Title of Presentation or Performance

Ulysses: The Human Bodyssey

Submission Type

Event

Expected Graduation Date

2010

Location

Center for Natural Sciences, Illinois Wesleyan University

Start Date

4-10-2010 9:00 AM

End Date

4-10-2010 10:00 AM

Disciplines

English Language and Literature

Comments

Recipient, Year of Ulysses International Art Competition Award, sponsored by the Modernist Versions Project. [IWU Department of English blog post, MVP Announcement]

A 26.5MB pdf of the submission is available for download above and to the right. The original is life size (approx. 5'8" x 2'6"), and we created this high resolution scan so that readers could enlarge the image and see the text used in creating the work. Some browsers may download this file more effectively than others.

The original is in the possession of the author.

Abstract

"Among other things my book is the epic of the human body." -James Joyce Ulysses by James Joyce is a paragon of modernist literature. Taking place over the course of a single day, June 16, 1904, Joyce allegorically retells Homer's The Odyssey for the modern age. In a chart published in Stuart Gilbert's James Joyce's Ulysses: a Study, each of the eighteen episodes of Ulysses are shown to correspond to an episode or character of The Odyssey and, with the exception of three episodes, to a specific organ of the human body. Using this systematic diagram as my guide, I have reconstructed Joyce's Ulysses in the form of a life-size drawing of the human body, illustrating each organ using only words from the corresponding episodes of the novel. By pictorially situating Ulysses in this bodily context, I have at once represented and re-presented the themes and ideas explored in this seminal work of fiction. Because of these characteristics, my work is also presently acting as my final study in word-and-image theory, as it is a model hybrid of the two art forms.

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Apr 10th, 9:00 AM Apr 10th, 10:00 AM

Ulysses: The Human Bodyssey

Center for Natural Sciences, Illinois Wesleyan University

"Among other things my book is the epic of the human body." -James Joyce Ulysses by James Joyce is a paragon of modernist literature. Taking place over the course of a single day, June 16, 1904, Joyce allegorically retells Homer's The Odyssey for the modern age. In a chart published in Stuart Gilbert's James Joyce's Ulysses: a Study, each of the eighteen episodes of Ulysses are shown to correspond to an episode or character of The Odyssey and, with the exception of three episodes, to a specific organ of the human body. Using this systematic diagram as my guide, I have reconstructed Joyce's Ulysses in the form of a life-size drawing of the human body, illustrating each organ using only words from the corresponding episodes of the novel. By pictorially situating Ulysses in this bodily context, I have at once represented and re-presented the themes and ideas explored in this seminal work of fiction. Because of these characteristics, my work is also presently acting as my final study in word-and-image theory, as it is a model hybrid of the two art forms.

 

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