Ulysses, Capitalism, and Colonialism: Reading Joyce After the Cold War Book

Three and a half stars, really.

(I need a macro for that).

Wehilye's insights are indispensable, but more than once I found he relied too heavily on the visual for what is supposed to be about the sonic. This is most clearly the case in his penultimate chapter where he writes more about the Fugees' videos than their actual musical and sonic content. But still, an examination of the Fugee's taking on the role of "refugee/immigrant" through the lens of Kristeva's theorization of the abject is fucking academically titillating (and I mean that in a positive way).

I also love his challenge to theorizing the sonic and popular through his recognition of the limits of that kind of approach as ultimately seeking to "rescue" the popular and recuperate it into the "proper place" instead of consider how they interpenetrate each other. Though I am not convinced that his assertion of "thinking through sound rather than thinking about sound with the help of critical theory" (203) has any real meaning outside of it looking good on paper - but perhaps I only think that because I simply have trouble conceptualizing it as an approach.