Friends of Shakespeare and Company read Ulysses by James Joyce

Our Bloomcasters reconvene on January 6th, “Joycension Day”, to discuss The Dead : the final piece in Joyce’s Dubliners, described by T. S. Eliot as "one of the greatest short stories ever written". Leaning heavily as always on the wisdom of honorary Bloomcasters Declan Kiberd and Colm Toibin, they cover orchestrated dinner parties, ego death, the circularity of human life, the music of words, and much more.Carrying forth a Bloomcast tradition, they also play a festive game, populating competing dinner parties with characters from Dubliners and Ulysses.Happy New Year (and Joycension Day)!*Mentioned in the podcast:‘The Dead’, by James Joyce: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Dubliners/The_DeadProf. Declan Kiberd, ‘Dubliners: The First 100 Years,’ at the James Joyce Center (2014):https://youtu.be/A5qhK7LH6co?si=1zFc7EH7AOpuL1mqDubliners, with an introduction by Colm Toibin (Canongate): https://canongate.co.uk/books/1488-dubliners/London Review of Books. ‘Arruginated’, by Colm Toibin: https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v45/n17/colm-toibin/arruginatedJohn Huston’s 1987 film adaptation of ‘The Dead’: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rkos62UPwVk“The Lass of Aughrim,” from the Huston film:https://youtu.be/I1CP5Lz2iHE?si=yfxE-koZ3PVngWIcAnnie Baker’s Infinite Life: https://www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/productions/infinite-life/ Circles by Ralph Waldo Emerson: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/2944/2944-h/2944-h.htm#link2H_4_0010 *Alice McCrum is a Ph.D. student in the Department of History at Princeton University. Before starting her graduate work, Alice lived in Paris, where she taught at the Sorbonne, studied public policy at Sciences Po-Paris, and directed cultural programming at the American Library in Paris. Lex Paulson is Director of Executive Programs at the UM6P School of Collective Intelligence (Morocco) and lectures in advocacy and human rights at Sciences Po-Paris. Trained in classics and community organizing, he served as mobilization strategist for the campaigns of Barack Obama in 2008 and Emmanuel Macron in 2017. He served as legislative counsel in the 111th U.S. Congress (2009-2011), organized on six U.S. presidential campaigns, and has worked to advance democratic innovation at the European Commission and in India, Tunisia, Egypt, Uganda, Senegal, Czech Republic and Ukraine. He is author of Cicero and the People’s Will: Philosophy and Power at the End of the Roman Republic, from Cambridge University Press, and is co-editor of the Routledge Handbook of Collective Intelligence for Democracy and Governance.Adam Biles is an English writer and translator based in Paris. He is Literary Director at Shakespeare and Company. In 2022, he conceived and presented Friends of Shakespeare and Company read Ulysses—an epic, polyphonic celebration of James Joyce’s masterwork. Feeding Time, his first novel, was published by Galley Beggar Press in 2016. It was published by Editions Grasset in France in 2018 to great critical acclaim. His second novel, Beasts of England, was published in September 2023 by Galley Beggar Press, and will be published in 2025 by Editions Grasset. It was selected as a "2023 highlight" by The Guardian. A collection of his conversations with writers, The Shakespeare and Company Book of Interviews, was published by Canongate in October 2023 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A few weeks back we had our dear friend, Bloomsday MC, and eminent Bloomcaster Prof. Lex Paulson as a guest in the library to give a talk on Cicero, drawing on his book Cicero and the People’s Will: Philosophy and Power at the End of the Roman Republic, recently published by Cambridge University Press.Anyone who has listened to Bloomcast will know that Lex is not just a great speaker, but also a great thinker, and this talk is both an exquisite example of his work, and an insight into some of the ideas that shaped his particular and insightful approach to James Joyce’s masterwork.We were so pleased to have Lex with us that evening, and are delighted to be able to release this talk on Bloomsday. Enjoy! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This December—six months after saying goodbye—Bloomcast is back for a Holiday Special! Join Alice, Lex and Adam as they answer your questions, play games, tease each other, drink (tea, whiskey, Gimber) and leap off Forty Foot and into Ulysses one more (one last?) time…*Bloomcast is a ten-part plunge into James Joyce's Ulysses presented by Adam Biles, Alice McCrum, and Lex Paulson, live from Shakespeare and Company bookshop in Paris. Join them as they muddle through this radical, sublime, and often misunderstood novel first published one hundred years ago, in 1922. Please share your thoughts on the book and anything you’d like to hear us discuss: [email protected] A student of environmental policy at Sciences Po-Paris, Alice McCrum runs programming at the American Library in Paris. In between fits of Joycean nerdery, Dr. Lex Paulson is Executive Director of the School of Collective Intelligence at Université Mohammed VI Polytechnique in Morocco. An adopted Parisian, he teaches at Sciences Po-Paris and writes on the past and future of democracy. Adam Biles is Literary Director at Shakespeare and Company, Paris. He is the author of the novel Feeding Time, available in French as Défense de nourrir les vieux. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to Bloomcast, a ten-part plunge into James Joyce's Ulysses presented by Adam Biles, Alice McCrum, and Lex Paulson, live from Shakespeare and Company bookshop in Paris. Join them as they muddle through this radical, sublime, and often misunderstood novel first published one hundred years ago, in 1922. In this (almost) final episode, recorded live on Bloomsday at the American Library in Paris, Alice, Lex and Adam reflect on their Joycean odyssey and answer such frivolous questions as “If you had to live in one of the episodes for eternity, which would it be?” and “Which line from the book would you like tattooed on your forearm?”We will record one final episode dedicated to listener questions. If you have anything you’d like us to reflect upon, please send your questions to: [email protected] A student of environmental policy at Sciences Po-Paris, Alice McCrum runs programming at the American Library in Paris. In between fits of Joycean nerdery, Dr. Lex Paulson is Executive Director of the School of Collective Intelligence at Université Mohammed VI Polytechnique in Morocco. An adopted Parisian, he teaches at Sciences Po-Paris and writes on the past and future of democracy. Adam Biles is Literary Director at Shakespeare and Company, Paris. He is the author of the novel Feeding Time, available in French as Défense de nourrir les vieux.Photo by Silvia Regonelli Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.