Visualizing James Joyce

By Alex Granados,

Published October 27, 2011 at 10:08 AM EDT

Greensboro artist Fritz Janschka has been obsessed with James Joyce ever since he read "Ulysses" shortly after moving to America in 1949. Since then, Janschka has devoted many of his art pieces to Joyce’s literature. It’s a happy marriage of mediums. Joyce is known for his surreal, stream-of-consciousness, and Janschka is one of the founding members of a school of art called Fantastic Realism that has elements of religious and esoteric symbolism as well as psychoanalysis. He has an exhibition of his Joyce-related works showing at the Weatherspoon Art Museum at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro through November 20. Host Frank Stasio talks to Fritz Janschka about Fantastic Realism and his obsession with James Joyce.

Alex Granados

Alex Granados joined The State of Things in July 2010. He got his start in radio as an intern for the show in 2005 and loved it so much that after trying his hand as a government reporter, reader liaison, features, copy and editorial page editor at a small newspaper in Manassas, Virginia, he returned to WUNC. Born in Baltimore but raised in Morgantown, West Virginia, Alex moved to Raleigh in time to do third grade twice and adjust to public school after having spent years in the sheltered confines of a Christian elementary education. Alex received a degree in journalism from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He also has a minor in philosophy, which basically means that he used to think he was really smart but realized he wasn’t in time to switch majors. Fishing, reading science fiction, watching crazy movies, writing bad short stories, and shooting pool are some of his favorite things to do. Alex still doesn’t know what he wants to be when he grows up, but he is holding out for astronaut.

See stories by Alex Granados

Frank Stasio

Longtime NPR correspondent Frank Stasio was named permanent host of The State of Things in June 2006. A native of Buffalo, Frank has been in radio since the age of 19. He began his public radio career at WOI in Ames, Iowa, where he was a magazine show anchor and the station's News Director.

See stories by Frank Stasio