Useless Joyce

What is the "use" of literature? Can we call a work of art "useless"? And how does "interpretation" dif­fer from "use"? In Useless Joyce, Tim Conley sets forth a lively, often witty argument that the works of James Joyce, often thought difficult, obscure, and far from practical, are in fact polymorphous medita­tions on these perennial questions. Conley investigates not only how Joyce dramatizes the notion of "use," but also the ways in which readers expect, demand, or discover purposes for texts.         
          Useless Joyce presents examinations of traditional textual functions such as quoting, editing, translating, and annotating texts, and sets them against the ways in which texts may be assigned un­expected but thoroughly practical purposes. Prompted by the observation that the rise of the industry of explication and commentary on books like "Ulysses" is not unlike the rise of "self-help" publishing, Conley suggests that we can plausibly and instructively read Joyce's works themselves as various kinds of guides, and thereby uncover new or forgotten "uses" for them.
          Conley offers fresh readings of Joyce's works. However, his compelling, incisively humourous argument effectively reaches well beyond the case of Joyce alone. Useless Joyce invites discussions about the assumptions at work behind our definitions of literature, interpretation, and use.

TIM CONLEY is a professor in the Department of English Language and Literature at Brock Universi­ty. His prior work includes Joyces Mistakes: Problems of Intention, Irony, and Interpretation, Doubtful Points: Joyce and Punctuation (co-edited with Elizabeth M. Bonapfel), and Burning City: Poems of Metropolitan Modernity (co-edited with Jed Rasula). In 2016 he was awarded the James M. Flaherty Fellowship at Trinity College Dublin.