Scholarcast 4: Anne Fogarty - James Joyce and Popular Culture

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.