Content Note: Sexual violence, gender-based discrimination
Transcript from Making Joyce Studies Safe for All. Roundtable and open forum organized by the James Joyce Society (September 15, 2023).
Anonymous Attendee (chat comment): How might we include disability and accessibility more explicitly in this conversation?
AA (chat comment): In the United States, Higher Ed Ac Title IX can be used to file complaints against any US-based scholar, even if the behaviour did not take place at their home institution.
AA: One advantage of having an external ombudsperson would be that they would know about the various reporting facilities that do exist, such as Title IX, at institutions around the world.
AA: One problem is that we are a single author field, and our author is very complex and Joyce studies therefore requires a lot of time to gain mastery. A lot of young scholars coming into the field are going to come in with a broader knowledge base than older scholars have. Female scholars, scholars of colour, scholars with disabilities, all know there’s a world bigger than Joyce. Zoë’s statement made clear that comparative work is often met with disinterest in a forum where everything begins and ends with Joyce. We need more comparative work; we need to privilege breadth over depth. Secondly, inherent to our field is that Joyce has such passionate feelings about freedom of speech, which, in a larger context right now and especially online, is being weaponized. It can extend to freedom to harass. Joyce’s general attitude about saying whatever he wants attracts a certain personality. We need to think about freedom of speech and censorship in more sophisticated ways.
AA: To the point about speech, the most central woman to Joyce studies is Molly, who is always saying yes. This makes it difficult to talk about saying “no,” or to say “no.” Young scholars are coming in and facing this pressure to emulate Molly, to say yes, to always consent. The text should be kept separate from the operations of the community.
AA: How do we know that issues are not being addressed? Sometimes things might get taken care of, but are not circulated due to legal reasons or requests for privacy.
AA: In an American context, a frequent criticism of Title IX is that investigations are kept private and often the adjudication of what happens to perpetrators are kept private. That is a frustration on campuses throughout the United States: often, we don’t know if bad behaviour has happened or how it was managed. I do think that’s corrosive to our intellectual culture.
AA (chat comment): I would like reporting procedures that would afford not only the certainty of being seen and heard, but the option of coaching and guidance for situations that are not clear cut but are harmful, as when a junior scholar might be bullied by a more senior scholar. I strongly agree that sanctions must exist, but it would be great to be able to complain about or seek guidance for responding to uncomfortable or unsafe dynamics that don’t rise to harassment or abuse.
AA (chat comment): Bring in professional mediators to host workshops on consent, sexism, harassment, etc. You can find ones who don’t just parrot HR sexual harassment policies, but rather professional mediators with PhDs, who truly understand the culture of academia and the nuances of those power dynamics.
AA (chat comment): We brought in an outside mediator to an annual conference that had a long history of racism at my university. She was a professional, with a degree in restorative justice, and we paid her to consult with organizers and to run a workshop at the conference. We as faculty need to take action, but some of this needs to be steered by someone whose training and expertise are specifically on these issues.
AA: There needs to be a deliberate effort to change the culture itself, which means taking this discussion to those who should hear what is being said today, but aren’t here for one reason or another. We tried that with the Open Letter, but what if we tried a keynote presentation, with someone important or well-known delivering it, at the next Joyce Symposium or Modernist Studies Association Conference? Secondly, regarding the ombudsperson, it might be a good idea to deliberately select someone outside of Joyce Studies, maybe even outside the humanities or a junior scholar — somebody who is unrelated to any of the career prospects of reporters.
AA (chat comment): I agree that, at the very minimum, a first step would be the institution of an independent Joyce Foundation ombudsperson, codes of conduct for all Joyce events, and implementable consequences for repeat and known offenders.
AA (chat comment): Are ombudspeople paid for their labour? My impression from this conversation is that they are volunteers, but that would limit the pool of possible folks (and may effectively rule out more junior people). Do we need to be ready with resources to pay an external ombudsperson?
AA: I would like to leave this meeting with an ad hoc committee that is composed of folks from different positions. I would especially like to include folks in editorial positions; Sam noted that one of the main turning points is when the Joyce Quarterly did not publish the letter, which shows that there are not only gatekeepers present at conference, but there are gatekeepers who are reading our work, publishing them, and thinking about how to edit them. We need a small group of representatives to do this labour, who will put together advice or recommendations for the larger community. Secondly, the Joyce Foundation code of conduct webpage, which instructs how to report, should be taken down or edited. Not only do we not have a list of email addresses, we are told to report directly to the Board of Trustees: there is no online reporting option, so you would have to use a personal email to contact a board member, many of whom a junior scholar might not know. This should be replaced with a better option of communication that is more legally representative of the Title IX policy. My final suggestion is to implement post-conference surveys, which give the option to survey at all levels of diversity. This allows people to respond to the conference without feeling as though it is a formal report, which can likewise speak to general issues of inequity or discomfort that are not necessarily specific incidents of harassment.
AA: There is an issue with overcentralization in the Joyce Foundation: there are the paltry reporting instructions as well as problematic bylaws. The stakeholders are disempowered, so the trustees serve technically only as advisors to the president. For that to change, there would need to be a full membership meeting and vote. So, we can talk about proposals here, but all they would be are proposals, whereas if we had a different structure, trustees could vote for change.
AA: It is important to keep in mind that the issue of sexual harassment is not unique to Joyce Studies and that other organizations deal with this, which can be learned from. We don’t have to go back to scratch; there are frameworks in and outside of academia that can be drawn from. We can look at what these other organizations are doing to help determine the best way to move forward.
AA: The ACLS, the American Council for Learned Societies, might have guidance and those for resources.
AA (chat comment): I would like to see a new organization (radical solution); a code of conduct announced at the next Joyce Foundation meeting (conservative solution); and an opening plenary at the next symposium (conservation solution).
AA: I would like to return to sanctions and the difficulty of their implementation. How might putting sanctions in the code of conduct be enforced later on?
AA: The 2024 Symposium planning committee is planning a code of conduct that will be published alongside the registration process.
AA: Something to remember is, when things are resolved through external measures, the outcome isn’t always something that impacts the Joyce community. For example, if someone is made to complete a harassment workshop at their home institution, that doesn’t mean that it will actually do anything for Joyce Studies. We need procedures and consequences that are unique to Joyce Studies.
AA: While it is essential to revise procedures of Joyce Foundation, it is not the whole Joyce world, just an umbrella organization. It’s very important, but it is limited: it sponsors only the symposium, and can endorse others. I would like us to keep in mind that, while the foundation should be doing more, it is not the be all, end all of what happens in Joyce Studies.
AA (chat comment): When you look at the officers and trustees of the Joyce Foundation, you see people who are involved with numerous other organizations; the foundation nonetheless has great reach.
AA: I think this should be mentioned: panelists have referred to incidents to the level of rape. We should be cognizant that some of these reported incidents are a matter that will go to law enforcement.
AA: It is important to point out that there are criminal acts happening: there may be mandated reporters among us, who have a legal obligation to bring these issues to law enforcement when they are brought up. Overall, we need to recognize that there is a spectrum of behaviour we are talking about here.
AA: I am entering this conversation with experience working with communities navigating sexual harrassment and sexual assault. What they are experiencing and documenting is not what is happening here. What is happening in academic communities is much closer, for the most part, to microaggressions, which are extremely toxic. When unchecked, they can lead to serious injury, but we need to isolate them and frame them as microaggressions so that they aren’t conflated with criminality.
AA: I’m sure there will be a lot of disagreement here about where exactly the behaviour falls. But, I think we can leave this conversation agreeing that there is a huge range of behaviour, everything from microaggressions to physical assault. Because of the range of problems, they will all have to be addressed quite differently.
AA: We cannot tolerate any behaviour; even since the Open Letter, some behaviour has actually gotten worse, because repeat offenders have not faced any repercussions.
AA: It is profoundly demoralizing to hear a story about someone through the whisper network and then to see that person not only present at the next conference, but sometimes even featured. Sometimes it feels like, instead of repercussions, a person known for their behaviour is highlighted.
AA: It’s up to women, really. Women should not be worried about their careers over their own welfare, because the more women speak up, the greater the resistance and the less men will get away with. If we publicize it, we don’t need an ombudsperson or external legal person. We can take care of it ourselves.
AA: Sorry, I have to interrupt you there. Saying it is up to women does not reflect the realities of sexual harassment and the dynamics of power in these exchanges. The problem is that we are leaving it up to individuals to take care of themselves, rather than a community helping the individuals.
AA: Earlier in the conversation, we spoke of the emotional toll of this labour. Women are the victims of abuse and yet, culture seems to say that women should provide the solution. This exacerbates everything.
AA (chat comment): It’s up to all of us, men included.
AA (chat comment): Women are not the only folks being harassed. We need to remember everyone experiences this.
AA: I want to address the insularity of Joyce studies; it is part of modernist studies and not part of modernist studies, part of Irish studies and not. Because of this, I think it is important to report misconduct to other scholarly associations that they are a part of. Many of these perpetrators are members of the American Conference for Irish Studies and the Modernist Studies Association, both of which have their own codes of conduct. These figures might be less untouchable in these other organizations than they are in Joyce studies. I am seeing many members of the board and the executive committee of the Modernist Studies Association here today, who will also want to rectify these situations.
AA (chat comment): I’m the organizer of another single-author conference (in 2022 & 2024) and want to applaud you for having this conversation. Our field and conferences haven’t had these particular issues yet and we want to make sure it stays that way. For us, having a simple governance structure and having women and LGBTQ people on the Board, in real leadership positions, has been a tremendous advantage. The main attraction for our conferences is the social aspect, the hallway conversations, and we want to continue to foster that.
AA: We do need to reconsider the leadership scheme that we use. Someone mentioned the American Conference for Irish Studies, which has also faced significant concerns about sexual harassment and other issues. There is a more, sort of, representative leadership structure there — which is in some ways also true of the Modernist Studies Association — that we don’t necessarily have in Joyce studies. Things here are more spread out and broken down. We might need to start thinking about redefining the field: we need a stronger arm of direct leadership, with a more centralized unit to moderate and mediate reporting. But, if we want to keep Joyce studies sustainable, we need to incorporate more comparative work in this leadership structure. Opening up our scholarship can bring in voices that might help us analyze Joyce in a way that can make conversations like this more transparent.
AA: It is important to keep sustainability in mind: how can we make Joyce studies and safety in Joyce studies sustainable? If we don’t take action now, we are not going to have the Joyce scholarship that we need.
Go to:
Editorial Page
Introduction by Jonathan Goldman and Cathryn Piwinksi
Transcript of the James Joyce Society Welcome Address
Personal Statements by Katherine Ebury, Casey Lawrence, and Sam Slote
Roundtable Transcript
Afterword by Margot Gayle Backus
Sources
Feature Images Credit: Bettmann/Getty Images
The Modernist Review 