The Gentle Art of Advertising: Ulysses and the Material of Modernity

A Late Summer Public Lecture organised by postgraduates in the Department of English Studies.

This lecture will discuss the “everyday” content of Ulysses, focusing particularly upon the advertisements that recur within the narrative. With visual examples of the contemporary advertisements upon which Joyce drew, I demonstrate the historical accuracy of Joyce’s representation of the consumer culture that surrounded him. Yet, as I go on to argue, Joyce’s project involves more than a merely automatic recording of his material surroundings. In the second half of this lecture, I position Joyce’s advertisements within the broader narrative of Ulysses, and illustrate the complexity—aesthetic, symbolic and psychological—of his representation of consumerism. I argue that the careful reading of Ulysses allows us to see consumerism as the fundamental continuity between Joyce’s world and ours. In its anatomy of the consumer culture within which we still live, I argue for the continued relevance of Ulysses to twenty-first century readers.

Contact late-summer.lectures@durham.ac.uk for more information about this event.

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• Late Summer Lectures