MemMod · Memories of the Moderns: Life-Writing and Literary History

The degree to which experimental writers of the early twentieth century drew on their own life stories for creative expression is a commonplace of both the critical and popular receptions of modernism. Less recognised, however, is the role that forms of life-writing from memoir to biographical fiction still play in our literary histories of the period. The primary research aim of MemMod is to document the ways in which representations of personal memory not only inform literary history but also constitute the shared collective memory of a research community. The project offers a case study of James Joyce (18821941), one of the most admired, emulated, and mythologised masters of twentieth-century prose and about whom many stories circulate in the research community and among the general public. Drawing on memory studies for its theoretical framework, MemMod will explore the archives of Sylvia Beach (18871962), Frank Budgen (18821971), Stanislaus Joyce (18841955), and Richard Ellmann (19181987), all of whom penned influential accounts of Joyce, to identify and unpack stories that are central to our understanding of the modernist period. MemMod will examine why these narratives have such staying power in the construction of modernism, even as research and new evidence dramatically reshape our accounts of the past. Research objectives are to develop a theoretical framework from memory studies in order to engage with the marginal textual forms of modernist life-writing; to determine how memoirists and biographers represent personal memory by conducting on-site archival research; and to edit, annotate, and introduce a diary covering Joyces life in Trieste from 1907 to 1909 and to publish and publicise it among researchers and the general public. Project outputs will include three peer-reviewed articles in high quality journals; a podcast on collective memory and research communities; and a published edition of Stanislaus Joyces Trieste diary.