In this hallucinatory episode, in which everything that has happened up to this point in Ulysses is reimagined, Bloom and Stephen wander in “Nighttown,” Joyce’s version of the red-light district of Dublin. We talk about confusion, hilarity, gender roles, obscenity, and redemption. Joining us are...

Set in a maternity hospital, “Oxen” parodies the development of English prose. A celebration of maternity or a rival creative feat? Joyce called it the most difficult episode “to interpret and to execute”; we talk about the shortcuts he took in composing it and its unexpected humor. Joining us...

A woman, a man, a beach at twilight, and at least one orgasm: but what exactly happens? Is Gerty MacDowell brainwashed or liberated by the women’s magazines she reads? Is the episode misogynist or empathetic? We complicate these binaries with Anne Fogarty, professor at University College, Dublin,...