In Ireland, on June 16th, Bloomsday is celebrated. A day especially dedicated to honoring the protagonist Leopold Bloom, from the book “Ulysses”, by James Joyce. At the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte (UFRN), the Irish Studies Research Group, coordinated by professors Ana Graça Canan and Bruce Stewart, from the Department of Modern Foreign Languages and Literatures (DLLEM), also promotes, in partnership with the Irish Embassy, the 34th edition of Bloomsday.
The event has been held since 1986 in the capital of Rio Grande do Sul and in this edition it will honor 100 years of Joyce's work. To celebrate this important historical moment, the Embassy of Ireland in Brazil and the Consulate General of Ireland in São Paulo presented the “Ulysses100 Through Brazilian Eyes” project, in partnership with 18 Brazilian universities.
18 cultural competitions were held to choose students from each university to create a mural referring to one of the chapters of the book “Ulysses”. UFRN students Matheus Custódio de Lima and Evellyn Gomes Dantas, from the DLLEM English course, were selected and won the prize for creating the art on the wall, which will illustrate chapter 15 – Circe, referring to the work. The artistic production is already in the process of being executed and will be displayed on the wall next to the entrance to auditorium D, of the Center for Human Sciences, Letters and Arts (CCHLA).
The work
Ulisses relates the odyssey of the character Leopold Bloom over the course of 16 hours, on June 16, 1904. The author uses stream of consciousness, parodies and jokes, achieving, with his fragmented writing, a technique that will be one of the great contributions of his work to 20th century literature. His book is considered one of the landmarks of contemporary Western literature.