The Language of Empire and the Empire of Language: Joyce and the Return of the Postcolonial Repressed

Abstract

This chapter examines the importance of language in the imperial project and the importance of language as a deconstruction of that project. It looks specifically at the language of James Joyce and argues that his work is profoundly deconstructive of much colonial discourse, specifically in his cultural emancipations of the proper name of Shakespeare from its colonialist associations.