Michael Groden
Michael Groden (1947-2021) was a distinguished professor of English at the University of Western Ontario. Born in Buffalo, New York, Groden received a B.A. from Dartmouth College ("magna cum laude") in 1969 and an M.A. and Ph.D. from Princeton University in 1975, where he studied James Joyce's writing methods through close textual analyses of his manuscripts under the supervision of A. Walton Litz. He is known for his involvement in the envisioning and development of James Joyce's "Ulysses" as hypertext and hypermedia with William H. Quillian and other scholars from around the world. Groden was  also an advisor to the National Library of Ireland in their acquisition of a large collection of James Joyce manuscripts in 2002. Groden wrote extensively of his life, his lifelong analysis of "Ulysses", and his relationship with the poet, essayist and biographer Molly Peacock in his memoir, "The Necessary Fiction: Life with James Joyce's Ulysses" (2019). Peacock also wrote of their relationship and marriage in "The Paper Garden" (2011) and in "Flower Diary: Mary Hiester Reid Paints, Travels, Marries & Opens a Door" (2021). They lived together in Toronto until his death in 2021. Groden was the recipient of an  honorary D.Litt degree from University College Dublin in 2004, the centenary of Bloomsday; in 2007, he was made a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. His James Joyce papers will be deposited at the University at Buffalo and his teaching papers at the University of Western Ontario.