Ulysses and the Politics of Embodied Space

This dissertation proposes to read James Joyce’s Ulysses from the perspective of embodied space. Departing from the traditional spatial analysis in Joyce Studies that tends to treat space as a static entity (a building, a street, an area, or a city), this study insists that space should be regarded as production, a conception that highlights the embodied rather than the disembodied aspect of space. This model of disembodied space, which can be traced to the Cartesian dualism of mind/body, can be observed in Ulysses mainly from three aspects: the phallogocentrism of the Martello Tower in “Telemachus”; the alienated modern space of Dublin in “Aeolus”; and the disembodied bodyspace of Gerty MacDowell in “Nausicaa.” In order to subvert these incarnations of disembodied space, Joyce adopts a politics of embodied space in each of the episodes: the inscription of the word “omphalos” in “Telemachus” functions as an embodied spot that undercuts the phallogocentric spatial disposition of the Martello Tower; the embodied practices of everyday life in “Aeolus” deviate from the designated functions of the alienated modern space and open up the possibilities for the urban dwellers to embody modern space otherwise; the eroticisation of Gerty’s body surface through self-commodification in “Nausicaa” perverts the desexualized and disembodied body imaginary of Virgin Mary and the idealized femininity promoted by popular culture. In this way, Ulysses can be regarded as a work of art that defies the Cartesian model of abstract space via a celebration of the material, the everyday, and the bodily.Table of Contents Acknowledgement i Abstract iii Introduction 01 Chapter One Colonial Fantasy Unveiled: The Martello Tower as Heterotopia in “Telemachus” 34 Chapter Two Modern Space Revisited: Embodied Practices of the Everyday in “Aeolus” 85 Chapter Three Body Morphology Re-mapped: Self-commodification and the Erotogenicity of Body Surface in “Nausicaa” 149 Conclusion 205 Bibliography 21