Jun 7, 2022
In this hallucinatory episode, in which everything that has happened up to this point in Ulysses is reimagined, Bloom and Stephen wander in “Nighttown,” Joyce’s version of the red-light district of Dublin. We talk about confusion, hilarity, gender roles, obscenity, and redemption. Joining us are Kelly Bryan...
May 11, 2022
Set in a maternity hospital, “Oxen” parodies the development of English prose. A celebration of maternity or a rival creative feat? Joyce called it the most difficult episode “to interpret and to execute”; we talk about the shortcuts he took in composing it and its unexpected humor. Joining us are Greg...
Apr 3, 2022
A woman, a man, a beach at twilight, and at least one orgasm: but what exactly happens? Is Gerty MacDowell brainwashed or liberated by the women’s magazines she reads? Is the episode misogynist or empathetic? We complicate these binaries with Anne Fogarty, professor at University College, Dublin, Cathal Mac...
Mar 16, 2022
In Barney Kiernan’s pub, what does belonging look like? What do language and cliché have to do with self-determination, nationalism, and inclusion? Our wide-ranging interlocutors are Jim Ward, tour guide of Nora Barnacle’s Galway home, Valérie Bénéjam, maître de conférences at the University of Nantes, France,...
Jan 31, 2022
Surrounded by singing men in the Ormond, Bloom experiences the consolations and dangers of music as he watches Blazes Boylan knock back a drink before his tryst with Molly. We talk about how Joyce transforms words into a seductive soundscape with Katherine O’Callaghan, lecturer at the University of Massachusetts...