Greenwich Library is happy to announce that local James Joyce historian Jesse Meyers will lead an 8-week workshop on Joyce’s short story collection Dubliners, beginning Monday, October 2 from 12:15 – 2:15 pm in the Marx Family Black Box Theater.
Jesse Meyers, a retired newsletter editor and publisher, has been teaching courses and workshops on James Joyce for the past 20 years. He has been published in a number of Joycean journals and has taught classes through New York University’s School of Professional Studies, the New York City Irish Consulate, Barnes & Noble, and Fairfield University. He has also lectured in Francem Switzerland, Canada, and Ireland, Joyce’s homeland.
Dubliners, Joyce’s first major work, was published in 1914. He’d begun writing the book’s 15 stories — meticulously depicting Irish middle-class life — a decade earlier, and eventually had to fight to have them published.
The stories offer narrations by children, adolescents, adults, and public figures. It’s considered Joyce’s most accessible work, and a must-read for fans of early modernist fiction and short stories in general. The final story, “The Dead,” is widely considered one of the best short stories ever written.
“I have many stories about Joyce, his life, his eyes, his legal challenges, and his work,” says Meyers of the workshops. “As is the case with many noted authors—Hemingway and Salinger for instance—early stories offer a clear indication of a major work to follow.” In Joyce’s case, Dubliners serves as a preview to his 1922 masterpiece Ulysses.
Meyers is a member of the International James Joyce Foundation and the James Joyce Society, he lives in Cos Cob.
The full schedule of workshop classes is below; all classes will meet in the Marx Family Black Box Theater:
- Monday, October 2, 12:15 – 2:15 p.m.
- Monday, October 16, 12:15 – 2:15 p.m.
- Monday, October 23, 12:15 – 2:15 p.m.
- Monday, October 30, 12:15 – 2:15 p.m.
- Monday, November 6, 12:15 – 2:15 p.m.
- Monday, November 6, 12:15 – 2:15 p.m.
- Monday, November 6, 12:15 – 2:15 p.m.
- Monday, December 4, 12:15 – 2:15 p.m.
Registration via the Library’s online calendar is required.