"Ulysses is always lauded as one of western culture's most important books. This collection of essays re-asserts the worth and vitality of Joyce's monumental text, not because it is challenging but because it speaks so powerfully to significant present-day issues: anti-Semitism, film, melodrama, fashion, photography, silenced women, advertising, and more."--Jennifer Fraser, author of Rite of Passage in the Narratives of Dante and Joyce

June 16, 2004, was the one hundredth anniversary of Bloomsday, the day that James Joyce's novel Ulysses takes place. To celebrate the occasion, thousands took to the streets in Dublin, following in the footsteps of protagonist Leopold Bloom. The event also was marked by the Bloomsday 100 Symposium, where world-renowned scholars discussed Joyce's seminal work. This volume contains the best, most provocative readings of Ulysses presented at the conference.

The contributors to this volume urge a close engagement with the novel. They offer readings that focus variously on the materialist, historical, and political dimensions of Ulysses. The diversity of topics covered include nineteenth-century psychology, military history, Catholic theology, the influence of early film and music hall songs on Joyce, the post-Ulysses evolution of the one-day novel, and the challenge of discussing such a complex work amongst the sea of extant criticism.

Morris Beja, professor emeritus of English at Ohio State University, is the author or coauthor of many books on Joyce and other modernists, including Twenty-First Joyce. Anne Fogarty, professor of English at University College Dublin and president of the International James Joyce Foundation, is the coeditor of Joyce on the Threshold.

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