231210 Unlocking Ulysses: a Semester-Long Journey through James Joyce's Epic Novel (S) (WiSe 2023/2024)

In this immersive course, we will embark upon an adventure. Chapter by chapter, we will read James Joyce's famous modernist novel Ulysses (1922) together. We will examine the novel in the context of literary and cultural modernism of the early 20th century, exploring themes such as identity, consciousness, time, and memory, while also keeping in mind the novel's relation to Homer's epic poem The Odyssey and tracing how Joyce reimagines the ancient epic for a modern readership.
Renowned for its considerable length and rumoured to be complex, Ulysses often appears a bit intimidating to readers. But don't worry: we will tackle this challenge head-on, together, as a reading community, experiencing the novel's various styles and voices as a collective endeavour. To aid us on this epic journey, we will rely on the assistance of the famous Radio Telefís Éireann (RTÉ) Ulysses broadcast and on several roadmaps. We will also collaboratively create our own reading guide, ensuring that no member of our seminar embarks upon this quest alone.

Literaturangaben

Reading List
Some secondary reading will be made available. Students are asked to obtain the following:
• Joyce, James. Ulysses. 2000 [1922]. Penguin (this is the edition I shall be using, which I recommend. It is also available for e-readers).

-> ! Please read the first chapter (1 – "Telemachus") before our first meeting !

Note: If you use an e-reader, make sure you know how to navigate quickly and expertly within the text, how to mark passages (and find them again), how to make annotations, and how to quote properly from an eBook. I advise against working on smartphones for scholarly purposes.

Recommended Additional Reading/Audio:
• Blamires, Harry. The New Bloomsday Book: a Guide Through Ulysses. 2008 [1966]. Routledge
(also available for e-readers).
• Homer. The Odyssey. Trans. Emily Wilson, 2018. Norton & Co. (also available for e-readers. If you want to look at a recent translation of The Odyssey, I recommend Wilson's exciting and ground-breaking one)
• Mulhall, Daniel. Ulysses: A Reader's Odyssey. 2022. New Island Books (also available for e-readers).
• RTÉ Ulysses broadcast. 1982. RTÉ Radio (available in individual episodes here: https://www.rte.ie/culture/2023/0610/1146705-listen-ulysses-james-joyce-podcast/)