Bloomsday at the ICC on June 16
Join us at the ICC on Monday, June 16 and take part in the worldwide festival of Bloomsday! We welcome our featured speaker, Prof. Abby Bender of Sacred Heart University, to present a fascinating look at James Joyce’s epic novel. There is no need to have read Ulysses to attend this talk; but hopefully you will be inspired to read it if you haven’t.
Register: This event is free and open to all. We ask that you please register ahead >
Gathering Crumbs in James Joyce’s Dublin
James Joyce’s encyclopedic novel Ulysses is famously considered not only the greatest, but one of the most difficult books ever written. Joyce famously said, “I’ve put in so many enigmas and puzzles that it will keep the professors busy for centuries arguing over what I meant.” But this story of one day’s events in Dublin, Ireland, also proceeds through the most banal of actions and objects: characters use the bathroom, buy milk, wash laundry, and dispose of trash. This talk explores the case of perhaps the most insubstantial and transitory object in the novel, the crumb. We follow the breadcrumbs—and sometimes, as Joyce wishes, are unable to follow them—and find our way, from this most insubstantial thing, to some of the novel’s big insights.
Doors open at 5 pm; the presentation begins at 5:30 pm and will last for about 45 minutes. We’re sure you will have some questions for the Q&A to follow.
The Trinity Pub bar will be open for purchase. Light appetizers will be provided. Plus, try the novel’s famous gorgonzola sandwich that Leopold Bloom orders at Davy Byrne’s Pub.
Bloomsday celebrates June 16, 1904, the day immortalized in James Joyce’s 1922 novel Ulysses. The novel follows Leopold Bloom’s life and thoughts in a single day. ~ The James Joyce Centre
About Prof. Abby Bender
Abby Bender is Associate Professor of Languages and Literature at Sacred Heart University, where she directs the Center for Irish Studies and teaches at Sacred Heart’s campus in Dingle. She is the author of Israelites in Erin: Exodus, Revolution, and the Irish Revival (Syracuse UP, 2015). Her recently published articles include “Irish Jewish Studies at the Border: Precarious Solidarity from Ulysses to Nine Folds Make a Paper Swan,” in American Journal of Irish Studies (2021), “Nursing the Revival: Patrick Pearse, Breastfeeding, and Sacrifice” in The Irish Revival: A Complex Vision (Syracuse UP, 2023), and “Shame and the Breastfeeding Mother in Ireland,” in Irish Shame: A Literary Reckoning (Edinburgh UP, 2025). She is the Irish Studies delegate for the Modern Languages Association, and recently completed a term as Literature Representative for the American Conference of Irish Studies. Her current book project examines representations of Irish motherhood and the cultural and literary history of breastfeeding in Ireland.