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In the cultural debates of modernism the concepts of time and space were juxtaposed, representing disparate sensibilities, styles of art, even political camps. Artists and thinkers of the era took sides: with time, i.e. all that is fluid and transitory, or with space, i.e. structure and permanence. The «space-time wars» involved such key figures as Henri Bergson, Wyndham Lewis and Gertrude Stein. Joyce was both a participant - one who often changed camps - and an avid chronicler and interpreter of the conflict. This study employs modern narrative theory to read Joyce through the time-space binarism. Philosophical and cultural background is examined, reaching back to Aristotle, Giordano Bruno, St. Augustine, Lessing, and Bergson. The story of the controversy itself is told in some detail. Next, its traces are examined in A Portrait of the Artist, Ulysses and finally Finnegans Wake, read here as an effort to transcend the opposition. Much attention is paid to Joyce criticism; it is argued that the logic of the binarism underlies much of what has been said about his texts.
List of contents
Contents: Concept of time and concept of space - History and philosophical sources of the binarism - Focus on Bergson and Lessing - Modern narrative theory - Relevance to Joyce's novels and Joyce criticism - A Portrait of the Artist - Ulysses - Finnegans Wake.
About the author
Agnieszka Graff is a graduate of Amherst College in Amherst, MA (BA, 1993), Oxford University (M.St., 1995), and the Graduate School for Social Research at the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology, Polish Academy of Science (doctoral program, 1995-1999). She holds a PhD in English literature from the University of Warsaw (1999). Since 2000 she is assistant professor at the American Studies Center at the University of Warsaw, where she teaches US culture, literature and film, African American studies, gender studies and women¿s history. She also offers seminars at Warsaw University Gender Studies Center. She has published three books of feminist essays.
