‘History, Stephen said, ‘is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake,’” wrote James Joyce in one of his famed novels, “Ulysses.”
My experience with the Hotchkiss MacLeish Program at Yale Beinecke Library transformed this nightmare into a beautiful adventure – another theme Joyce holds dear to his heart. Through his manuscripts, letters, and notes, I researched the history behind the novelty of Joyce’s writings.
James Joyce, a 20th century Irish modernist author, dedicated his life to battling the constraints of writing. The recurring themes in Joyce’s compositions include Irish nationalism, critique of religious institutions, personal beliefs, and familial expectations, and, perhaps most notably, paralysis – corruption of thoughts and body,
When choosing an author to study for my MacLeish project, I initially looked at the writers who were exiled due to their explicit attacks on governmental institutions and whose work centered around the notion of propaganda. Joyce, however, doesn’t directly investigate the power of language in social, familial, and political contexts through his compositions’ storylines. Instead he incorporates ambiguous diction, unconventional punctuations, and seemingly mundane storylines to hint at these topics, making him a perfect pick for my research.
My arrival at Yale was followed by bookmaking and creative writing sessions – the two components of the MacLeish program in addition to archival research. Our discussions, which often centered around the correlation between the writing’s form and content, as well as the author’s unique approach to conveying their ideas, whether through unexpected diction, line breaks, and symbols, or the literal book form, inspired me to investigate how Joyce utilizes these aspects in enhancing his work’s novelty.
With this question, I entered the library of rare books and manuscripts, planning to focus on Joyce’s earlier prose writings: “Dubliners” and “A Portrait of an Artist as A Young Man.”
A writing sample from Joyce on file in the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University.Ira Buch
I found that in the drafts of these works, Joyce experimented with changing words and sentences, inviting the reader to engage with a multi-layered puzzle he constructed. For instance, in the last story of “Dubliners,” “The Dead,” Joyce changes Michael Furey’s last name from Fury, disguising the implications of potential rage and anger.
Despite my initial intentions to focus only on these two works, “Finnegans Wake” holdings emerged as the collection’s gem. This work was the culmination of Joyce’s experimental vision. In his notes, a fusion of words, multiple foreign languages, and numerous symbols, such as lines, hashtags, and geometrical shapes, have become Joyce’s allies in creating a novel method of shattering language barriers.
As a result of his provocative style, none of Joyce’s works had an easy trip to publication. “A Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man” was termed as “too progressive” in one of the first readers’ reviews. Entire passages from “Dubliners” were altered or deleted due to political connotations, and over a thousand copies of “Ulysses” were burned due to the themes explored within the novel. After Joyce’s death, the novel was termed a “leg pull” by Oliver Gogarty, an Irish poet and Joyce’s friend.
Despite publishers’ predictions of Joyce’s inability to resonate with the public, his work flourished long after his death. As I reflected on my findings, the long-standing relevance of the themes explored by Joyce became obvious. Knowing from personal experience how language can be used as a powerful tool in disguising political terror, I recognized the attention Joyce’s writings draw to shattering the imposed linguistic constraints, the power of ambiguous diction in hiding the actual connotations, and censorship.
Ira Buch is a rising senior at The Hotchkiss School who attended the MacLeish Program at Yale University in June. She has returned home to Ukraine for summer but continues to write for The Lakeville Journal as an intern.
Telecom Reg’s Best Kept On the Books
When Connecticut land-use commissions update their regulations, it seems like a no-brainer to jettison old telecommunications regulations adopted decades ago during a short-lived period when municipalities had authority to regulate second generation (2G) transmissions prior to the Connecticut Siting Council (CSC) being ordered by a state court in 2000 to regulate all cell tower infrastructure as “functionally equivalent” services.
It is far better to update those regs instead, especially for macro-towers given new technologies like small cells. Even though only ‘advisory’ to the CSC, the preferences of towns by law must be taken into consideration in CSC decision making. Detailed telecom regs – not just a general wish list -- are evidence that a town has put considerable thought into where they prefer such infrastructure be sited without prohibiting service that many – though not all – citizens want and that first responders rely on for public safety.
Such regs come in handy when egregious tower sites are proposed in sensitive areas, typically on private land. The regs are a town’s first line of defense, especially when cross referenced to plans of conservation and development, P&Z regulations, and wetlands setbacks. They identify how/where the town plans to intersect with the CSC process. They are also a roadmap for service providers regarding preferred sites and sometimes less neighborhood contention. In fact, to have no telecom regs can weaken a town’s rights to protect environmental, scenic, and historic assets, and serve up whole neighborhoods to unnecessary overlapping coverage and corporate overreach. Such regs are unique to every town and should not follow anyone else’s boiler plate, especially industry’s.
Connecticut is the only state that has a centralized siting entity for cell towers. The good news is that applicants must prove need for new tower sites in an evidentiary proceeding and any decisions have the weight of the state behind them. The bad news is that the CSC used to be far less industry-friendly and rote in their reviews, which now resemble a check list. There is an operative assumption at CSC that if an applicant wants a tower, they must need it, otherwise why spend significant money to run the approval gauntlet? This reflects a subtle shift over the years at CSC from sincere willingness to protect the environment toward minimal tweaking of bad applications with minor changes. The bottom line is that towns really cannot rely on the CSC to do all the work for them.
What CSC issues telecom providers is a “certificate of environmental compatibility” after an evidentiary proceeding (not unlike a court case) with intervenors, parties, expert witnesses, and the service provider’s technical pro’s sworn in and subject to cross examination. Service providers get to do the same with any opposition from intervenor/party participants – like towns and citizens -- and their experts. It’s an impressive process whose ultimate goal is the fine balancing between allowing adequate/reliable public services and protecting state ecology with minimal damage to scenic, historic, and recreational values. They unfortunately often fall short of their mandate – like approving cell towers with diesel generators over town aquifers -- evidenced by CSC only rejecting about five cell towers in the past 15-20 years.
The CSC was founded in 1972 and clarified its mission in the 1980’s to prevent the state from being carved up willy-nilly by gas pipelines, high tension corridors, and broadcast towers. With the sudden proliferation of cell towers beginning in late 1990’s, it became the most sued agency in Connecticut by both an arrogant upstart industry if applications were denied and by towns/citizens when bad sites were forced on them. CSC gradually formed a defensive posture that drives their decisions toward industry with deeper pockets and attorneys on retainer.
For citizens, nothing can wreck one’s day like the CSC. It behooves towns to protect what little toolkit they have, and understand the legal parameters of the CSC’s playing field. The CSC is not a “normal” government agency where municipal/citizen redress is based on logic and local support. Their process is largely immune to everything but specific kinds of evidence – like town regs with setbacks/fall zones, radio frequency transmission signal strengths, sensitive areas identified, and detailed wildlife inventory, among others.
There is a current cell tower fight involving two intervening towns -- Washington and Warren; both with good cell tower regs – over a tower site within 1200’ of a Montessori School, near Steep Rock’s nature preserves with comprehensive geology/wildlife databases that include endangered, threatened and special concern flora and fauna, on established federal/state migratory bird flyways, within throwing distance to a historic site capable of being listed on the Underground Railroad, and with an access road on a blind curve entering a state highway that will permanently damage wetlands, vernal pools, and core forests. There are well credentialed environmental experts, including Dr. Michael Klemens, former chair of Salisbury’s P&Z, as well as the former director of migratory bird management at the US Fish and Wildlife Service, and an RF engineer testifying to alternative approaches, plus three attorneys representing intervenors. It is the most professional challenge I have seen at CSC since Falls Village successfully mounted one that protected Robbins Swamps several years ago.
The hearing is ongoing, with uncertain results. To see what it takes today to stop an inappropriate tower siting, see Docket #543 under “Pending Matters” at https://portal.ct.gov/csc before removing local cell tower regs – the lowest hanging fruit that any town can possess in case it’s needed.
B, Blake Levitt is the Communications Director at The Berkshire-Litchfield Environmental Council. She writes about how technology affects biology.