VINCENT CHENG portrait
  • Shirley Sutton Thomas Professor of English, English
  • Professor, English
  • Distinguished Professor
801-581-7438

Research Statement

RESEARCH INTERESTS: Modern British and American Literature, Colonial and Postcolonial English Literatures, James Joyce, Modern Novel, Minority Discourses, Postcolonial Theory, Irish Studies

Presentations

  • “Joyce and the Hellmouth.” Invited plenary address at the “California Joyce Redux” conference, January 30, 2010, University of California, Irvine. Invited Talk/Keynote, Presented, 01/30/2010.
  • “Amnesia, Forgetting, and the Nation.” Invited lecture at the University of Miami, December 4, 2008, Miami, FL. Invited Talk/Keynote, Presented, 12/04/2008.
  • “Amnesia, Forgetting, and the Nation in James Joyce’s Ulysses.” Paper at the XXIth International James Joyce Symposium, 12-18 June 2008, Tours, France. Conference Paper, Presented, 06/16/2008.
  • “‘The Twining Stresses, Two by Two’: The Prosody in Joyce’s Prose.” Paper at the XXIth International James Joyce Symposium, 12-18 June 2008, Tours, France. Conference Paper, Presented, 06/13/2008.
  • “Amnesia, Forgetting, and the Nation in James Joyce’s Ulysses.” Invited lecture at the University of Buffalo, March 7, 2008, Buffalo, NY. Invited Talk/Keynote, Presented, 03/07/2008.
  • “Joyce’s Politics—100 Years Later.” Paper at the 2022 PAMLA Conference, November 10-13, 2022, UCLA, Los Angeles, CA. Invited Talk/Keynote, Presented, 11/2022.
  • “Migration and Empathy.” Paper at the International James Joyce (and Ulysses Centenary) Symposium, June 12-18, 2022, in Dublin, Ireland. Invited Talk/Keynote, Presented, 06/2022.
  • “‘Saying Nothing’ in Joyce.” Paper (delivered virtually) at the XXVII International James Joyce Symposium, 14-18 June 2021, Trieste, Italy. Conference Paper, Presented, 06/2021.
  • “The Will to Forget: Memory, Nation, and Ulysses.” Special guest lecture at The Rosenbach Museum, Philadelphia, June 8, 2021 (delivered virtually)--as part of The Rosenbach’s Bloomsday 2021 celebrations and in connection with its mini-exhibition The Global Other: Race, Empire, and James Joyce’s Ulysses (based on my book Joyce, Race, and Empire). Invited Talk/Keynote, Presented, 06/2021.
  • “Saying Nothing: Silence, Ireland, and James Joyce.” Keynote address at the 19th AEDEI Irish Studies Conference, May 27-29, 2021, in Vigo, Spain. Delivered virtually. Invited Talk/Keynote, Presented, 05/2021.
  • “‘Saying Nothing’ in Joyce.” Paper at the XXVII International James Joyce Symposium, 14-18 June 2021, Trieste, Italy. To be delivered virtually. Conference Paper, Accepted, 11/2020.
  • In collaboration with the Hibernian Society of Utah and KCPW's Roger McDonough, I helped organize and participated in a live (via Zoom) "Bloomsday" online reading of passages from James Joyce's Ulysses on June 16, 2020 (subsequently published on YouTube). Other, Presented, 06/2020.
  • “Amnesia, Forgetting, and the Nation.” Invited lecture, Brigham Young University, October 8, 2019. Invited Talk/Keynote, Presented, 10/08/2019.
  • “Talking about the Roma: Joyce and the Gypsies.” Paper at the 2019 North American James Joyce Symposium, Mexico City, Mexico, 12-16 June 2019. Conference Paper, Presented, 06/2019.
  • “Slavery, the American South, and Irish Catholicism.” Paper at the XXVI International James Joyce Symposium, 11-16 June 2018, Antwerp, Belgium. Conference Paper, Presented, 06/2018.
  • Organizer and chair of panel on “National Memory and the Ethics of Commemoration” at the XXVI International James Joyce Symposium, 11-16 June 2018, Antwerp, Belgium. Presentation, Presented, 06/2018.
  • “The Memory of the Boyne: King Billy, National Memory, and James Joyce.” Invited Bloomsday lecture, Hibernian Society, Salt Lake City, Utah, June 16, 2017. Invited Talk/Keynote, Presented, 06/16/2017.
  • “Amnesia, Forgetting, and the Nation in James Joyce’s Ulysses.” Invited lecture, University of Haifa, Haifa, Israel, May 17, 2017. Invited Talk/Keynote, Presented, 05/17/2017.
  • “Ireland and the American South: Race, Slavery, and Finnegans Wake.” Keynote address at the 2017 Korean James Joyce Society Conference, Chonnam, Korea, April 29, 2017. Invited Talk/Keynote, Presented, 04/29/2017.
  • “James Joyce and the Memory of the Past: National Memory and Commemoration.” Invited lecture, Chonnam National University, Chonnam, Korea, April 28, 2017. Invited Talk/Keynote, Presented, 04/28/2017.
  • “Ireland and the American South: Race, Slavery, and Finnegans Wake.” Invited lecture, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan, April 26, 2017. Invited Talk/Keynote, Presented, 04/27/2017.
  • “James Joyce and the Memory of the Past: National Memory and Commemoration.” Invited lecture, Fengchia University, Taichung, Taiwan, April 25, 2017. Invited Talk/Keynote, Presented, 04/25/2017.
  • “Hurleysticks, Martyrology, and 1916: James Joyce and the Easter Rising.” Paper at the XXV International James Joyce Symposium, 13-18 June 2016, London, England. Conference Paper, Presented, 06/2016.
  • Organizer/chair and participant in panel on “’Back to Barracks’: Joyce, Militarism, and 1916” at the XXV International James Joyce Symposium, 13-18 June 2016, London, England. Presentation, Presented, 06/2016.
  • Chair and member of panel on “Rethinking Mobility, Paralysis, and Identity in Dubliners” at 2016 Modern Language Association Convention, 7-10 January 2016, Austin, Texas. Presentation, Presented, 01/2016.
  • Organizer/chair and member of panel on “’Back to Barracks’: Joyce, Militarism, and 1916” at the XXV International James Joyce Symposium, 13-18 June 2016, London, England. Presentation, Accepted, 12/2015.
  • Chair and member of panel on “Rethinking Mobility, Paralysis, and Identity in Dubliners” at 2016 Modern Language Association Convention, 7-10 January 2016, Austin, Texas. Presentation, Accepted, 07/2015.
  • “Bloomsday, Joyce, and Irish Identity.” Invited lecture at the Utah Hibernian Society 2015 Bloomsday Celebration, June 16, 2015, Salt Lake City, UT. Invited Talk/Keynote, Presented, 06/2015.
  • “Joyce, Ireland, and the American South: Whiteness, Blackness, and Lost Causes.” Invited talk at English Department "Work in Progress" Colloquia, University of Utah, Fall 2014 . Presentation, Presented, 10/2014.
  • “Where is the Nation? ‘Or also living in different places’.” Paper at the XXIV International James Joyce Symposium, 15-20 June 2014, Utrecht, Netherlands. Conference Paper, Presented, 06/2014.
  • Chair and member of panel on “Rethinking Mobility, Paralysis, and Identity in Dubliners,” XXIV International James Joyce Symposium, 15-20 June 2014, Utrecht, Netherlands. Conference Paper, Presented, 06/2014.
  • “Where is the Nation?: Place, History, and the Irish Nation.” The 2014 Carole and Gordon Segal Lecture in Irish Studies, 6 May 2014, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL. Invited Talk/Keynote, Presented, 05/2014.
  • “The Memory of the Boyne: King Billy, National Memory, and James Joyce.” Paper at 2013 Rocky Mountain European Studies Conference, October 24-25, 2013, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah. Conference Paper, Refereed, Presented, 10/2013.
  • "Joyce, Ireland, and the American South: Blackness, Whiteness, and Lost Causes"; invited plenary lecture at the 2013 James Joyce Conference, June 11-15, 2013, Charleston, South Carolina. Invited Talk/Keynote, Presented, 06/11/2013.
  • “Irish Pub Culture and Social Space.” Roundtable talk at the Symposium on Space and Place, February 28-March 1, 2013, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah. Conference Paper, Presented, 03/2013.
  • “The Memory of the Boyne: King Billy, National Memory, and Joyce.” Paper at the American Conference for Irish Studies, 28th Annual Western Regional Meeting, 26-28 October 2012, Park City, Utah. Conference Paper, Refereed, Presented, 10/2012.
  • “The Memory of the Boyne: King Billy, National Memory, and Joyce.” Paper at the XXIII International James Joyce Symposium, June 10-16, 2012, in Dublin, Ireland. Conference Paper, Refereed, Presented, 06/2012.
  • “‘Or also in different places’: Place, History, and the Nation.” Invited plenary address at the 2012 Joyce Postgraduate Conference, 2-4 February 2012, Queen’s University, Belfast, Northern Ireland. Invited Talk/Keynote, Presented, 02/2012.
  • “The Will to Forget: Amnesia and Forgetting in Modern Literature.” Paper on the panel (“Thinking Memory”) arranged by the Division on Late-Nineteenth- and Early-Twentieth-Century English Literature at the 2012 Modern Language Association Convention, January 5-8, 2012, in Seattle, WA. Conference Paper, Refereed, Presented, 01/05/2012.
  • “‘New Jews,’ Old Story: Asians, Jews, and Whiteness in America.” Paper at Special Session on “Asian/Jewish/American” at the 2012 Modern Language Association Convention, January 5-8, 2012, in Seattle, WA. Conference Paper, Refereed, Presented, 01/2012.
  • “Milan Kundera, James Joyce, and National Forgetting.” Paper at 2011 Conference of the Rocky Mountain European Scholars Consortium, Salt Lake City, Utah, October 20-21, 2011. Conference Paper, Refereed, Presented, 10/2011.
  • “‘Or also in different places’: Place, History, and the Nation.” Invited plenary address at the 2012 Joyce Postgraduate Conference, 2-4 February 2012, Queen’s University, Belfast, Northern Ireland. Invited Talk/Keynote, Accepted, 09/2011.
  • “Stephen Dedalus and the Other: Interiority, Language, and Gender in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.” Paper at the 2011 James Joyce Conference, 12-16 June 2011, The Huntington Library, Pasadena, California. Conference Paper, Refereed, Presented, 06/2011.
  • “The Will to Forget: Amnesia and Forgetting in Modern Literature.” Paper on the panel (“Thinking Memory”) arranged by the Division on Late-Nineteenth- and Early-Twentieth-Century English Literature at the 2012 Modern Language Association Convention, January 5-8, 2012, in Seattle, WA. Conference Paper, Refereed, Accepted, 04/2011.
  • “‘New Jews,’ Old Story: Asians, Jews, and Whiteness in America.” Paper at Special Session on “Asian/Jewish/American” at the 2012 Modern Language Association Convention, January 5-8, 2012, in Seattle, WA . Conference Paper, Refereed, Accepted, 04/2011.
  • “Amnesia, Forgetting, and the Nation.” Invited lecture at the 2010 James Joyce Summer School, 5-10 July 2010, University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland. Invited Talk/Keynote, Presented, 07/2010.
  • “Joyce, Kundera, and National Forgetting.” Paper at the XXIInd International James Joyce Symposium, 13-18 June 2010, Prague, Czechoslovakia. Conference Paper, Presented, 06/2010.
  • "Amnesia, Forgetting, and the Nation." Invited talk, presented to the Tanner Humanities Center's Postcolonial Studies Faculty Research interest Group at the University of Utah. Invited Talk/Keynote, Presented, 03/2010.

Languages

  • French, fluent.
  • Latin, functional.
  • Mandarin Chinese, functional.
  • Portuguese, basic.
  • Spanish, functional.

Geographical Regions of Interest

  • Ireland
  • United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
  • China
  • Israel

Publications

  • “James Joyce and the (Modernist) Hellmouth.” Article in *Hell and Its Afterlife: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives*, eds. Isabel Moreira and Margaret Toscano (Ashgate Publishing, 2010), pp. 165-174. Published, 12/01/2009.
  • “‘The Twining Stresses, Two by Two’: The Prosody in Joyce’s Prose.” Article in *Modernism/Modernity* 16.2 (April 2009): 391-399. Published, 04/01/2009.
  • "History and Possibility: Shakespeare and the Stage in Finnegans Wake." Article in Joyce/Shakespeare, edited by Laura Pelaschiar (Syracuse University Press, 2015), pp. 140-160.. Published, 06/2015.
  • Paperback reprint of *Joyce in Context*, edited by Vincent J. Cheng and Timothy P. Martin (Cambridge Univ. Press, 1992). I am editor and contributor (one essay) of this volume of 17 essays on Joyce. Published, 06/01/2009.
  • “Amnesia, Forgetting, and the Nation.” New essay accepted for *James Joyce and Cultural Memory*, eds. Oona Frawley and Katherine O’Callaghan (forthcoming Syracuse University Press; volume IV of *Memory Ireland: Explorations in Irish Cultural Memory*, a four-volume project involving leading scholars of Irish literature and culture). Published, 06/2014.
  • “Migration and Empathy.” Article in James Joyce Quarterly 60.3 (Spring 2023): 287-297. Published, 08/2023.
  • “Between a Rock and a Hard Place: Teaching ‘Scylla and Charybdis’.” Book chapter in Joyce Studies Annual: The Ulysses Centenary Edition (2023): 181-197. Published, 06/2023.
  • Podcast: “ ‘Telemachus,’ Colonialism, and White Privilege.” Bonnie Roos, Podcasts on Ulysses, Texas A&M University, 2022. Published, 07/2022.
  • “Cyclops.” Book chapter in The Cambridge Centenary “Ulysses”: The 1922 Text with Essays and Notes, ed. Catherine Flynn (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2022), pp. 412-420. Published, 06/2022.
  • Film and Podcast: “Cyclops” (2022): www.U22pod.com This was a podcast produced by Cambridge University Press to accompany the publication of The Cambridge Centenary “Ulysses”: The 1922 Text with Essays and Notes (2022) and my chapter on "Cyclops" in that volume. Published, 05/2022.
  • Cheng, Vincent (2021). “Teaching ‘Scylla and Charybdis’.” . Vol. 2022, Joyce Studies Annual (2022).. Accepted, 10/2021.
  • Vincent J. Cheng (2021). “Cyclops.” Book chapter forthcoming in The Cambridge Centenary “Ulysses”: The 1922 Text with Essays and Notes, ed. Catherine Flynn. Cambridge University Press, forthcoming 2022.. Accepted, 05/2021.
  • Vincent J. Cheng (2020). "A Tribute to John Bishop". James Joyce Literary Supplement. Published, 11/2020.
  • Vincent J. Cheng (2019). “Talking about the Roma: Joyce and the Gypsies.” Article/chapter forthcoming in Joyce Without Borders, ed. James T. Ramey and Norman Cheadle.. Publisher under negotiation.. Accepted, 12/2019.
  • Vincent J. Cheng (2019). Amnesia and the Nation: History, Forgetting, and James Joyce, paperback edition (2019). Palgrave MacMillan. Published, 03/2019.
  • Vincent J. Cheng (2018). “A 1926 Sketch of James Joyce.” . James Joyce Broadsheet. Vol. 111. Published, 12/2018.
  • Amnesia and the Nation: History, Forgetting, and James Joyce My new book--on the relationships between memory (both remembering and forgetting), history, and the nation in both Ireland and the USA--was published in spring 2018; it has already received glowing endorsements. Published, 03/2018.
  • “Amnesia, Forgetting, and the Nation in James Joyce’s Ulysses.” Chapter in 21st-Century Approaches to Literature: Late Victorian into Modern, 1880-1920, eds. Laura Marcus, Michele Mendelssohn and Kirsten Shepherd-Barr (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2016), pp. 335-349. Published, 12/2016.
  • "Contemporary Identities: The Anxiety Over Authenticity." Short article in Sh'ma: A Journal of Jewish Responsibility. Spring 2013. Published, 04/2013.
  • “Stephen Dedalus and the Other: Interiority, Language, and Gender in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.” Article in *Critical Insights: Coming of Age*, ed. Kent Baxter (EBSCO Publishing, 2012). Published, 11/2012.
  • “Joyce, Kundera, and National Forgetting.” Article in volume of essays from the XXII International James Joyce Symposium in Prague: Praharfeast: James Joyce in Prague, eds. David Vichnar, David Spurr, and Michael Groden (Prague: Litteraria Pragensia Books, 2012), pp. 148-161. Published, 06/2012.
  • "All the World's a Stage: Shakespeare and Joyce." Article for a forthcoming volume on *Joyce and Shakespeare*, edited by Laura Pelaschiar. Accepted, 12/2010.
  • “James Joyce and the (Modernist) Hellmouth.” Article in *Hell and Its Afterlife: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives*, eds. Isabel Moreira and Margaret Toscano (Ashgate Publishing, 2010), pp. 165-174. Published, 12/2010.