Dominic Richard
Thesis title: The Musical Register: The Role and Development of Leitmotifs in James Joyce
PhD supervisors:
Background
Dominic has an MSc from the University of Edinburgh in Literature and Modernity where he wrote his dissertation on the influence of Dante on Joyce's use of music in Ulysses. Throughout his studies, Dominic has always been captivated by allusions and references and more specifically the way certain authors use, adapt, and approriate other writers' styles and materials.
As an undergraduate student in Montreal, Dominic was involved with Festival Bloomsday Montreal, an organisation which celebrates the works of James Joyce. He co-lead a Ulysses reading-group on their behalf, presented at their annual Bloomsday academic panel, and eventually organised the annual academic panel. He also attended the 2017 Trieste Joyce School on a scholarship. In 2018 he presented at the International James Joyce Symposium in Antwerp, Belgium, and, the subsequent summer, he presented another paper in Mexico City, Mexico.
Outside of his involvement with Joyce-related events, Dominic has also worked as an editor and editor-in-chief. As an undergraduate he was editor of the French language section of Pensées Canadiennes, a nationwide, undergraduate journal of philosophy. As a graduate student he worked as co-editor-in-chief of Issue 28 & 29 of FORUM, the University of Edinburgh's peer-reviewed journal of culture and the arts.
Before returning to Edinburgh to pursue his PhD, Dominic taught at Zhejiang University of Science and Technology in Hangzhou, China. There he taught advanced English, intermediate French, introduction to German, a course on close-reading and interpretation, and gave lectures on Modern literature. During his time in China, he wrote a short student's handbook on close-reading.
Dominic has also been involved with 'Passionate Humanities', a movement led by professors Stefan Bronner of the University of Connecticut and Marcel Schmidt of the University of Michigan. He presented at the inaugural conference in June of 2019 in Munich and continues to be involved with the movement to this day.
Research summary
Dominic's current research focuses on studying the role of music and compositional techniques in Modern literature. His PhD thesis considers the role and development of leitmotifs in James Joyce's body of work; however, he is also interested in authors such as Émile Zola, Marcel Proust, Boris Vian, Thomas Mann, and Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa. His approach views music as a rhetorical and literary device influencing and affecting the decorum of the text, touching on aspects of intertextuality, narratology, and semiotics.
Invited speaker
“Leitmotifs and Clothing in Finnegans Wake” presented at the Zürich James Joyce Foundation in Zürich, Switzerland (2022).
“From Ulysses to Finnegans Wake: Recycled Themes and Tropes” presented at the 28th International James Joyce Sympo- sium, Dublin, Ireland (2022).
"Anthologies, Aphorisms and Survey Classes." presented at Konferenz zur Gründung der Geisteswissenschaften der Leidenschaften – Ein Neuanfang, Munich, Germany (June 2019)
“What's He Writing About Canada For?: Contextualising Allusions to Canada in James Joyce's Ulysses” presented at the 27th International James Joyce Symposium, Mexico City, Mexico (June 2019).
“Polyphonic Narratives: A Study of the Influence of Dante and Wagner in James Joyce’s Ulysses” presented at the 26th International James Joyce Symposium, Antwerp, Belgium (June 2018).
Organiser
“Irish Divorce and James Joyce” hosted a seminar with visiting Joyce scholar, Peter Kuch, on the subject of his new book, Concordia University, Montreal, Canada (March 2018).
"The Voice's of James Joyce." Festival Bloomsday Montreal's Annual Academic Panel. Concordia University, Montreal, Canada (June 2017).