Whatever happened to the heroes? Joyce’s answer was to look for them on the streets of Dublin, going about their daily lives. We will take our time reading Ulysses and working out how Joyce used Homeric epic and much else to create the seminal modernist novel.

Ulysses contains multitudes and provides numerous paths to follow.

We may want to trace the correspondences. To what extent does Stephen’s progress through the day mirror the development of Telemachus over the years? What does Bloom’s discomfort with his wife’s infidelity and his social position have in common with Odysseus’s struggles to return to Ithaca? How does Molly’s physicality compare to Penelope’s patience?

We will want to tease apart the story. Can a single day – June 16th – encompass as much of life as a whole decade? How does a novel with a style that varies so radically from chapter to chapter nonetheless cohere?

Over nine months, we will explore how Joyce alchemized the western canon to create space for the formal experimentation and psychological exploration with which the novel continues to probe the intricacies of everyday modern life.

This group meets in the Art Room on the mezzanine on the fourth Tuesday of the month from 5:30-7pm. The group will meet on the third Tuesday in December due to Christmas, and on the third Tuesday in April due to Passover.

Tues, September 22
Ulysses, chapters 1-3 (48 pp)

Tues, October 27
Ulysses, chapters 4-6 (60 pp)

Tues, November 24
Ulysses, chapters 7-9 (64 pp)

Tues, December 15 *Note the group meets on the third Tuesday this month
Ulysses, chapters 10-11 (70 pp)

Tues, January 26
Ulysses, chapters 12-14 (120 pp)

Tues, February 23
Ulysses, chapter 15 (150 pp)

Tue, March 23
Ulysses, chapter 16 (50 pp)

Tues, April 20 *Note the group meets on the third Tuesday this month
Ulysses, chapter 17 (70 pp)

Tues, May 25
Ulysses, chapter 18 (40 pp)

There are multiple editions of Ulysses. We will use this one, the second edition of the Oxford World Classics edition (2022; ISBN 9780192855107), which provides both the original 1922 text and an authoritative introduction, notes, and appendices by Jeri Johnson.

Additional optional readings will be suggested before and during the year to help navigate our main text. You may want to have a copy of The Odyssey at hand, to compare Ulysses’s adventures after the Trojan Wars with their echoes in early twentieth century Dublin. (There’s a lively debate about translations, and the recent ones by Wilson and Mendelsohn both have their supporters. See here for a comparison, in light of the current fascination with Odysseus, and here for a side-by-side.) For Joyce himself, Richard Ellmann’s 1959 biography is a masterpiece and remains the starting point.

Erin Weiss is the senior director of education at GrubStreet, the Boston-based literary arts center, where she oversees hundreds of writing classes, craft seminars, and author events each year. She studied literature, philosophy, and education, and loves Joyce.

Angus Lockyer has taught at universities in North Carolina and London, and now teaches at RISD. He has written about the Japanese history of exhibitions, museums, objects, golf, and dragons and made a podcast about the histories of cities, but not yet Dublin.