On 28 June 2024, The Irish Times published two articles about ‘inappropriate behaviour’ and ‘accusations of misogyny and harassment’ in the community of James Joyce scholars. These articles paint a thoroughly distorted picture of the crisis currently gripping Joyce studies. The articles in question quoted a small number of academics, including those known as the originators of a ‘safety’ campaign broadly inspired by the #metoo movement. This campaign, though originally well-intentioned, has riven apart what had traditionally been an exceptionally welcoming, convivial, and nurturing international community. Since 2018, a section of the Joyce world has generated rumours that have resulted in the vilification of a number of fellow Joyceans for offences always nebulously whispered about but never openly declared.

The intimidating atmosphere fostered by this project of suspicion and insinuation has been both upsetting and demoralising. It culminated in the expulsion of Fritz Senn from the Glasgow conference on the grounds that he represented a threat to the safety of a student volunteer (he had offered her chocolate and unwanted compliments, taken her photograph in a crowded place, and asked for her email address). Senn, now 96, and the founder of the Zürich James Joyce Foundation, has been at the fulcrum of the Joyce world for decades, tirelessly shaping and enriching it with his tremendous knowledge of Joyce’s works, his generosity of time and energy, his wisdom, humour, and friendship. The joyous, inclusive, diverse community we knew and loved was largely of his making. He has, by a highly divisive turn of events, become the first victim of these excessive and immoderate accusations. His disciplinary hearing was improvised, expedited, and procedurally deeply flawed. The sanction applied was grossly disproportionate – an attempt to make an example of a central and much-loved figure of the Joyce world. Without wishing to downplay the concerns which led to this situation, the conduct of those acting in the name of ‘safety’ calls for urgent reconsideration. It is time for the community to come together again around its core purpose: the academic study and collegial celebration of one of the greatest, life-affirming authors of all time.