Sylvie Hill
Sylvie Hill holds a Master of Arts degree in English Literature and Language from Carleton University (1999). Her research, supervised by Carleton University's Barbara Leckie, focused on sexual frustration and the dynamics of romantic relationships in James Joyce’s "Ulysses." Her passion for teaching about sexual dynamics and their meaning in Joycean texts is evident, and her scholarship has been cited selectively in texts internationally and in James Joyce courses on-line and at universities. Ms Hill’s desire to make Joyce accessible to the general public is what drove her to create the course, “Epic Journey: How to Enjoy Reading James Joyce's Ulysses” and in 2017, "Mastering a Masterpiece: Analyzing the artistry of James Joyce’s Ulysses" for the University of Ottawa’s (Canada) Continuing Education – Personal Enrichment Activities Program for five years. Invite Sylvie to teach at your university or college: Email [email protected].
Sylvie has also created "Tales of Betrayal: 8 Stories of Wives, Unsatisfied" about eight great women in literature who shifted their role as wives to obtain sexual satisfaction. She has developed "Women Who (M)use Men: Fated Attraction" to study the role of the male muse for the female writer. She has also created a French music course, "Ces chansons françaises qui ne nous quittent pas : Piaf, Brel et Gainsbourg" about the lasting power of the provocative, unapologetic musicians whom Paris helped shape, and adopted.
***
Sylvie keeps to her theme of sexual awakenings as an indie-published spoken-word poet ("Russell Square Station: mine the trash" 2015, and "Hoxton Square Circles: tales of sexless one-night stands" 2001) and performer, and a colourful writer whose opinion-columns, and music, arts & culture features, are well known to Ottawans. She was also Host of "The Letters: Rediscovering the Art of Courtship," which aired on Canada’s BRAVO!, Canadian Learning Television and Book TV in 2007-08. Ms Hill has taught writing, literature and communications courses at Algonquin College and English Literature for a session at Carleton University. She has spent five years with the Personal Enrichment Activities Program with the School of Continuing Education at University of Ottawa. In October 2018, she was to bring her James Joyce course "How To Enjoy Reading James Joyce's Ulysses" to Carleton University's Centre for Lifelong Learning, but postponed due to illness.
Relocating to Montreal, Quebec, she hopes to bring the course to the area in 2019/2020.
Address: Montréal, Québec
Canada
Sylvie has also created "Tales of Betrayal: 8 Stories of Wives, Unsatisfied" about eight great women in literature who shifted their role as wives to obtain sexual satisfaction. She has developed "Women Who (M)use Men: Fated Attraction" to study the role of the male muse for the female writer. She has also created a French music course, "Ces chansons françaises qui ne nous quittent pas : Piaf, Brel et Gainsbourg" about the lasting power of the provocative, unapologetic musicians whom Paris helped shape, and adopted.
***
Sylvie keeps to her theme of sexual awakenings as an indie-published spoken-word poet ("Russell Square Station: mine the trash" 2015, and "Hoxton Square Circles: tales of sexless one-night stands" 2001) and performer, and a colourful writer whose opinion-columns, and music, arts & culture features, are well known to Ottawans. She was also Host of "The Letters: Rediscovering the Art of Courtship," which aired on Canada’s BRAVO!, Canadian Learning Television and Book TV in 2007-08. Ms Hill has taught writing, literature and communications courses at Algonquin College and English Literature for a session at Carleton University. She has spent five years with the Personal Enrichment Activities Program with the School of Continuing Education at University of Ottawa. In October 2018, she was to bring her James Joyce course "How To Enjoy Reading James Joyce's Ulysses" to Carleton University's Centre for Lifelong Learning, but postponed due to illness.
Relocating to Montreal, Quebec, she hopes to bring the course to the area in 2019/2020.
Address: Montréal, Québec
Canada
less
InterestsView All (8)
Uploads
Papers by Sylvie Hill
A consideration of sexual frustration in the “Proteus” chapter of James Joyce’s Ulysses will allow us to understand Stephen Dedalus’s position as a failed literary artist. While it is commonly acknowledged that Stephen’s sexual frustration and his resulting recourse to prostitutes enable his writing in A Portrait of the Artist as Young Man, when critics turn to “Proteus,” they tend to disregard how sexual tension affects the artist as a grown man. In Portrait, Stephen’s poverty and sexual insecurities keep him from girls like Emma Clery and push him toward prostitutes, instead. In an effort to overcome his sexual inadequacies, Stephen seeks out sexual expertise of harlots, who in turn, fuel his masturbatory fantasies and facilitate his creative process. But although his carnal urges are satiated through his sexual exchanges with prostitutes, vulgar monstrosities continue to grow in his mind and find expression in daydreams and fantasies. These daydreams and fantasies then become the fictions he crafts in poetry, the “distant music” (Portrait 103), as it were, to which he masturbates. In short, like a dog chasing his tail, Stephen Dedalus is entangled in a labyrinthine pattern of sexual desire that sexually frustrates him and forces a retreat into his art. In this context, the writing he produces and the sexual techniques he learns do not win him the love of the woman he desires.
A consideration of sexual frustration in the “Proteus” chapter of James Joyce’s Ulysses will allow us to understand Stephen Dedalus’s position as a failed literary artist. While it is commonly acknowledged that Stephen’s sexual frustration and his resulting recourse to prostitutes enable his writing in A Portrait of the Artist as Young Man, when critics turn to “Proteus,” they tend to disregard how sexual tension affects the artist as a grown man. In Portrait, Stephen’s poverty and sexual insecurities keep him from girls like Emma Clery and push him toward prostitutes, instead. In an effort to overcome his sexual inadequacies, Stephen seeks out sexual expertise of harlots, who in turn, fuel his masturbatory fantasies and facilitate his creative process. But although his carnal urges are satiated through his sexual exchanges with prostitutes, vulgar monstrosities continue to grow in his mind and find expression in daydreams and fantasies. These daydreams and fantasies then become the fictions he crafts in poetry, the “distant music” (Portrait 103), as it were, to which he masturbates. In short, like a dog chasing his tail, Stephen Dedalus is entangled in a labyrinthine pattern of sexual desire that sexually frustrates him and forces a retreat into his art. In this context, the writing he produces and the sexual techniques he learns do not win him the love of the woman he desires.