Thomas Aquinas

  • Ep. 169 – Pray for us, Saint Thomas

    Ora pro nobis! Pogue mahone! Acushla machree! Topics in this episode include Thomas Aquinas (but less than you might expect), Aquinas’ views on incest, the meaning on “new Viennese school,” whether or not Joyce had any interest in psychoanalysis (and whether it matters), how Joyce may have encountered psychoanalysis in Zurich, Professor Edward Dowden, the…

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  • Decoding Dedalus: Saint Thomas’ New Viennese School

    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 line below comes from “Scylla and Charybdis,” the ninth episode of Ulysses. It appears on page p. 205-206 in my copy (1990 Vintage International). We’ll be looking at the passage…

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  • Decoding Dedalus: Horseness is the whatness of allhorse.

    “Stephen disdains the subtle resuscitation of the Victorian bardolatry in the Revival’s aspiration to model the creation of Irish national culture on the use of Shakespeare for British national consolidation. Both efforts, to him, are grounded in the almost religious glorification of the poet.” – Irina D. Rasmussen, “Riffing on Shakespeare: James Joyce, Stephen Dedalus,…

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  • Ep. 83 – Eating Bits of a Corpse (w/ Russell Raphael)

    Is the Eucharist tantamount to cannibalism? Let’s ask Thomas Aquinas. Topics in this episode include: Fr. Conmee, Martin Cunningham, why Molly wasn’t admitted to the choir, bluey specs, Jesuit rock stars, Bloom’s skepticism of priests, a story from James Joyce’s 50th birthday party, the Eucharist, transubstantiation, the romantic possibilities of Mass, scapulars, nuns, everything Leopold…

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  • Decoding Bloom: The Opiate of the Mass

    “Look at all my trials and tribulations/ Sinking in a gentle pool of wine/ What’s that in the bread? It’s gone to my head/ ‘Till this morning is this evening, life is fine.” – “The Last Supper,” Jesus Christ Superstar This is a post in a series called Decoding Bloom where I take a paragraph…

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