The Brave Cast

Introducing our volunteer tweaders, in alphabetical order as they are known in the Twitterverse. Their section(s) number of Ulysses follows their personal statement.

 

@AllStevie — HS Eng Lit teacher in ❤ with JJ. Has read U 6x cover-to-cover; some parts more. Has same initials as Stephen A. Dedalus. her bio is a tweet. (6)

 

 

 

@AndrewSimonDuck— As a creative writing masters graduate (UEA), I’m fascinated by the power of Joyce’s Ulysses, and as a journalist I’m in awe of Twitter’s ability to digest information. That’s why I signed up for @11ysses… can’t wait for Bloomsday. I live in Brighton, UK. (21)
 

@arturo_caissut — As an engineering student in Trieste, Italy, I have came across that city’s wandering James Joyce’s statue so many times I cannot count them, and every time I’ve promised to myself to return to Dublin (a city I absolutely love), possibly on a Bloomsday trip. Not happened yet. I’ve been a huge James Joyce enthusiast since the high school. Being a technology addicted as well as a part-time-amateur-poet, I cannot help being part of this amazing act of worldwidejoycerespect. (79)

@arysssa — I’m a student at Northeastern University, currently working toward a degree in English and Secondary Education. After studying Ulysses for a semester, I have fallen even more in love with Joyce than I did in high school. However, I have come to realize that I am a bit more like Stephen Dedalus than I ever knew. (87)

 

@AtensB — I am Alexander from Berlin, Germany. I just love the idea of tweeting the Odysee of Mr. Bloom in this new context, by people from all over the world in this new medium. The fascination for me in reading Ulysses is that every single passage of this incredible book has its own unique way of reading, understanding, and interpreting it. It’s the same with Twitter: an endless stream of consciousness from which every single tweet can be read and interpreted in dozens of ways. Let’s see what will happen when both collide! (16)

 

@belishabeacons  —  Paige is a twenty-something student, originally from Washington, D.C., now living and studying in the beautiful metropolis that is London. When not working on documentaries or studying other film and literary movements, Paige can be found knee deep in Ulysses, on which she is currently writing her senior dissertation. For Paige, as for Joyce, there is no sabbath for nomads! (37-40, 81-84)

 

 

 

 @betterbooktitle — I’m a comedian and writer living in Brooklyn, NY and I have written for the Onion News Network and McSweeney’s. (91)

 

@Borncompany – I’m Julie Doyle and I admire the possibilities within the Joycean stream of consciousness: you just never know where he will take you. His great wit makes him a legend I would love to share a slow whiskey with. I live in Dublin and every year I celebrate the great day dressed like Molly Bloom on my messenger bike around great pubs of Dublin raising money for disadvantaged young children. (Yes only us Irish can make a big session look worthy!) (70)

@BucknellU — Based in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, I was founded in 1846 and am one of the finest liberal arts institutions in the country. I would have admitted Stephen Dedalus and Buck Mulligan, but not The Citizen. (4)

@christinasvdp — Hispanic literature, graduate student. I am nuts about Joyce and love the idea of twitting Ulysses, one of my “pillowbooks”. Twitting alternatively from Ithaca, knitting like Penelope, and from the jungle of Mexico city. (62)

@Chrisx5x5 — I studied Ulysses in graduate school with Walton Litz, taught it to high school students without getting fired, and am still awestruck that the saddest book in the world is also the funniest book in the world. Now I’m a lawyer in New England, with the map of Ireland on my face. (73)

 

@cmelhoff  — I’m a university instructor, writer, and hopelessly besotted Joycean. I first fell in love with Ulysses when I was Stephen Dedalus; I love it all the more, fifteen years on, now that I’m Leopold Bloom. (67)

@dittman — Michael Dittman is a writer, photographer, and teacher in Northwestern Pennsylvania.  The former organizer of the Venango County (PA) Bloomsday Fest for four years, he teaches English at a Pittsburgh-area college and is the author of Jack Kerouac: A Biography, The Beat Generation, and Small Brutal Incidents.  He has a deep interest in the Digital Humanities and is always on the lookout for an interesting project like this one. (2, 23, 52, 56)

@dr_flugenpunkt — Apart from being one of abounding Joyce aficionados, I am also an operagoing, languageloving, flamespirited aesthete and vagabond exile of just over 120 pleniluneshines in age. In the most dismal and despondent term of my adolescence, I happened upon Mr. Joyce’s Ulysses.  It saved and changed my life in manifold ways. While Mr. Joyce may not be my favourite author, he surely is my favourite writer. And I trust that He holds the latter pursuit in higher regard. Joyce was a creator of open works. And though his texts are finite in substance, the eternal spirit imbued within and which emanates without shall remain infinite evermore. This is why we are here for Him, our dear old Jim. (36)

@EC_Stories — My name is Eren Celeboglu. In addition to being a wanderer of the twitterverse, I’m a writer. I’m currently at work on my first novel. I also wrote and directed episodes of the TV show “Scrubs,” as well as short films and webisodes for “Cougar Town.” When I read Ulysses in college, I discovered that a single chapter was like falling down a rabbit hole of allusions. This @11ysses project is what I think Joyce imagined Ulysses as: a sort of living, breathing river of consciousness and culture. (22)

@earth2steve  —  I like the idea of Bloomsday Ulysses readings but disappointed that they are so rare. I have stood atop Martello Tower in Sandycove, Ireland, with my young sons. I tweet from Washington, D.C., on behalf of an enlightened (and enlightening) department of the U.S. Government. “Thou Shalt Tweet Daily” is in my job description. I dabble in this ridiculous medium to see what it offers personal expression. I created this @11ysses experiment not to promote Twitter but to have a Bloomsday reading. And to see what will happen. (8, 45, 90)

 

@FBEbAb – Caetano Waldrigues Galindo teaches linguistics at the Federal University of Paraná, Brazil, and is the third Brazilian translator of Ulysses. (94)

 

@fauxmaux  —  Maureen Kelly Nolan worked with Caraid O’Brien, organizer of the Symphony Space Bloomsday celebrations in New York City. Actress, writer and comic, Mo Kelly Nolan continues to work the stage in NYC. (41, 49, 96)

 

@fenlandgent — As I get older I’m getting more guarded with my opinions, except for my opinion about how important and how brilliant Ulysses is. I’ll argue with anyone about that. My BA dissertation was about Joyce’s use of mythology. I’ve read it a few times since. I’ve also read quite a few books that other people have written about it. (61)

@fiona2401 — I’m Fiona, a soon to be English Language and Literature graduate from University of Sussex. I want to be involved with Bloomsday on Twitter as I think it sounds like a great way to share a bit of Joyce love with the masses. I think the stream of consciousness present in Ulysses would work brilliantly on Twitter and be a great addition to its birdsong. (78)

@FootLightsLA – I’m Melissa Watson and I represent FootLights Publishing Inc., a performing arts magazine with distribution in theaters in the greater Los Angeles and San Francisco Bay Area. We have a passion for literature and the performing arts. We feel @11ysses is an incredibly interesting experiment in social media and performance and that our followers would be engaged in this project. (53)

@Geoffhuggins — I’ve been reading Ulysses for almost 30 years, first at school and then taking round Europe with me on an Interail pass, and seeing editions get lost, disintegrate or be passed on to others. Picking it up from time to time to enjoy the rich language and to take me back to Ireland, which is where I am from originally. (47)

@grimalkintalk — Nikita Weymann is made of pixels, coffee, and whiskey (mostly). Along with her highly skilled team of tireless worker monkeys, she produces weird stuff for Grimalkin Workshop, and people actually buy it, which is even weirder. Her meat avatar in First Life has been known to orchestrate Bloomsday celebrations for her town. (51)

 

 

@gumstance — From Scotland originally, now working in advertising and communications in Singapore, still finding time for my favourite writers (Shakespeare, Dickens, Joyce).  I have been reading Ulysses for quarter of a century and still find its charms inexhaustible. Look forward to seeing how the humour and capaciousness of Joyce’s great novel will be captured in this format. (55)

 

 

 

@harryfiddler — Harriet Cunningham is a writer based in Sydney, Australia. She writes long words, short words, curly words and sometimes words which go round corners. She’s also a classical music critic, sometime bloggista, ghostwriter, copywriter, mad twitterer, and member of the Order of the Scone, a Sydney-based Finnegan’s Wake reading group. (3)

 

 

 @HolgerHaase — “I first readUlysses at the tender age of 5 over a long weekend. My M.A. thesis was dedicated to the use of “snotgreen” in James Joyce’s works.” … Ah, who am I trying to fool? I finished the book for the first time earlier this year and it took me a few years. Three quarters in (and with additional help of the likes of ‘UlyssesSeen’ and Frank Delaney’s Re:Joyce podcasts) I already started re-reading it and am now taking every opportunity to learn more about every aspect of the novel. Working as a private German tutor in Cork, I am planning to visit Bloomsday for the first time this year. (43)

 

@IsobelGlenelg—  The fictional alter-ego of a Scots lass, debilitated by a progressive neurological condition, who values her anonymity in these troubled times. Neither silence nor exile being options, she is obliged to use cunning. She acknowledges Jolly Jimmy Joyce as the architect of her happiest moments: whether explaining narrative technique in Caledonian classrooms with the aid of Dubliners; or wooing a long-distance lover with e-mailed excerpts of Ulysses. No longer fit for such pursuits, she dreams her days and nights away, surrounded by her books. (34)

 

@ItsDanya — I’m a lawyer in Baltimore, originally from NYC, who sometimes wishes I could go back to the halcyon days of being an English major. I found Ulysses in a Modernist Fiction class and it has been on my list of favorite books ever since, even though I haven’t had the chance to read the entire thing again. This experiment will be perfect for experiencing it anew. (19)

 

 

 

 

 

@JakeCul — I am based in NYC, hold both US and Irish citizenship, and work for the Dublin-based global software firm, Information Mosaic. (72)

 

 

 

@jesse_stuart — I was born at the heart of the city that gave birth to the automobile industry, the stop sign, techno, and Eminem (a man of letters, like myself). Growing up in the subliterate suburbs of Detroit, I took refuge in the palatable prose of Mr. Joyce. I’m currently a neuroscience major at Vassar College. I’m convinced that @11ysses is the best thing to hit twitter since Kayne West signed up. (35)

 

@jmhuculak — Matt Huculak is a postdoctoral fellow at Dalhousie University. He first met Leopold Bloom in 1997, and they have been fast friends ever since. (9, 10, 11)

 

 

@JuliaMChavez — I’m a teacher and scholar of Victorian literature (gasp!), but I have a long and deep passion for all things Joyce. I first read Ulysses as an undergraduate in 1990, and I’ve been reading and teaching Joyce’s epic ever since. What are some favorite lines from the novel, you ask? “Think you’re escaping and run into yourself. Longest way round is the shortest way home.” (17)

@KP_Pearl — A venerable Bloomite for life! Kevin lives in NYC and never leaves home without his potato. He studied the works of Joyce as an undergrad and now writes comic books. (57)

@kaisina — Katie Punsly is a 20-year-old amateur literature and philosophy scholar, currently doing a Ulysses tutorial at Oxford University. She is working on a thesis combining James Joyce and Martin Heidegger. One day she hopes to return to Dublin, as last time she forgot to buy a bar of lemon soap.

@KennethWDavis — Kenneth W. Davis studied Ulysses with William York Tindall at Columbia in 1967-68. After a career at the University of Kentucky and Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, where he taught a seminar on Ulysses almost every year, he has retired to Albuquerque and teaches part-time at the University of New Mexico. (28, 69)

@kirstizoe — A recent graduate of St. Norbert College with a BA in English (Emphasis in Creative Writing), Kirsten’s first experience with Joyce arrived her sophomore year in Dr. Neary’s introduction to Brit Lit. After a few stories from Dubliners and a few pages of Ulysses passed around for fun, she was hooked. She spent a semester in Cork, Ireland, and then decided that Irish literature was for her. In her senior year in Dr. Neary’s capstone course entitled “James Joyce’s Ulysses,” she and 10 other women spent a semester embarrassing Dr. Neary with frank discussions of women’s private lives, proving to him once and for all that Ulysses is not just a “guys’ book.” (76, 77)

@kritter_r — I’ve read Ulysses 2 or 3 times, but only by trying to tweet parts for this project do I realize the wonderful density of Joyce’s intelligence, the fireworks display of erudition, and his Shakespearean facility with the language. (48)

@lawrnceSjohnson — I am Larry Johnson, an American artist who lives in Donostia-San Sebastian, in the Basque Country of Spain. I first read Ulysses fifty years ago when I was a kid and immediately became a life-long Joyce enthusiast. His influence on me & my work is manifold & immeasurable. I believe that tweeting Ulysses will not diminish this amazing work, but instead add a new layer of art to it. (68, 71)

 

@lilsammyc — I am a nineteen year-old student from Denton, Texas, working on English, Political Science, and French degrees. Without hesitation, the greatest, most profound experience of my educational career thus far has been my numerous encounters with Joyce and, particularly, Ulysses. I’ve found its influence has infected my study, my art, and the way I live my life. (75)

 

@littlegingerkid — I’ve loved books and reading for as long as I can remember. English Lit at school got me hooked on Irish literature and gave me my first introduction to Joyce. English Lit at University turned it up a notch. Ulysses for me is a friend who sits, in his various guises, on the shelf, looking at me expectantly until it’s our next time to meet up. This, like with most slightly distant friendships, doesn’t happen as often as it should do. But we’ve made a firm promise to see more of each other. (5)

 

@macposter — Pete Mackey Ph.D. is the Vice President for Communications at Bucknell University, author of Chaos Theory and James Joyce’s Everyman, and father of identical twin daughters. For two years he and his wife happily called Ireland home and there once met U2’s Adam Clayton going into the Bloomsday reading of Ulysses.

 

@marcus_speh — I’m a writer from Berlin, Germany. Besides tweeting rapidly and madly, I blog at Nothing To Flawnt, I curate the One Thousand Shipwrecked Penguins project and I serve as maitre d’ at the Kaffe in Katmandu. This summer I’m spreading myself thin by also participating in 100 Days 2011. As a German writing in English, Joyce has been of extreme importance to the development of my relationship with language, any language, really.

 

 

@michaelbmoore — I am Mike Moore.  I am a medical student who has long been enamored of the young Buck Mulligan, his charm, ruddy looks, and haughty intemperance.

 

 

@MichaelSheiner — I grew up on the East Coast and first first fell in love with Ulysses in 1966  when I read it with a group of friends. The book accompanied me out to California where I have lived for the last 40 years raising a family and working as a psychotherapist. I have re-read it many times, always in the company of others. I am impressed with  the power of the book to  cultivate a community. And here we go again. Here Comes Everybody.

@mikehalltexas — I’m a journalist at Texas Monthly magazine who specializes in stories about musicians and criminals. I’m also a musician. Ulysses changed the way I looked at books, stories, and songs, and after I read it I led a group of Austin musicians in a 24-hour performance of Van Morrison’s “Gloria.”

 

@MLAd4ms — Matthew Adams, an engineer from Phoenix, Arizona, has been reading and re-reading Ulysses for the last 12 years or so.

 

 

 

@moweiss — I am a puzzle editor based in New York, so naturally I love the riddles and wordplay in Joyce’s Ulysses. But what knocks me out is the book’s humanity. Each time I read it, I am more moved than ever by the characters’ struggles to remain human in an increasingly isolating world. As you can see, my cat totally loves the book, too.

@mvigeant  — I’m a professor of chemical engineering at Bucknell University and an enthusiastic newcomer to the celebration of Bloomsday. In my work, I seek to cultivate creative collaboration between engineers and those in the arts and humanities. Collaborating to tweet the greatest work of 20th century literature is a spectacular example of the ways engineering and the arts make beautiful things together.

@nickmougis — Nick Mougis is an film and television editor. One of his more recent credits is PBS’ “The Electric Company.” For his work on this show, he was the recipient of an Emmy award in 2010, and he has been nominated for one this year as well. Nick hails from Queens, N.Y., studied English at Hofstra University, and tackled the work of Joyce under the watchful eye of Dr. Susan Lorsch.  He was also once admonished by a Bailiff for reading Ulysses in court.

@peterbarkla — I teach French language and literature and English composition at Rutgers University and am a huge fan of Joyce and his progeny.

 

 

 

 

@PopetteTweets — Hi! I’m a sixteen-year-old girl named Mackenzie who is enamoured with the works of James Joyce. Ulysses has been among my favourite books since I was fourteen, which is quite a while in Teenager Time. I’m probably the least qualified person who wants to do this, but it sounds terribly fun.

@rachelcp — I first read Ulysses last year. I started in March and finished on Bloomsday. A lot of different books and websites helped me understand and enjoy it.  Especially Burgess and the Joyce Images site (which has been down for a week now!).  My favorite chapter is Calypso.  Outside of Ulysses, I’m a database administrator in Seattle, Wa.  I enjoy writing short stories, knitting, backpacking and cooking.

 

@readdanwrite — I’m a journalist and book blogger, huge reader of fiction, Joyce lover, and Dublin study-abroader. Graduate of Middlebury and Columbia, supporter of all good writing. http://danielbroberts.com

 

 

 

@realmeng  —  Catherine Meng, a poet & Joyce dabbler, lives and works in Berkeley, Calif. Her first book of poems, Tonight’s the Night, was published by Apostrophe Books in 2007.  With Lauren Levin and Jared Stanley she co-edits the poetry journal Mrs. Maybe. She read Ulysses for the first time at age 17 while nearly flunking out of high school, and credits James Joyce & Samuel Beckett with convincing her to go college & pursue writing instead of joining the circus. Which in the end, is basically the same thing.

@robhollywood— Robert James Russell is the co-founder of the literary journal Midwestern Gothic.  His work appears or is forthcoming in LITSNACK, Joyland, Thunderclap!, Red River Review, Greatest Lakes Review, Eighty Percent Magazine, Down in the Dirt, and The Legendary, among others. In September 2010 he edited the anthology Sex Scene: An Anthology.  Robert lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan. www.robertjamesrussell.com.

@seaman1985 — My real name is Gianfranco Taormina from Italy. I am 25 and work as a foreman for a local multimodal transport agency. I’m passionate about English literature since high school where I studied Joyce’s Ulysses in 2004. It was real love.

@sethmaril — Seth is currently teaching English in the Cenral Asian country of Tajikistan, where he happened to bring a copy of Ulysses for a little light reading. He must sheepishly admit that he hasn’t finished it yet, but is making Bloomsday his personal deadline. Here’s to poor Paddy Dignam.

@sethwitz — A twenty year-old English major at Tufts University, I found my love for Ulysses just this past year. I’m a Bostonian-born, Chicagoland-bred, Massachusetts-college’d young man who above all prefers to read modernist and post-modernist literature. While I root for the Bruins in the Stanley Cup Finals (but mostly lament the downfall of my own Blackhawks), I will continue to take pleasure in casually re-reading my favorite bits of Joyce’s masterpiece, as well as trying to finish the slowly growing mountain of other books on my desk!

 

 

@severino  —  My name is Aguinaldo Severino. I teach Physics in a university and I am a kind of chairman of a Bloomsday celebration since 1994. Bloomsday 2011 is our 18th regular event in Santa Maria – RS (southern Brazil). It is one of the most antique Bloomsday celebrations held in Brazil. Like all around the world it will be an event with readings, music, poetry, literature and joy. Our basic idea is to recreate that day with spirits and readings from Ulysses and other works by Joyce. Our audience is not formed by scholars, but by people who enjoy literature.  The celebrations will be held at a local cultural centre and a bar. For more information: bloomsday.santamaria@gmail.com. 

  

@six16 — Designer. Joycean since ’72. Twitter = six16, Website = six-16.com in tribute to that monumental day.

 

 

 

@Skeeterworks – Laura Louden. A highlight of her life was being a Molly in Smart Gals’ Are You Interested? Bloomsday. A long-time Joyce afficionado, Laura spent Bloomsday 1986 following the steps on Stephen and Leopold through Dublin, bringing home lemon soap and the “corrected” version of ULYSSES.  Also a lover of independent film, Laura works for Landmark Theatres as their Director of Advertising.

 

 

@Soporific — Lives at stevenrwolfe.net, or houston.tx in meatspace. Tiny writing has appeared in 7×20, Opium, Exquisite Corpse, and elsewhere.

 

 

@soviet_reunion — I’m Mike Aperauch, a recent graduate from Michigan State University with a degree (unregretfully) in English Literature. My two literary passions are early modern (particularly Shakespeare) and modern literature. Although Shakespeare is my favorite English writer (I tried, unsuccessfully, to join a graduate program to study him) Ulysses is my favorite work of literature. I want to tweet a section from the 9th episode, in which Stephen explains his theory on Shakespeare’s Hamlet. I can think of no better way to unify my two literary passions.

 

@stuartnuttall — I am a writer (unpublished) a husband (undivorced) and a father (undeniably according to those in the know). For my living I am a lawyer now turning his hand to all things commercial and for my leisure I take joy in the company of the Irish females with whom I share my home, all related to one another in the same line and one married to me. My love affair with Joyce pre-dates my love of my wife, a fair Jackeen herself, when I was led to his spot on the shelf by the recommendations of the great Joseph Campbell, whose Skeleton’s Key I am still finding a godsend.

 

 

@syntaxed — Over-educated and under-employed, I’m a technical writer and a literature instructor in Florida who looks forward to each new year’s Bloomsday festivities. Between Bloomsdays, a photograph of James Joyce wearing an eyepatch and covering his ears with his hands — possibly to drown out the squeals of the French children in the background — keeps me company at work. At home, my cat says mrkrgnao far too loudly and too often. 

 

 

@tedwardhowell – I’m Ted Howell, a Joycean who has written an MA thesis on Joyce. I’m a PhD student at Temple University studying modernist fiction, especially Joyce. My three favorite chapters of Ulysses, in order, are “Cyclops,” “Scylla and Charybdis,” and “Ithaca.” In June (right before Bloomsday!) I’ll be presenting a paper on Joyce and vitalism at the XXII North American James Joyce Conference in Pasadena. But I’ll be back home in Philadelphia in time to commemorate Bloomsday at the Rosenbach Museum and to watch the @11ysses tweets spread.

 

@the_daily_twit — I am a research student at Royal Holloway, University of London, currently in the final stages of writing up a doctoral thesis on the subject of cultures of Catholicism in Joyce’s Finnegans Wake. My writing has appeared in publications such as the Times Literary Supplement, the James Joyce Broadsheet, and the James Joyce Literary Supplement. I have delivered papers at the international Joyce symposia in Tours (2008) and Prague (2010).

 

@TheOtherReader — Julie Squire has been reading Finnegans Wake, her all-time favorite book, for 16 years and hopes to never stop. Although her personal twitter page is as dead as Paddy Dignam, she regularly contributes to the Morgan Library & Museum’s tweets. A graduate of Amherst College and Queen Mary, University of London (and a Hunter College MA in British & American Literature dropout to boot!), she secretly longs to be a rock star so she can name her band  “Parallax Stalks.”

 

@wadelinebaugh — I am a Ph.D. candidate focusing on Early 20th century British and Irish Lit, as well as a poet and general literary fan. Joyce is probably my earliest and most enduring literary love, and the intersection of one of his texts with the possibilities for irreverence and wordplay that Twitter offers are what really interest me about this project.

 

 

 

 

@Wozzick — Patrick fell in love with the work of Joyce at the age of 18 and has been a student of Joyce ever since.  He thanks the great Professor Michael Seidel for bringing him to Joyce at that early age and for teaching him how to read with his whole heart.

 

  

@XanaTenshi — A classical woman living the moderne dream. When she is not tweeting Ulysses, or other great works of literature and poetry, Alexandra is teaching high school students about the nuances of symbolism (Yes, the author intended that symbol to be there!) and why Joyce did not enjoy “perverted commas.”