UC EVENTS

Speaker: Russell Smith

               Members of the Canberra Finnegans Wake Reading Group

Date\Time: Thursday 24 September 2026, 12:30-13:30

Location: online only 

Zoom: http://zoom.us/j/95029077504

Abstract

There are Reading Groups all around the world dedicated to exploring—a word and a line and a page at a time—James Joyce’s notoriously incomprehensible last book Finnegans Wake. The Canberra ‘chapter’ was started by writer Gabrielle Carey in 2019, who showed us that the Wake is a book written for everyone. 

In this seminar you are invited to participate in an open session of the Finnegans Wake Reading Group led by its current convenor Russell Smith. No preparation is necessary: just bring your imagination, an open mind, and a readiness to share your impressions and ideas. We will go through a page or two together. Given that the Wake’s wordplay is based on more than 70 languages, as well as snippets of information about everything from the anatomy of insects to advertisements for face cream, no guess is too obscure or outrageous: the game is not about what it does mean, but what it can mean. 

Texts will be provided. Please be advised that the discussion will almost certainly involve vulgar innuendo and quite likely disparaging references to the British Empire and the Catholic Church.

All are welcome!

Bio

Dr Russell Smith lectures in Modern Literature and Literary Theory at ANU. He is working on a project that reads Finnegans Wake as an exploration of the media and communications ecology of the 1920s and 1930s: what the Wakecalls ‘this wireless age’.

The Culture and Creativity Seminar Series is hosted by the Centre for Cultural and Creative Research (CCCR), Faculty of Arts and Design, University of Canberra. To discover upcoming seminars, please follow us on Facebook @uccccr, or Instagram and Twitter @uc_cccr. Alternatively, join our mailing list by emailing cccr@canberra.edu.au.

Any questions and accessibility requests please contact: cccr@canberra.edu.au.