ULYSSES GETS TRIGGER WARNING, 100 YEARS AFTER BOOK WAS BANNED
A century after outraged censors banned Ulysses in 1922, academics have decided that James Joyce’s novel may be too shocking for modern students, slapping it with a trigger warning for being potentially “offensive.”
The 800-page story of an ordinary man’s day in Dublin is taught at the University of Glasgow, where staff now alert students to possibly upsetting “language and attitudes.”
Joyce’s writing contains “explicit” references “to sexual matters,” according to a trigger warning seen by The Daily Telegraph, highlighting the same issue that led to the work being banned in Britain 100 years ago.
Students also are warned they may be offended by references to “race, gender and national identity” in the work of the Irish author, who famously lampooned the nationalism of his homeland.
The blanket warning for the dedicated James Joyce English literature module states: “We will examine texts that include explicit or graphic references to sexual matters. We recognize that some students may find this difficult and may find some of the language and attitudes towards race, gender and national identity that we discuss in relation to Joyce’s work offensive.”
The warning adds that staff will “endeavour to make seminars a space where everyone can discuss these ideas and engage with this content sensitively, empathetically and respectfully.”
The main discussion of race in the work centres on the Jewish identity of the book’s hero, Leopold Bloom. This identity clashes with the Irish nationalist sentiment of other characters in the book.
Professor Frank Furedi, an education expert at the University of Kent, said: “The trigger warning brigade demonstrates that the impulse to censor is alive and well.”