An Evening with Phil Sicker

April 25, 2018

The Literary House hosted a talk with Fordham Professor Phil Sicker about Surveillance in James Joyce’s Portrait of the Artist and Ulysses

On Wednesday, April 25th, the Literary House hosted a Sophie Kerr Lecture Series talk by Phil Sicker, a professor of English at Fordham University. Sicker has written a number of articles on James Joyce’s novel, Ulysses, and is the author of Love and the Quest for Identity in the Fiction of Henry James. He also has a book soon to be published in 2018 titled Ulysses, Visual Technologies, and Culture. Sicker’s talk focused on both institutional and divine religious surveillance throughout James Joyce’s Portrait of the Artist and Ulysses.

Professor Elizabeth O’Connor, a previous student of Sicker’s, introduced Phil Sicker. She briefly talked about how committed Sicker is to scholarship and studying James Joyce. Sicker began his talk by explaining the concept of surveillance and how it affects the character of “Stephen” in Joyce’s Portrait of the Artist and Ulysses. Sicker also talked in depth about the concept of “being through divine vision” and how one can shape their identity and develop through having a divine surveillance over them. The talk ended with a quick Q&A session.