Research Project

The question of how to best define a state and its citizens–by their ethnic background or present residence–is one that claims essential importance across time periods and locales. One such context is that of Dublin, Ireland in 1904, one that is explored in James Joyce’s Ulysses. This paper seeks to analyze the presentation of nationalism within that text, using Benedict Anderson’s definition of nationalism as an imagined community to ground its analysis. It will begin by considering what will be termed the “surface level” argument in favor of a civically defined state–a state whose citizens are such based on their birth within its geographic boundaries and present residence–within the “Cyclops” episode. Then, the paper will explore how this particular argument finds its voice within character interactions in “Ithaca” between protagonists Stephen Dedalus and Leopold Bloom, where external divides are blurred and common humanity is emphasized. With this in place, the project will then begin to explore that which undermines this supposed support of civic nationalism, beginning with those moments in the text that highlight its essential impracticality and moving into those that elude the framework altogether. From there, those moments that were initially taken to support a textual argument for civic nationalism will be reanalyzed to show that they can produce entirely different meanings. It is at this point that the paper will argue that no definition of a state can fully encompass the universe of existence within its geographic bounds, and that Ulysses in fact makes no argument in favor of any conception of national identity but exists as a counterargument to definition in any sense.