Powering through Ulysses Together

OLLI Study Group 674, Fall Semester 2024) 

- time 11:45 to 1:15 PM each Thursday

For 10 weeks

 (no class on Thanksgiving Day)

First Class on September 26

Last Class on December 5

           The study group leader is Bob Kolodney (emali bobkolive@gmail.com)

ON THIS WEBPAGE:

• Generalinformation

• Text Syllabus (embedded)

• Script of highlights (embedded)

• Resources

We will read and discuss Ulysses, James Joyce's master work. 

Study Group members will either read the entire text or will read highlights on a script used for a reading on the occasion of Joyce's Birthday in 2022, the centenary of the book - an advance copy of which he received as a birthday present on February 2 of that year (the script is embedded below). 

For those already familiar with Joyce and Ulysses this is an opportunity to re-experience something pleasurable.  It is remarkable that even upon multiple readings Ulysses always seems to present something new - passages that do not seem to have been present before or new interpretations, relationships or references.  

CLASSES: In each class we will progress through the script - with reading and discussion.  Study group participants will be invited to read passages aloud. 

GUIDE AND TABLE: There is a Guide to Fruitful Reading of Ulysses on the Bloomsday by OLLI website as well as a summary Ulysses table.  A short TED ED introduction to Ulysses video and a Ulysses Table are posted under the JJ Birthday Celebration program (on the Birthday Celebration webpage).

Text for Course (Script from 2016 Bloomsday by OLLI Celebration) -

                                                              Scroll in Place or Open in upper right Corner:

SOME ADDITIONAL RESOURCES:

• Marathon Ulysses performance of the Irish radio station RTE available at RTE RECORDING (this high quality reading helps to bring the book to life) 

• Michael Groden's Guide to reading Ulysses (Groden is a highly-qualified, trustworthy guide)

• Yale Modernism Lab (try the Joyce Page , or for orderly chapter by chapter analysis, commentary and references the Telemachus Page - from which you can go to other chapters by arrow-marked scrolling)

• Ulysses Guide by Patrick Hastings

• Ulysses Annotated, by Don Gifford and Robert Seidman (the classic reference of annotations on Ulysses)

• For Positive Psychology perspective: The Hope Circuit, A Psychologist's Journey from Helplessness to Optimism by Martin Seligman