Abstract

James Joyce's works abound in references to popular culture. They depict such works as part of the very fabric of modern consciousness. Frequently, Joyce deploys allusions to popular entertainment as a means of underlining the debasement and vulgarity of contemporary existence. But also crucially, in the manner of Walter Benjamin, he depicts popular culture as a site of resistance and the very basis by which his characters may contest the enervating effects of capitalism and of political imperialisms.

Anne Fogarty

Anne Fogarty is Professor of James Joyce Studies at University College Dublin and President-elect of the International James Joyce Foundation. She is Director of the UCD James Joyce Research Centre and editor of the Irish University Review. She is co-editor with Timothy Martin of Joyce on the Threshold(University of Florida Press, 2005), with Morris Beja ofBloomsday 100: Essays on Ulysses, and with Fran O'Rourke ofJames Joyce: Multidisciplinary Approaches. With Luca Crispi she is editor of the newly founded Dublin James Joyce Journal, a co-publication with the National Library of Ireland which will be launched in Autumn 2008. She has edited special issues of the Irish University Review on Spenser and Ireland, Lady Gregory, and Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin and of the Colby Quarterly on Irish Women Novelists. She has published widely on aspects of contemporary Irish fiction. She has co-directed two international Joyce symposia and has been Academic Director of the Dublin James Joyce Summer School since 1997. She is the recipient of the 2008 Charles Fanning Prize in Irish Studies