Rebekah A. Taylor reviews Eco-Joyce: The Environmental Imagination of James Joyce edited by Robert Brazeau and Derek Gladwin

Taylor, Rebekah A

English

Scholars Commons

The Goose
Volume 14 | No. 1 Article 18
8-8-2015
Eco-Joyce: The Environmental Imagination of
James Joyce edited by Robert Brazeau and Derek
Gladwin
Rebekah A. Taylor
Kent State University - Kent Campus
Part of the Critical and Cultural Studies Commons, Literature in English, British Isles Commons,
Literature in English, North America Commons, Modern Literature Commons, Nature and Society
Relations Commons, and the Place and Environment Commons
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Recommended Citation / Citation recommandée
Taylor, Rebekah A.. "Eco-Joyce: The Environmental Imagination of James Joyce edited by Robert Brazeau and Derek Gladwin." The
Goose, vol. 14 , no. 1 , article 18, 2015,
https://scholars.wlu.ca/thegoose/vol14/iss1/18.
Eco-Joyce: The Environmental Imagination 
of James Joyce edited by ROBERT BRAZEAU 
and DEREK GLADWIN  
Cork UP, 2014 $64.50 
 
Reviewed by REBEKAH TAYLOR 
  
Eco-Joyce announces an official end 
to the standoff between modernist studies 
and ecocriticism with over a dozen never-
before-published chapters that offer 
varying environmental approaches to James 
Joyce, long considered the highest and most 
notoriously urban modernist (and thus 
assumed most unlikely to possess an 
“environmental imagination”). Unlike some 
edited volumes, Eco-Joyce’s vigour comes 
from the variety of voices, as each essay 
enters dialogue with the others and 
demonstrates the robust store of ideas 
exposed by thinking about Joyce 
ecologically. The resulting synergy is 
nothing short of ecological; 
interconnectivity is both a theme and 
exemplified in the interplay between 
discussions of trees, rivers, city streets, and 
human nature woven in and out of 
masterful close readings of literary and 
historical texts. 
The editors also achieve continuity 
with at least one clearly identifiable thesis 
that carries consistently throughout the 
volume—this is the general assumption that 
urban spaces should no longer be 
considered “unnatural” or excluded from 
discussions about environment. Indeed, it is 
Joyce’s “programmatic urbanism” (xv) that 
has caused him to be overlooked thus far. 
In fact, these authors argue, it is to Joyce’s 
credit that he resists a sentimental, 
romantic, simplified version of nature. This 
volume proves the complexity of Joyce’s 
ecological imagination, and an insightful 
reader eventually understands that Joyce 
anticipated moves in current environmental 
thought—particularly “second-wave” 
ecocriticism, which deconstructs the notion 
of Nature as an idyllic entity separate from 
human species.  
Still, Eco-Joyce’s greatest achievement is 
that as a sum these essays challenge the 
reader’s own paradigms and binaries, so 
that it becomes not only about Joyce’s 
environmental imagination but our own. 
Erin Walsh, for example, in her essay on 
Finnegan’s Wake, suggests we consider the 
possibility that a tree is both symbol and 
organism, “biorhetorical, simultaneously 
material and discursive” (77), and “human 
culture neither random nor determined but 
ecological” (79–80). Margot Norris notes in 
her “Negative Ecocritical Visions in 
‘Wandering Rocks’” that “[e]cological 
disaster is not only material and external, 
but also imaginary and internal and, 
arguably, ‘rooted’ in separations and 
disjunctions in perceptions of the 
environment” (115). In his standout essay 
“‘Aquacities of Thought and Language’: The 
Political Ecology of Water in Ulysses,” Greg 
Winston also urges readers to resist a 
binary perspective: “[w]ater in Joyce’s 
fiction is physical and pragmatic, technical 
and scientific, social and political; it is also 
spiritual and mythic, represented for its 
powers to preserve life and to take it away. 
Water courses through his works as setting 
and character, image and symbol, style and 
form” (141). In a pronounced example, 
Eugene O’Brien closes his essay by 
answering the question posed in his title, 
“Can excrement be art?” claiming, 
“excrement has as much right to aesthetic 
value as has any other property of the 
mind, the body or the world: it too is part of 
the flux of consciousness” (212). If past 
literary critics irresponsibly categorized 
certain authors and texts as urban and 
1
Taylor: Eco-Joyce: The Environmental Imagination of James Joyce
Published by / Publié par Scholars Commons @ Laurier, 2015
therefore somehow uninvolved with global 
and natural environments, the collection 
Eco-Joyce asks us to reevaluate and 
complicate our own understandings and 
practices.  
The volume’s strength also comes from 
the self-critique of the individual writers, a 
good balance of American, Irish, and 
Canadian scholars, and the editors. Starting 
with the book’s Introduction, which 
provides an accessible but thorough gloss of 
ecocriticism, Joyce studies, and Irish 
studies, each writer carefully considers the 
validity and role of ecocriticism—a literary 
criticism that considers first and foremost 
the changing climate and the human 
relationship to the non-human world 
around us. Without a hint of defensiveness, 
contributors objectively consider the 
strengths and weaknesses of the growing 
field of ecocriticism and its relevance in the 
context of Irish studies and modernist 
studies. The fourteen chapters 
demonstrates each writer’s commitment to 
rigorous scrutiny and clarification of the 
terminology that potentially clouds the 
field. The collection, therefore, meticulously 
pushes the boundaries of ecocriticism 
outward and forward toward what might be 
called social and political ecology, always 
maintaining historicity. Ultimately, 
ecocritical approaches seem a way to 
reconcile the former readings of Joyce as 
either historically engaged or high 
modernist; Eco-Joyce supplements existing 
Joyce scholarship and recent 
interdisciplinary work in Irish studies and 
geography to present a comprehensive 
approach to its subject wherein political 
concerns are treated within the context of a 
particular environment or system, both 
historical and imaginary. As a result, a 
picture of Joyce as both/and rather than 
either/or emerges. 
Not only Joyceans or those with an 
interest in Irish studies will benefit from the 
publication of this new collection. Its 
readability and the editors’ attention to 
detail make Eco-Joyce recommended 
reading for a much wider audience than its 
very niche title might suggest. In fact, one 
does not necessarily need any knowledge of 
Joyce or his ouvre to find this book 
engaging. Students and scholars of the 
environmental humanities will find Eco-
Joyce at the cutting edge of their 
burgeoning field as well as find a 
demonstrable model of how to approach 
non-traditional texts (i.e., not nature 
writing) ecocritically. For modernist studies 
specifically, there are several additional 
implications. One strand that is of particular 
interest for modernist studies is the focus 
on literary form and representation. Fiona 
Becket’s opening essay titled “James Joyce, 
Climate Change and the Threat to our 
‘Natural Substance’” is notable on this 
mark, and many other essayists also point 
to the correlation between changing 
environments and modes of representation.  
 Eco-Joyce subtly (and with clover) 
bulldozes barriers that have prohibited 
modernist studies and ecocriticism from 
embracing one another, and the book 
represents a major step forward in the 
“greening of modernism.” This is not an 
“inquiry into” or “notes on”—rather, it is a 
fully developed examination of the 
possibilities that still remain for Joyce et al. 
As the editors note, this volume is long 
overdue and most relevant given the 
resonances with the world we find 
ourselves living, reading, writing, teaching 
in today—a world where writers like Joyce 
appear prophets of our own environmental 
crises. Describing a John Cowper Powys 
novel, for example, Fiona Becket notes the 
ability of early twentieth century writers to 
2
The Goose, Vol. 14, No. 1 [2015], Art. 18
https://scholars.wlu.ca/thegoose/vol14/iss1/18
capture “connectedness of humanity and 
nature gone wrong” (33). Joyce and this 
emergent scholarship suggests, in other 
words, that we know ecological 
interconnectedness when it is somehow 
broken—by things like pollution, waste 
disposal problems, ecological disaster, or in 
our time, extinction events and the effects 
of global warming. This symptomatic 
approach is ripe for future work in 
modernist and Irish studies, and Eco-Joyce 
is a much-needed volume that sets the 
standard for future endeavors of its kind.  
 
REBEKAH TAYLOR is a doctoral teaching 
fellow and PhD candidate in the English 
department at Kent State University. She is 
looking forward to defending her 
dissertation, “Ecological Modernism and the 
New Literary Form of the Anthropocene” in 
the coming months.  
 
3
Taylor: Eco-Joyce: The Environmental Imagination of James Joyce
Published by / Publié par Scholars Commons @ Laurier, 2015


Eco-Joyce: The Environmental Imagination of James Joyce edited by Robert Brazeau and Derek Gladwin

Wilfrid Laurier University

The GooseVolume 14 | No. 1 Article 188-8-2015Eco-Joyce: The Environmental Imagination ofJames Joyce edited by Robert Brazeau and DerekGladwinRebekah A. TaylorKent State University - Kent CampusPart of the Critical and Cultural Studies Commons, Literature in English, British Isles Commons,Literature in English, North America Commons, Modern Literature Commons, Nature and SocietyRelations Commons, and the Place and Environment CommonsFollow this and additional works at / Suivez-nous ainsi que d’autres travaux et œuvres:https://scholars.wlu.ca/thegooseThis article is brought to you for free and open access by Scholars Commons @ Laurier. It has been accepted for inclusion in The Goose by anauthorized editor of Scholars Commons @ Laurier. For more information, please contact scholarscommons@wlu.ca.Cet article vous est accessible gratuitement et en libre accès grâce à Scholars Commons @ Laurier. Le texte a été approuvé pour faire partie intégrantede la revue The Goose par un rédacteur autorisé de Scholars Commons @ Laurier. Pour de plus amples informations, contactezscholarscommons@wlu.ca.Recommended Citation / Citation recommandéeTaylor, Rebekah A.. "Eco-Joyce: The Environmental Imagination of James Joyce edited by Robert Brazeau and Derek Gladwin." TheGoose, vol. 14 , no. 1 , article 18, 2015,https://scholars.wlu.ca/thegoose/vol14/iss1/18.Eco-Joyce: The Environmental Imagination of James Joyce edited by ROBERT BRAZEAU and DEREK GLADWIN  Cork UP, 2014 $64.50  Reviewed by REBEKAH TAYLOR   Eco-Joyce announces an official end to the standoff between modernist studies and ecocriticism with over a dozen never-before-published chapters that offer varying environmental approaches to James Joyce, long considered the highest and most notoriously urban modernist (and thus assumed most unlikely to possess an “environmental imagination”). Unlike some edited volumes, Eco-Joyce’s vigour comes from the variety of voices, as each essay enters dialogue with the others and demonstrates the robust store of ideas exposed by thinking about Joyce ecologically. The resulting synergy is nothing short of ecological; interconnectivity is both a theme and exemplified in the interplay between discussions of trees, rivers, city streets, and human nature woven in and out of masterful close readings of literary and historical texts. The editors also achieve continuity with at least one clearly identifiable thesis that carries consistently throughout the volume—this is the general assumption that urban spaces should no longer be considered “unnatural” or excluded from discussions about environment. Indeed, it is Joyce’s “programmatic urbanism” (xv) that has caused him to be overlooked thus far. In fact, these authors argue, it is to Joyce’s credit that he resists a sentimental, romantic, simplified version of nature. This volume proves the complexity of Joyce’s ecological imagination, and an insightful reader eventually understands that Joyce anticipated moves in current environmental thought—particularly “second-wave” ecocriticism, which deconstructs the notion of Nature as an idyllic entity separate from human species.  Still, Eco-Joyce’s greatest achievement is that as a sum these essays challenge the reader’s own paradigms and binaries, so that it becomes not only about Joyce’s environmental imagination but our own. Erin Walsh, for example, in her essay on Finnegan’s Wake, suggests we consider the possibility that a tree is both symbol and organism, “biorhetorical, simultaneously material and discursive” (77), and “human culture neither random nor determined but ecological” (79–80). Margot Norris notes in her “Negative Ecocritical Visions in ‘Wandering Rocks’” that “[e]cological disaster is not only material and external, but also imaginary and internal and, arguably, ‘rooted’ in separations and disjunctions in perceptions of the environment” (115). In his standout essay “‘Aquacities of Thought and Language’: The Political Ecology of Water in Ulysses,” Greg Winston also urges readers to resist a binary perspective: “[w]ater in Joyce’s fiction is physical and pragmatic, technical and scientific, social and political; it is also spiritual and mythic, represented for its powers to preserve life and to take it away. Water courses through his works as setting and character, image and symbol, style and form” (141). In a pronounced example, Eugene O’Brien closes his essay by answering the question posed in his title, “Can excrement be art?” claiming, “excrement has as much right to aesthetic value as has any other property of the mind, the body or the world: it too is part of the flux of consciousness” (212). If past literary critics irresponsibly categorized certain authors and texts as urban and 1Taylor: Eco-Joyce: The Environmental Imagination of James JoycePublished by / Publié par Scholars Commons @ Laurier, 2015therefore somehow uninvolved with global and natural environments, the collection Eco-Joyce asks us to reevaluate and complicate our own understandings and practices.  The volume’s strength also comes from the self-critique of the individual writers, a good balance of American, Irish, and Canadian scholars, and the editors. Starting with the book’s Introduction, which provides an accessible but thorough gloss of ecocriticism, Joyce studies, and Irish studies, each writer carefully considers the validity and role of ecocriticism—a literary criticism that considers first and foremost the changing climate and the human relationship to the non-human world around us. Without a hint of defensiveness, contributors objectively consider the strengths and weaknesses of the growing field of ecocriticism and its relevance in the context of Irish studies and modernist studies. The fourteen chapters demonstrates each writer’s commitment to rigorous scrutiny and clarification of the terminology that potentially clouds the field. The collection, therefore, meticulously pushes the boundaries of ecocriticism outward and forward toward what might be called social and political ecology, always maintaining historicity. Ultimately, ecocritical approaches seem a way to reconcile the former readings of Joyce as either historically engaged or high modernist; Eco-Joyce supplements existing Joyce scholarship and recent interdisciplinary work in Irish studies and geography to present a comprehensive approach to its subject wherein political concerns are treated within the context of a particular environment or system, both historical and imaginary. As a result, a picture of Joyce as both/and rather than either/or emerges. Not only Joyceans or those with an interest in Irish studies will benefit from the publication of this new collection. Its readability and the editors’ attention to detail make Eco-Joyce recommended reading for a much wider audience than its very niche title might suggest. In fact, one does not necessarily need any knowledge of Joyce or his ouvre to find this book engaging. Students and scholars of the environmental humanities will find Eco-Joyce at the cutting edge of their burgeoning field as well as find a demonstrable model of how to approach non-traditional texts (i.e., not nature writing) ecocritically. For modernist studies specifically, there are several additional implications. One strand that is of particular interest for modernist studies is the focus on literary form and representation. Fiona Becket’s opening essay titled “James Joyce, Climate Change and the Threat to our ‘Natural Substance’” is notable on this mark, and many other essayists also point to the correlation between changing environments and modes of representation.   Eco-Joyce subtly (and with clover) bulldozes barriers that have prohibited modernist studies and ecocriticism from embracing one another, and the book represents a major step forward in the “greening of modernism.” This is not an “inquiry into” or “notes on”—rather, it is a fully developed examination of the possibilities that still remain for Joyce et al. As the editors note, this volume is long overdue and most relevant given the resonances with the world we find ourselves living, reading, writing, teaching in today—a world where writers like Joyce appear prophets of our own environmental crises. Describing a John Cowper Powys novel, for example, Fiona Becket notes the ability of early twentieth century writers to 2The Goose, Vol. 14, No. 1 [2015], Art. 18https://scholars.wlu.ca/thegoose/vol14/iss1/18capture “connectedness of humanity and nature gone wrong” (33). Joyce and this emergent scholarship suggests, in other words, that we know ecological interconnectedness when it is somehow broken—by things like pollution, waste disposal problems, ecological disaster, or in our time, extinction events and the effects of global warming. This symptomatic approach is ripe for future work in modernist and Irish studies, and Eco-Joyce is a much-needed volume that sets the standard for future endeavors of its kind.   REBEKAH TAYLOR is a doctoral teaching fellow and PhD candidate in the English department at Kent State University. She is looking forward to defending her dissertation, “Ecological Modernism and the New Literary Form of the Anthropocene” in the coming months.   3Taylor: Eco-Joyce: The Environmental Imagination of James JoycePublished by / Publié par Scholars Commons @ Laurier, 2015

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Eco-Joyce: The Environmental Imagination of James Joyce edited by Robert Brazeau and Derek Gladwin

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