“I cannot say it loud enough: this seminar was superb! Having been in an NEH seminar previously, I know the impact it can have on one’s life as a scholar and teacher once the seminar ends. And although I have only been back at my own university for a short time, I can already feel the strong tonic this experience will be to me for a long time to come.”
“Where to start? It has to be the intellectual and professional highlight of my career! It has already affected my teaching, leading me to include Ulysses in courses I am offering and to shape the way I approach it in class.”
“I was able to gather a tremendous amount of material at the National Library of Ireland that will help me produce much original criticism. . . . But more important were the mutual support and direction given by the participants. I learned a tremendous amount; I’ve now got several very helpful and generous colleagues who will continue guiding my study of areas not previously within my expertise.”
“I made intellectual contacts, reengaged with current ideas in my field, and completed a great deal of writing, which I hope will form the basis of a book project. I entered my classroom this term with renewed enthusiasm for the study of language and literature . . . and I can feel the buzz; I know my students are absorbing this excitement about the material from me.”
“Trinity is the place to be for this seminar on Joyce’s Ulysses, not only because the two great libraries are within easy walking distance, but also because—with the particular focus of this seminar on Ulysses—the whole setting of the novel is right there as soon as one steps outside the university’s gates. To read Ulysses while spending hours each day roaming around Dublin is at least as amazing as having the two libraries at hand. And I marveled at the quietness of our rooms at Trinity (and the quietness of the whole college as a sort of sanctuary), while the whirl of central Dublin roars just outside the gates.”
“The material we were studying came to life for us in a way that no number of intense seminars at home could ever have matched. We did the intellectual work every moment in the world around us; we broadened our frames of reference and felt in our own pulses the cultural realities we spent so much time theorizing.”