Ulysses-En-Gendered Perspectives: Eighteen New Essays on the Episodes / Edition 1

by Kimberly J. Devlin, Marilyn Reizbaum

Overview

Groundbreaking perspectives on the controversial modern epic

Perhaps no literary work of the twentieth century has caused more controversy than James Joyce's Ulysses. The book America wanted to burn has instead earned a place as one of the most complex and most studied volumes of fiction. In this collection of essays each of the eighteen contributors offers new commentary on one of the episodes in Ulysses. Throughout Ulysses—En-Gendered Perspectives the common critical concern is with varying articulations of "femininities" and "masculinities" in Joyce's modernist epic. Each contributor attends to the extensive and various markings of gender in Ulysses and examines the ways in which such markings generate and en-gender other meanings.

Gender is treated as a form of overwriting, in senses that include both excess and layering. Here the differentiations of "masculine" and "feminine," their definitions and elaborations, are approached in multiple ways and in changing contexts. Familial roles, labor assignments, perceptual modes, colonialist categories, sexualities, ethnicities, ways of knowing and learning, scents, tastes, and eating habits are but a few of the cultural phenomena the scholars explore.

Ulysses—En-Gendered Perspectives affords insight into Joyce's masterpiece from the present-day perspective of gender issues and is responsive as well to other influential trends such as historicism, psychoanalysis, and culture critique.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781570032882
Publisher:	University of South Carolina Press
Publication date:	07/01/1999
Series:	Cultural Frames
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	345
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.00(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Kimberly J. Devlin is an associate professor of English at the University of California, Riverside, and the author of Wandering and Return in "Finnegan's Wake." Her articles on Joyce have appeared in PMLA, Novel, James Joyce Quarterly, and several essay collections.

Editorial Reviews

Joyce's not Homer's. Joyce specialists offer new commentary on the 18 episodes of the 20th-century novel, highlighting the various articulations of femininities and masculinities in the modernist epic. Treating gender as a form of overwriting, meaning both excess and layering, they explore such aspects as familial roles, labor assignments, perceptual modes, colonialist categories, sexualities, ethnicities, ways of knowing and learning, scents, tastes, and eating habits. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

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