Modelled on Odysseus’s encounter with the eaters of the narcotic lotus flower, this episode explores how people lose themselves. With Maud Ellmann, professor at the University of Chicago, Ato Quayson, professor at Stanford University, and Michael Cooney, public relations officer at a plaintiff and labor law firm, we talk about whether Bloom finds himself again. We think about Ulysses as a map of the world as we range from the streets of Dublin to Accra, Ghana, and to Melbourne, Australia.

Enter Leopold Bloom. We talk about his odd ways and his responses to a range of concealed things in “Calypso,” from Blazes Boylan’s letter to Molly to other people’s experience. Sharing their thoughts are Margot Norris, professor emerita at UC Irvine, James Ramey, professor at UAM-Cuajimalpa, Mexico City, and Elizabeth Salerno, senior librarian at the New York Public Library. We also feature two songs on the program for Molly’s tour with Blazes, “Love’s Old Sweet Song” and “Là ci darem la mano.”

“Proteus,” the third episode of Ulysses, is notoriously difficult. We explore different responses to that difficulty as we talk with Ilaria Susmel, a bank clerk from Trieste, Italy, Sam Slote, a professor of English at Trinity College Dublin, and Piotr Prachnio, a literary critic from Poland. We talk about the protean obscurity as a point of identification, an occasion for exploration, and a series of beautiful and evocative sounds. We also listen to how the shifting language of the episode finds further transformation in translations into Italian, Portuguese, and Polish.

Exploring “Nestor,” the second episode of Ulysses, we think about teaching as farce and learning as historical trauma and collaboration. We listen to a conversation between students at Caffè Strada, Berkeley, and we talk with three guests: Garvan Corkery, a lawyer from Cork, Ireland; Robert Spoo, Chapman Professor of Law at the University of Tulsa; and Jeffrey Nishimura, Chair of English at Los Angeles City College. Along the way, we talk about Jewish migration to Cork and Joycean reading groups in Los Angeles.

In our first episode, we talk about how Ulysses begins. We’re joined by Karen Lawrence, President of the Huntington Library, John Higgins of the University of Cape Town, and Jamie Salomon, leader of the Bloomsday Ulysses Reading Group for the Montreal Literary Festival. We hear their thoughts on everything from style to playing amateur archeologists.