Our Bloomsday episode with the engaging James Joyce scholar John McCourt takes us to Italy for the first time, specifically its outpost across the Adriatic Sea, Trieste.
“There, I can safely say I discovered James Joyce,” McCourt says of Trieste. “Having encountered him occasionally in Ireland, I found myself in the city that had been his home for ten years.”
After earning his BA, MA, and PhD. from University College Dublin, McCourt launched an international academic career, focused mainly in Italy–at the Università Roma Tre, Università di Macerata, where he is Head of the Department of the Humanities, and as a researcher and lecturer in Università di Trieste.
The president of the International James Joyce Foundation and founder of the Trieste Joyce School, McCourt has written a bookshelf’s worth of volumes on Joyce, most recently Consuming Joyce (https://www.amazon.com/Consuming-Joyce-Years-Ulysses-Ireland/dp/1350205818?&linkCode=ll1&tag=irishstewpodc-20&linkId=19cf80970087f17aa60060fdcd811fdc&language=en_US&ref_=as_li_ss_tl) . Part a study of how Joyce was perceived in Ireland, part social history, this book uses the changing interpretations of Ulysses to explore the religious, social, and political changes sweeping Ireland. The Literary Review called the book "scandalously readable” while The Irish Times wrote "This book was crying out to be written.”
Join us as we explore his circuitous route to an academic career, the colorful cosmopolitan town of Trieste that McCourt feels so influenced Ulysses, his experience of Italy where he’s perceived as a “britannico,” the funny side of Ulysses, and his perception of Bloomsday as “a dressed-up alternative to St. Patrick’s Day.”
Books by John McCourt
• Consuming Joyce: 100 Years of Ulysses in Ireland (https://www.amazon.com/Consuming-Joyce-Years-Ulysses-Ireland/dp/1350205818?&linkCode=ll1&tag=irishstewpodc-20&linkId=19cf80970087f17aa60060fdcd811fdc&language=en_US&ref_=as_li_ss_tl)
• James Joyce in Context (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B007NW82X0?&linkCode=ll1&tag=irishstewpodc-20&linkId=037774f988059109b8573c153ae35ec7&language=en_US&ref_=as_li_ss_tl)
• James Joyce: A Passionate Exile (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0312269412?&linkCode=ll1&tag=irishstewpodc-20&linkId=9a8693ea88cba32796af122b3be5d71b&language=en_US&ref_=as_li_ss_tl)
• The Years Of Bloom: James Joyce in Trieste 1904-1920 (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1901866459?&linkCode=ll1&tag=irishstewpodc-20&linkId=764db221c79cea26285acaa314a32d73&language=en_US&ref_=as_li_ss_tl)
Links for John McCourt
• University of Macerata Page: Profile Page (https://docenti.unimc.it/johnfrancis.mccourt)
• Twitter: @mccourtitaly (https://twitter.com/mccourtitaly)
• LinkedIn: Profile Page (https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-mccourt-6076b915)
• The Trieste Joyce School: Home Page (http://www2.units.it/triestejoyce/)
• International James Joyce Foundation: Home Page (https://joycefoundation.utulsa.edu/)
