Useless Joyce : : Textual Functions, Cultural Appropriations / / Tim Conley.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter University of Toronto Press Complete eBook-Package 2017
• VerfasserIn: Conley, Tim,
• Place / Publishing House: Toronto : : University of Toronto Press, , [2018]; ©2017
• Year of Publication: 2018
• Language: English
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (200 p.)

Tim Conley’s Useless Joyce provocatively analyses Joyce’s Ulysses and Finnegans Wake and takes the reader on a journey exploring the perennial question of the usefulness of literature and art. Conley argues that the works of James Joyce, often thought difficult and far from practical, are in fact polymorphous meditations on this question. Examinations of traditional textual functions such as "ing, editing, translating, and annotating texts are set against the ways in which texts may be assigned unexpected but thoroughly practical purposes. Conley’s accessible and witty engagement with the material views the rise of explication and commentary on Joyce’s work as an industry not unlike the rise of self-help publishing. We can therefore read Ulysses and Finnegans Wake as various kinds of guides and uncover new or forgotten “uses” for them. Useless Joyce invites new discussions about the assumptions at work behind our definitions of literature, interpretation, and use.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Note on Abbreviations -- Introduction -- PART ONE. Textual Functions -- 1. Guidance Systems -- 2. Misquoting Joyce -- 3. Limited Editions, Edited Limitations -- 4. Translation, Annotation, Hesitation -- PART TWO. Cultural Appropriations -- 5. Make a Stump Speech Out of It -- 6. Win a Dream Date with James Joyce -- 7. The Stephen Dedalus Diet -- Conclusion: Means Without End -- Appendix -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index