Wendy, Shinjini, and Eric have a simply gorgeous conversation with Vicki Mahaffey, the Clayton and Thelma Kirkpatrick Chair of English and Gender and Women's Studies at the University of Illinois and Wendy’s Ph.D. advisor, about the confusing episode of Scylla & Charybdis. It will leave you yearning for your English classes of yore, or wondering why on earth your English classes weren’t as good as this one.

We puzzle through Stephen’s ‘theories’ about Shakespeare and Hamlet and we consider the performativity of Stephen, Shakespeare’s plays, and our own social existence. We delve into Stephen’s preoccupation with being “unmanned” (both himself and Shakespeare) by an older woman and the sexism and anti-semitism circulating throughout the chapter.

Libations

• Vicki: Chardonnay, unfashionably full-bodied
• Eric: Edmund’s Oast Sour Apricot Peach (Charleston, SC)
• Wendy: Birra Moretti Home | Birra Moretti
• A cup of tea with a teabag ‘unacceptable but necessary’ according to Shinjini

Mentions:

• Daniel Mulhall, Ulysses: A Reader’s Odyssey
• James Joyce, Exiles
• Vicki Mahaffey, Reauthorizing Joyce (1988); States of Desire: Wilde, Yeats, Joyce, and the Irish Experiment (1998); Modernist Literature: Challenging Fictions (2007)

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Theme song: “Come on Over” by Scalcairn, via Blue Dot Sessions

Special thanks to Carin Goldberg, whose cover design for the Gabler edition of Ulysses inspired our logo.