At Fault
At Fault
Joyce and the Crisis of the Modern University
At Fault is an exhilarating celebration of risk-taking in the work of James Joyce. Esteemed Joyce scholar and teacher Sebastian Knowles critiques the state of the modern American university, denouncing what he sees as an accelerating trend of corporatization that is repressing discussions of controversial ideas and texts in the classroom. Arguing that Joyce offers the antidote to risk-averse attitudes in higher education, he shows how the modernist writer models an openness to being "at fault" that should be central to the academic enterprise.
Knowles describes Joyce’s writing style as an "outlaw language" imbued with the possibility and acknowledgment of failure. He demonstrates that Joyce’s texts and characters display a drive to explore the boundaries of experience, to move outward in a centrifugal pattern, to defy delimitation. Knowles further highlights the expansiveness of Joyce’s world by engaging a diverse range of topics, including Jumbo the elephant as a symbol of imperialism, the gramophone as a representation of the machine age, solfège and live music performance in the "Sirens" episode of Ulysses, Joyce’s jokes and the neurology of humor, and inventive ways of reading and teaching Finnegans Wake.
Contending that error is the central theme in all of Joyce’s work, Knowles argues that the freedom to challenge boundaries and make mistakes is essential to an effective learning environment. Energetic and delightfully erudite, and offering insights drawn from over thirty years of classroom experience, Knowles inspires readers with the infinite possibilities of free human thought exemplified by Joyce’s writing.
A volume in the Florida James Joyce Series, edited by Sebastian D. G. Knowles
This is the damnedest book. . . . Giddy and audacious.’—James Joyce Literary Supplement‘Extraordinarily learned and clever readings.’—James Joyce Quarterly
Offers an array of insights, observations, and intuitions, and is bursting at the seams with one smart idea or curious fact after another.'—John Gordon, author of Joyce and Reality: The Empirical Strikes Back'Witty and perceptive considerations of Joyce’s works via the prevailing metaphor of the centrifuge. Joyce’s works similarly reveal a wide range of backgrounds and influences, and their impact and interpretation have radiated outward throughout the modern era.'—Thomas Jackson Rice, author of Cannibal Joyce
Sebastian D. G. Knowles is professor emeritus of English at Ohio State University. He is the author of several books, including The Dublin Helix: The Life of Language in Joyce’s "Ulysses."
