Joyce Imperialism And Postcolonialism

On the surface, James Joyce’s work is largely apolitical. Through most of the twentieth century he was the proud embodiment of the rootless intellectual. However, perspectives on the colonial history of Ireland have proliferated in recent years, yielding a subtle and complex conception of the Irish postcolonial experience that has become a major theme in current Joyce scholarship. In this volume Leonard Orr brings together a diverse collection of essays situating Joyce in the debates generated by postcolonial theory and discourse. Highly original and often provocative, these essays bring Joyce powerfully within the ambit of postcolonial studies.

A landmark collection of essays examining Joyce's relationship with Irish colonialism and nationalism.

James Joyce is located between, and constructed within, two worlds: the national and international, the political and cultural systems of colonialism and postcolonialism. Joyce's political project is to construct a postcolonial contra-modernity: to write the incommensurable differences of colonial, postcolonial, and gendered subjectivities, and, in doing so, to reorient the axis of power and knowledge. What Joyce dramatizes in his hybrid writing is the political and cultural remainder of imperial history or patriarchal canons: a remainder that resists assimilation into the totalizing narratives of modernity. Through this remainder - of both politics and the psyche - Joyce reveals how a minority culture can construct political and personal agency. Joyce: Feminism / Post / Colonialism, edited by Ellen Carol Jones, bears witness to the construction of that agency, tracing the inscription of the racial and sexual other in colonial, nationalist, and postnational representations, deciphering the history of the possible. Contributors are Gregory Castle, Gerald Doherty, Enda Duffy, James Fairhall, Peter Hitchcock, Ellen Carol Jones, Ranjana Khanna, Patrick McGee, Marilyn Reizbaum, Susan de Sola Rodstein, Carol Shloss, and David Spurr.

James Joyce is located between, and constructed within, two worlds: the national and international, the political and cultural systems of colonialism and postcolonialism. Joyce's political project is to construct a postcolonial contra-modernity: to write the incommensurable differences of colonial, postcolonial, and gendered subjectivities, and, in doing so, to reorient the axis of power and knowledge. What Joyce dramatizes in his hybrid writing is the political and cultural remainder of imperial history or patriarchal canons: a remainder that resists assimilation into the totalizing narratives of modernity. Through this remainder - of both politics and the psyche - Joyce reveals how a minority culture can construct political and personal agency. Joyce: Feminism / Post / Colonialism, edited by Ellen Carol Jones, bears witness to the construction of that agency, tracing the inscription of the racial and sexual other in colonial, nationalist, and postnational representations, deciphering the history of the possible. Contributors are Gregory Castle, Gerald Doherty, Enda Duffy, James Fairhall, Peter Hitchcock, Ellen Carol Jones, Ranjana Khanna, Patrick McGee, Marilyn Reizbaum, Susan de Sola Rodstein, Carol Shloss, and David Spurr.

The work of James Joyce, especially Ulysses, can be fully understood only when the colonial and postcolonial context of Joyce's Ireland is taken into account. Reading Joyce as a postcolonial writer produces valuable new insights into his work, though comparisons of Joyce's work with that of African and Caribbean postcolonial writers provides reminders that Joyce, regardless of his postcolonial status, remains a fundamentally European writer whose perspective differs substantially from that of most other postcolonial writers. In addition to exploring Joyce's writings in light of recent developments in postcolonial theory, Booker employs a Marxist critical approach to assess the political implications of Joyce's work and examines the influence of Cold War anticommunism on previous readings of Joyce in the West. Focusing on Karl Radek's criticisms of Joyce, the volume begins with a detailed discussion of the rejection of Joyce's writings by many leftist critics. It then examines those aspects of Ulysses that can be taken as a diagnosis and criticism of the social ills brought to Ireland by British capitalism. The following chapters explore Joyce's language as part of his critique of capitalism, the role of history in his works, the failure of Joyce to represent the lower classes of colonial Dublin, and the political implications of Joyce's writings.

"James Joyce: Developing Irish Identity" follows the increasing focus on Irish identity in Joyce's major works of prose. This book traces the development of the idea of Ireland, the concept of Irishness, the formation of a national identity and the need to deconstruct a nationalistic self-conception of nation in Joyce's work. Through close reading of "Dubliners", "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man", "Stephen Hero" and "Ulysses", Joyce articulates the problems that colonialism poses to a nation-state that cannot create its identity autonomously. Furthermore, this reading uncovers Joyce's conception of national identity as increasingly sophisticated and complicated after Irish independence was won. From here, Halloran argues that Joyce presents his readers with ideas and suggestions for the future of Ireland. As Irish studies become increasingly imbricated with postcolonial discourse, the need for re-examination of classic texts becomes necessary."James Joyce: Developing Irish Identity" provides a new approach for understanding the dramatic development of Joyce's oeuvre by providing a textual analysis guided by postcolonial theory.

This second edition of The Cambridge Companion to Joyce contains several revised essays, reflecting increasing emphasis on Joyce's politics, a fresh sense of the importance of his engagement with Ireland, and the changes wrought by gender studies on criticism of his work. This Companion gathers an international team of leading scholars who shed light on Joyce's work and life. The contributions are informative, stimulating and full of rich and accessible insights which will provoke thought and discussion in and out of the classroom. The Companion's reading lists and extended bibliography offer readers the necessary tools for further informed exploration of Joyce studies. This volume is designed primarily as a students' reference work (although it is organised so that it can also be read from cover to cover), and will deepen and extend the enjoyment and understanding of Joyce for the new reader.

In this first full-length study of race and colonialism in the works of James Joyce, Vincent J. Cheng argues that Joyce wrote insistently from the perspective of a colonial subject of an oppressive empire, and that Joyce's representations of 'race' in its relationship to imperialism constitute a trenchant and significant political commentary, not only on British imperialism in Ireland, but on colonial discourses and imperial ideologies in general. Exploring the interdisciplinary space afforded by postcolonial theory, minority discourse, and cultural studies, and articulating his own cross-cultural perspective on racial and cultural liminality, Professor Cheng offers a ground-breaking study of the century's most internationally influential fiction writer, and of his suggestive and powerful representations of the cultural dynamics of race, power, and empire.