Category: Lecture

The James Joyce Centre is proud to present “James Joyce’s Ulysses and the Assassination of JFK,” a lecture by Prof. Barry Keane on Saturday, June 14th at 12.30pm.

Prof. Keane will present the shared frames of Bloomsday (June 16th 1904) and the events surrounding the assassination of John F. Kennedy (November 22th 1963), as viceregal cavalcade and presidential motorcade wind their ways through Dublin and Dallas respectively, both routes having been announced in the newspapers and taking place against tense historical backdrops, with enigmatic onlookers offering riddles, mysteries and ambiguities.

Considered will be the figure of Lee “Leopold” Oswald, who, like a composite of Leopold Bloom and Stephen Dedalus, is out of sorts socially and professionally, nurses personal historical hurt and strong political views and is ill at ease in his domestic circumstances. What is more, Oswald boasts a strange clutch of associates and is given to flâneurial wanderings, turning up in the most unexpected of places.

JFK Day in Dallas looks to commemorate and reclaim the city’s “nightmare of history” in ways that we readily associate with Bloomsday, showcasing as it does cultural events, walks, and reenactments — many of which take place at locations which are cultural heritage landmarks associated with the events of that infamous day.

In this talk, Prof. Keane will weave facts and narratives across time, nations and literature in a demonstration that the truth can be stranger than fiction.

A native of Dublin, Barry Keane is a Professor of Comparative Studies in the Institute of English Studies at the University of Warsaw. He has written widely in the fields of Classical Tradition, Irish and Scottish literature, and Polish literature, and his book publications include critical editions of the Baroque poetess Anna Stanisławska’s matrimonial saga titled Orphan Girl (New York, Toronto: Iter Press 2016, 2021, and due 2025). He has also written: Irish Drama in Poland. Staging and Reception (Bristol: Intellect 2016). These books are available to view here.

The event is free but booking is essential.

The funeral of Paddy Dignam in James Joyce’s Ulysses serves as the pivotal event of the ‘Hades’ episode. Dignam’s funeral cavalcade leaves his home in Sandymount at 11 a.m. on 16 June 1904, taking him across the city to Glasnevin Cemetery. His death and interment allowed Joyce the freedom to consider many of the conventions, rituals and superstitions associated with death and burial in Dublin. Drawing on Ulysses as well as contemporary sources, this talk by Dr. Patrick Callan will look at a variety of aspects relating to the domestic and public treatment of the dead body in Dublin, including the practice of the wake, and the traditional offerings of flowers.

Dr. Callan is a Dublin historian and Visiting Research Fellow at Trinity College Dublin. His book Death in Dublin during the Era of James Joyce’s Ulysses will be published by Routledge.

The event is free but booking is essential. The talk is part of the James Joyce Centre Lecture Series.

Please join us at James Joyce Centre for a personal Bloomsday Festival presentation on Berenice Abbott, a pioneering 20th-century photographer who took some of the most iconic portraits of Joyce and his family, and the community of creative, queer women who supported his career.

A chance discovery of a box of family photos in a basement in New Jersey led one woman to uncover Abbott’s seldom told artistic legacy. Follow storyteller, archivist, and social activist A.G. Norton on her personal journey through Abbott’s private archive revealing: letters written by Lucia Joyce to Berenice, personal commentary made by Berenice about her multiple photography sessions with the beloved author, and the intersections between the publication of Ulysses and the community of queer women who supported it.

Throughout the 1920s, Berenice Abbott’s life crisscrossed between Greenwich Village and Paris where, in addition to the Joyce family, she photographed and befriended fellow queer women including Margaret Anderson, Jane Heap, Djuna Barnes, Jannett Flanner, and Sylvia Beach. Hear of how their friendships and artistic endeavors all entwined with one another and the lessons and blessings their legacies leave behind.

Delighted to be joining the Bloomsday Festival from Connecticut, Norton will share her research into Abbott’s fascinating life which all started with the discovery of photos taken by her late grandfather and went onto interviews with both of Abbott’s biographers and personal friends, Julia Van Hafften and Hank O’Neal.

Special guest reader Deirdre Mulrooney.

Tickets are €15.

A.G. Norton Bio

A.G. Norton has over 15 years experience in London as a social worker and children’s rights activist where she used her voice to publicly advocate for underserved, marginalized communities.

Returning to New York in 2018 she discovered her family’s personal connection and photographs of photographer Berenice Abbott and has spent the last three years gathering research into her remarkable life. Norton has written several performance pieces based on the photographic legacies she inherited and has toured them at the Brighton, Camden, and the Edinburgh Fringe Festivals. Norton was the 2023 recipient of the Brighton Pride Award to support queer storytelling.

For more information on her work and international performances can be found at www.vivelapin.com or @notyouraverageslideshow on Instagram.

Images: Berenice Abbot, Portraits of Sylvia Beach, James Joyce, Lucia Joyce, and Nora Joyce, 1926-27, courtesy Clark Art Institute. Centre photgraph by Charles Norton, courtesy of A.G. Norton.