Brock MA students Jerika Sanderson (left) and Monica Sousa (right) have returned from a week of summer school in Italy. The two students were among this year’s participants in the annual Trieste Joyce School, held in the university town of Trieste in northeastern Italy. The school brings together poets, authors and Joyce scholars from around the world each summer to participate in a week of seminars, lectures and cultural events. A particular highlight was meeting Fritz Senn, the director of the Zurich James Joyce Foundation (centre). Sousa and Sanderson attended daily lectures and seminars specific to Joyce texts each day of the week-long school. In addition to their academic activities, the students also participated in a variety of cultural activities, including poetry readings, walking tours of Trieste, attending an Italian opera and a dinner at the Slovenian border. The two learned about the opportunity while taking a fourth-year English course on James Joyce’s Ulysses with Professor Tim Conley and were inspired to apply after hearing more about it from students who had attended in previous years. Conley has also taught at the school himself. Joyce spent nearly 11 years between 1904 and 1920 in self-imposed exile in Trieste, where he immersed himself in the daily social, cultural and political life of the city and forged important literary friendships while writing a number of works.