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Dr. Josh Torabi B.A. (BCU), M.A. (University of Bristol) Ph.D. (UCL) Irish Research Council Postdoctoral Fellow

Research and Teaching Interests

I am a comparatist, researcher and writer working on the aesthetic intersections between literature, music and philosophy in the 19th and 20th centuries, with a particular focus on European modernism. I am currently working on my second monograph ‘In Search of the Universal’, which is a comparative study of Wagner, Nietzsche and Joyce’s aesthetics. It revolves around Joyce’s oeuvre and interrogates notions of intermediality and universality, particularly as they build on Wagner’s conception of the ‘Gesamtkunstwerk’ (often translated as ‘total artwork’).

I received my Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from UCL in 2020. Prior to joining Trinity, I was a Sylvia Naish Visiting Fellow at the Institute of Languages, Cultures and Societies (formerly the IMLR), University of London. In addition, I have held several scholarships and visiting fellowships at Yale University (2017), the Zurich James Joyce Foundation (2018-19), and Queen Mary University of London (2020-23).

My first book-length study, Music and Myth in Modern Literature (Routledge, 2021), explores the relationship between music and myth as conceived by Friedrich Nietzsche in The Birth of Tragedy and represented in three seminal European novels: Romain Rolland’s Jean-Christophe, Joyce’s Ulysses and Thomas Mann’s Doctor Faustus.

At Trinity I taught Ulysses for the Senior Fresher module ‘Modernisms: Making it New’ during the Hilary Term 2023. I have also taught Nineteenth-Century, Modern, and Contemporary Literature, Literary Theory, Health Humanities, and German Thought at three universities: Queen Mary University of London, Richmond, the American International University in London and UCL at both undergraduate and postgraduate level. My experience spans tutorials, seminars and lectures.

Selected Publications

Books

In Search of the Universal (in progress, planned publication 2025)

Music and Myth in Modern Literature (Routledge, 2021)

Peer-Reviewed Book Chapters and Journal Articles

‘Back to Bach: Early Modern Music and Universality in Richard Powers’ The God Bug Variations’, The Routledge Companion to Early Modern Music and Literature, ed. Katharina Clausius and Rachael Durkin (Routledge, forthcoming 2024).

‘Endless Melody, Endless Prose: Joyce, Wagner and the Quest for a Universal Artwork’ in The Edinburgh Companion to James Joyce and the Arts, ed. Cleo Hanaway-Oakley and Keith Williams (Edinburgh University Press, forthcoming 2024).

‘Re-Joycing in Song: Love, Death and Nationhood in Ulysses’, Proceedings of the British Academy, ed. Barry Ife, Jennifer Rushworth and Hannah Scott (Oxford University Press, forthcoming 2024).

‘The Aesthetics of Music and Myth: Joyce, Mann, Nietzsche’ in Sprachkunst, LI (2020), 1. Halbband, pp. 81-110.

‘Music, Myth and Modernity: from Nietzsche’s The Birth of Tragedy to Thomas Mann’s Doctor Faustus’ in Journal of Comparative Literature and Aesthetics, vol. 42 (2019), pp. 99-113.

‘Joyce and Music: the sound of avant-garde prose’ in Estudios de Literatura Comparada, vol. 1: ‘Las Artes de la Vanguardia Literaria’ (2018), pp. 93-100.