The James Joyce Exhibit will be at the Irish Cultural Center Feb 2 to Mar 6

Friday, Feb 4	Dr. Mary Aldridge	James Joyce: Childhood, Censorship and Celebration	Dept of English, Mesa CC
Saturday, Feb 5	Dr. Marty Meeks	Explanation of the use of 'geas'/'geis' in Irish Mythology	Celtic Studies.net
Friday, Feb 11	Dr. Ann Weeks	Mothers: Around and in Joyce's Work	Dept of English, U of A
Saturday, Feb 12	Dr. Barry Vaughan	Syncratism and Religious Identity in Ireland	Dept of Philosophy & Religion, Mesa CC
Saturday, Feb 19	AZ Reader's Theater	Readings from James Joyce's "Araby" and "The Dead"

1106 N. Central Ave, Phoenix, AZ
602-258-0109 www.azirish.org

Bloom among the books: James Joyce and Ulysses at the National Library

By Noreen Bowden - Irish Emmigrant

The new exhibit is the first to be held in the new gallery space at the National Library. Among the many Bloomsday celebrations happening this summer to commemorate the one hundredth anniversary of Leopold Bloom's walk around Dublin is one that will surely be welcomed by die-hard literati. This week, The National Gallery launched "James Joyce and Ulysses", an exhibition focusing on the literary labours that created the twentieth century's most revered book.

The exhibition highlights, among other things, the notebooks that Joyce used in writing his masterpiece. The notebooks themselves are cheap and colourful - children's copybooks emblazoned with the crayon that Joyce used as he transferred sections of his text. They form part of a collection that was acquired by the Library just two years ago, as part of a previously undiscovered trove of papers from the son of the late Paul and Lucie Léon, close friends of the writer.

The notebooks and manuscripts, of course, culminated in the publication of the work, and perhaps the most exciting item on display is the very first copy of Ulysses ever published. "It's the most iconic copy of the most collectible work in the world", explains exhibit co-ordinator Kathryn McSharry, pointing to the tome, covered in its original, unassuming blue-green wrapper. Published in Paris in 1922 by Shakespeare and Company, copy number one of the first edition was presented by Joyce to his patron, Harriet Shaw Weaver, who later presented it to the National Library.

At the launch of the exhibit, co-ordinator Kathryn McSharry showed Arts Minister John O'Donoghue the displays.

While the actual book is closed behind a glass case, exhibit-goers can leaf through the book and other manuscripts in the exhibition, thanks to digital technology. This allows viewers to experience the book intimately, by using a touch screen to turn digital pages and magnify sections of text, while the works themselves are being protected for posterity.

You don't need to be an academic or a Joycean obsessive to enjoy this exhibit. The curators have worked to show that 1904's Dublin was alive with colour and sound, and the result is exciting and fun. One room is a vivid display of posters advertising musical productions with Joycean connections. The posters themselves are musical, thanks to a sound system in the walls, activated by stepping on switches hidden in the floor boards. A high-tech exhibit in the room features a variety of song and sounds from Ulysses - children, along with the most serious scholars of scatology, will take delight in the sound entitled "Bloom breaking wind".

The exhibit brings Joyce's time to life.

Dubliners and tourists will enjoy the series of maps, entitled "In Media Res", created by David Lilburn, that layers elements of today's Dublin on top of Dublin in Joyce's time, allowing today's Spire to shine right next to Nelson's Pillar that it replaced. Joyce himself pops up in each of the maps, "Where's Waldo?"-style, as an endearing little character in a purple suit. Other exhibit standouts include a display highlighting some of the political posters of 1904, and a replica of an austere apartment, similar to the bleak homes that the peripatetic Joyce shared with Nora Barnacle in Trieste, Paris and Zurich as he composed the work.

The National Library is a natural choice for an important display focusing on Joyce's work, and not just because it is Ireland's most significant book depository; the young writer, in fact, spent much of his time at the library when he was a student at UCD. The library features in an episode of Ulysses, in which Stephen Dedelus engages in arguments with the librarians of the time. With the library thus immortalised, there is no more suitable venue for an exhibition celebrating the work itself.

"James Joyce and Ulysses at the National Library of Ireland" will run until July 2005.

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