2026 Symposium

“SO THIS IS DYOUBLONG?”
XXXth INTERNATIONAL JAMES JOYCE SYMPOSIUM 

15–19 June 2026
The Jagiellonian University, Kraków 

Conference Website: http://conference.pais.edu.pl/

Contacts: Finn Fordham (finn.fordham@rhul.ac.uk) and Katarzyna Bazarnik (k.bazarnik@uj.edu.pl)

Call for papers: See the 2026 Symposium website and click here for a PDF.

The IJJF are delighted to announce that the Joyce Symposium for 2026 will be held in Poland, in the beautiful city of Kraków, hosted by the Jagiellonian University.

The theme for this Symposium will be ‘Doubles and Doubling’. If he could get to the heart of Dublin, Joyce ventured, then he could get to the heart of all cities of the world.  This suggests that all cities are potentially doubles of each other.  Dublin could find its essence doubled elsewhere: Trieste, Zurich, Paris, Lublin. Or Krakow. In the 19th century Poland may have seemed like a double of Ireland: a Catholic country in which powerful nationalist feelings and histories expressed a longing for freedom from the rule of dominant neighbours. Krakow, like Dublin, was a lapsed capital city.  Indeed, the name of ‘Stanislaus’, the patron saint of Krakow, was popular amongst Irish nationalists, including Joyce’s father and his brother.  When Joyce was living in Trieste, Krakow was part of the same Austro-Hungarian Empire. The disintegration of this empire seemed to be reflected in the revolutionary forms now associated with modernism and the avant-garde. How might doubles contribute to the disruption and the shaping of these revolutionary forms?

We will be delighted to receive proposals about any aspect of James Joyce’s work, his life and legacy, but are keen to read proposals that explore the theme above, or Irish-Polish and Irish-East-European coincidences. Please see the conference website and CFP for full details.

Keynote speakers:

  • Joshua Cohen (Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Witz, Book of Numbers, The Netanyahus)
  • Prof. Valérie Bénéjam
  • Prof. Julie Weng.

Please share this news amongst lovers of Joyce’s work and watch this space for updates.