History
-
Ep. 87 – Chemists rarely move.
Is a bar of soap just a bar of soap? Topics in this episode include Leopold Bloom’s visit to Sweny’s Pharmacy, how often chemists move, Dublin geography, Bloom’s forgetfulness, the shrunken skull of Sweny the pharmacist, lotuses in the chemist’s, the philosopher’s stone, doing drugs, distilled water prices, Bloom’s filthy bath plans, the lemon soap,…
-
MEMORABLE BATTLES RECALLED: The Sham Squire and the Boys of Wexford
“… it would be a shrewd dialectician indeed who would make much sense out of the editor’s crowings about North Cork militia with Spanish officers in Ohio.” – Robert M. Adams To listen to a discussion of this topic, check out the podcast episodes here and here. The nightmare of history is woven throughout “Aeolus,”…
-
Ep. 66 – Potato I have.
This week, we’re talkin’ ‘bout ‘tatoes! Kelly and Dermot unpack the deeper symbolism behind Leopold Bloom’s idiosyncratic hobby of carrying a potato upon his person. Topics include Tayto crisps, Stephen and Bloom’s parallel lost keys, Bloom’s potato as a protective object, why the potato may actually possess magic powers, the potato as Odysseus’ moly, the…
-
Ep. 50 – The Birth of Ulysses (w/ Phil Holden)
We welcome Phil Holden to the podcast to talk about the early publishing of history of Ulysses. Phil is a collector of early Ulysses editions, so he shares his collection while telling the arduous tale of getting a book like Ulysses published in the first place, the role played by Sylvia Beach and Shakespeare and…
-
Ep. 49 – O, My Dimber Wapping Dell
White thy fambles, Red thy gan! Wait, what? Find out what this phrase and much more means in this episode as we continue our discussion of “Proteus,” the third episode in James Joyce’s Ulysses. Topics covered in this show include: what Stephen means by “red Egyptians,” background on the Romani and Irish Travellers, Stephen’s class insecurity,…
-
Ep. 48 – Haroun al-Raschid’s Melons
Kelly and Dermot take a look at Stephen Dedalus’ prophetic dream in “Proteus.” Topics discussed include James Joyce’s fascination with dream analysis, Stephen’s connection to the mysterious Akasic record, Dermot’s own experience with slippery time, the location of the “street of harlots” in Dublin, how Leopold Bloom and Haroun al-Raschid are connected, Orientalism, almosting, and prolonged…
-
Ep. 41 – Froggreen Wormwood
Images of early morning Paris through the ineluctable modality of Stephen Dedalus’ memory, smells of incense and absinthe. We discuss Stephen’s life as a starving artist (literally), Kevin Egan and his unwilling exile in Paris, Egan’s real life counterpart, New York Times write-ups of duels in the 19th century, Irish nationalist groups of the 19th…
-
Who Was the Real Leopold Bloom?
Yes. Only a foreigner would do. The Jews were foreigners in Dublin at that time. There was no hostility towards them. But contempt, the contempt that people always show towards the unknown. –James Joyce This post is a part of an occasional series on the real people behind the characters in Ulysses. To listen to…
-
Ep. 36 – The Complex Life of Lucia Joyce- (w/Linus Ignatius & Llewie Nuñez)
Linus Ignatius and Llewie Nuñez starred in the play Lucia Mad as James and Lucia Joyce, respectively, back in their university days. They drop by the podcast for a deep dive into the complex and tragic life of James Joyce’s daughter Lucia. We discuss how they prepared to portray the Joyces on-stage, Lucia’s genius as…
-
Decoding Dedalus: Haroun al-Raschid
That’s all in the Protean character…. Everything changes: land, water, dog, time of day. Parts of speech change, too. Adverb becomes verb. – James Joyce This is a post in a series called Decoding Dedalus where I take a passage of Ulysses and break it down line by line. The passage below comes from “Proteus,” the…