce Quarterly, 34, (4), 1997, p531 - 542
Sam Slote, Swerving Shores, Bendings Abeyed, Papers on Joyce, (2), 1996, p117 - 124
Wilde Thing: Concerning the Eccentricities of a Figure of Decadence in "Finnegans Wake" in, editor(s)David Hayman and Sam Slote , Probes: Genetic Studies in Joyce, Amsterdam, Rodopi, 1995, pp101 - 122, [Sam Slote]
David Hayman and Sam Slote, Probes: Genetic Studies in Joyce, Amsterdam, Rodopi, 1995
Needles in the Camel's Eye: The Time of a Collideorscape in, editor(s)Andrew Treip , teems of times, Amsterdam, Rodopi, 1994, pp69 - 80, [Sam Slote]
Non-Peer-Reviewed Publications
Aoife King (ed), Rita Duffy, Caitríona Lally, Jacob J. Erickson, Donna Lyons et al., What the Pandemic Means: Perspectives from the Trinity Long Room Hub Covid-19 Blog Collection, 2021, - 1-56
Finnegans Wake An Introduction of Sorts in, Finnegans Wake, London, Alma, 2020, ppv - xx, [Sam Slote]
Sam Slote, Ulysses Unpicked from Bud to Bloom, Review of Joyce's Creative Process and the Construction of Characters in 'Ulysses' , by Luca Crispi , Irish Times, 2016, p10
James Joyce, Ulysses, London, Alma Classics, 2012
A Wake in Chapelizod in, editor(s)Motoko Fujita , In the Shadow of James Joyce, Dublin, Lilliput, 2011, pp48 - 50, [Sam Slote]
Sam Slote, A Centennial Bloomsday at Buffalo, Buffalo, The Poetry Collection, 2004
Research Expertise
Description
My primary areas of research are in the works of James Joyce and Samuel Beckett and, by extension, in European Modernist studies more generally. My contributions to this field focus on Joyce and Beckett's manipulation of languages and literary styles and my work is informed by a number of theoretical and critical perspectives, such as genetic criticism (the study of literary manuscripts), textual studies, deconstruction, and translation studies I am currently working on three different large-scale projects. The first is an edition of all-new annotations to Joyce's Ulysses, which updates the work I did for the Alma Classics edition of Ulysses (published in 2012 and revised in 2015 and 2017). The new edition is 620,000 words, which is more than double the length of the Alma edition. It is currently in production at Oxford University Press; the final manuscript was submitted in December 2019 and will be published both in print and on the Oxford Scholarly Editions Online platform in the early autumn of 2021 (the Covid-19 crisis has delayed publication by about six months). My next project is a monograph on the nature of the political in Joyce and Beckett's works, primarily Finnegans Wake and How It Is. The aim of this project is to use Joyce and Beckett to think through a conceptualisation of the political that is not simply partisan or ideological, but rather to be understood in terms of community and communication. This book begins with a genealogy of philosophical considerations on the nature of the political from Aristotle, through Hobbes and Hegel, and to Jean-Luc Nancy, John Rawls, and Richard Rorty. My final project is editing the first ever collection of Joyce's own translations, which span his career as a writer. Because Joyce's translations have never been collected before into one volume, they represent the only aspect of his output that has been almost entirely ignored by critics.Recognition
Representations
Member of the Editorial Board, European Joyce Studies
Trustee, International James Joyce Foundation
Member of the Editorial Board, James Joyce Quarterly
Member of the Editorial Board, Joyce Studies Annual
Member of the Editorial Board, Dublin James Joyce Journal
Member of the Editorial Board, English Text Construction
Member of the Editorial Board, Litteraria Pragensia
Member of the Editorial Board, Genetic Joyce Studies
Referee, Oxford University Press
Referee, The Johns Hopkins University Press
Referee, University of Toronto Press
Referee, University Press of Florida
External Examiner, Hertford College, University of Oxford
Referee, Bloomsbury Academic Press
Referee, Palgrave-Macmillan
Referee, University of Michigan Press
Referee, Liverpool University Press
Memberships
Équipe Joyce, Institut des Textes et Manuscrits Modernes
International James Joyce Foundation
International Association for the Study of Irish Literatures
European Society for Textual Scholarship
Beckett International Foundation