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A group of Boston College undergraduates have created an application that offers a detailed virtual tour of James Joyce-era Dublin, the setting for two of his most famous works, Ulysses and Dubliners.
Called JoyceWays, the project launched at Dublin’s James Joyce Centre last month and became available on iTunes, just in time for Bloomsday — the annual Joycean celebration named for Ulysses’ protagonist Leopold Bloom that commemorates the events of the book, which occur on June 16, 1904.
Using digital mapping and images, archival photographic research at Ireland’s National Archives, and their own camera work, the students — who have taken classes with BC Joyce scholar Adjunct Associate Professor of English Joseph Nugent — have produced an interactive guide to the topography and texture of the city that includes more than 100 locations, and is enhanced by a catalogue of Joycean details that will make it possible for a user in 21st-century Dublin to experience the city of Leopold Bloom and Stephen Dedalus. JoyceWays was produced with the help of BC’s Office of Instructional Design and eTeaching Services.
While many BC students have contributed to the project over the years, the core group that brought the app to the public includes Logan Macomber and Eileen Kennedy, who graduated from BC in May, Louie Fantini ’14, and Robert Scobie, a student visiting BC from the University of Edinburgh, said Nugent.
JoyceWays has received some $16,000 in pledges of support through Kickstarter, the crowdfunding platform for creative projects, and as well as funding from BC’s undergraduate research and academic innovation grants programs.
By asking his students to work with images, audio and texts from a variety of secondary sources, Nugent says he is immersing his students not in rote learning, but in the production of knowledge, “the heart of scholarly enterprise.”
For more information about JoyceWays, see joyceways.com.