James Joyce and the Problem of Justice: Negotiating Sexual and Colonial Difference

Description

This is the first full-length study of James Joyce to subject his work to ethical and political analysis. It addresses important issues in contemporary literary and cultural studies surrounding problems of justice, as well as discussions of gender, homosociality and the colonial condition. Valente uses an original theory and psychology of justice through which to explore both the well-known and the more obscure of Joyce's works. He traces the remarkable formal and stylistic evolution that defined Joyce's career, and his progressive attempt to negotiate the context of social difference in racial, colonial, class and sexual terms. By analysing Joyce's verbal strategies within both the psychobiographical and sociohistorical contexts, Valente unlocks the politics of Joyce's unconscious and reveals the legacy of Western political thought.

"Valente's strong point is the analysis of texts that have not generated critical dogmas....It is hard to do justice to the complexity of Valente's readings, to the many affiliations his thought has in legal studies, feminism, post-colonial studies, deconstruction. Let me conclude by saying that the injustice at the heart of justice, the different, gains its moiety of justice in this book..." James Joyce Literary Supplement "No brief review can begin to explore the depths and particulars of this dense, ingenious book. It has to be read, assimilated, discussed, and then reread, as I think it surely will by the Joyce community. It opened new areas for me and its influence will be long-lasting." Zack Bowen, English Literature in Transition, 1880-1920 "...he writes with great economy: to read Valente with a pencil is to underline very nearly every word. His book is more than good throughout. When he addresses those portions of Joyce for which he himself has the most respect, he is at his extraordinary best." James McMichael, Journal of English and Germanic Philology "This landmark study provides a theory of social values subtle and complex enough to show the rich development of Joyce's vision. The theories of Gilles Deleuze serve Valente's innovative argument that Ulysses moves beyond the representational style of ots first half, which is geared to masculine values, into counter-representational styles in the second half that spring from feminine resistance. The idea that the changing styles of the second half enact the beginning of woman, which then aims at the production of new combinations, provides a striking new perspective....Valente's dense, coherent book is one of the best Joyce studies of the 1990s." Journal of Modern Literature