Crimes Against Fecundity: Joyce and Population Control (Irish Studies)
by By Lowe-Evans, Mary
Category: Literary Criticism , European , English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh

<p>Population control was endlessly discussed during Joyce&#39;s lifetime, and  he was as acutely aware of western civilization&#39;s restrictions on  artistic and spiritual freedom as on physical fecundity. Lowe-Evans&#39;s  book explores the specific influence of this controversial debate on  Joyce&#39;s<br>works, from <i>Dubliners</i> to <i>Finnegans Wake</i>, as well as that of other key historical events such as the<br>Great Famine, the Malthusian doctrine, the international birth control movement, the Catholic<br>church, and postwar populationism. </p><p>As Michel Foucault observed, "one of the great  innovations in techniques of power in the eighteenth century was the  emergence of &#39;population&#39; as an economic and political problem."  Similarly, Lowe-Evans examines Joyce&#39;s works as the product of countless rhetorical pressures and trends, including histories of Ireland, the <i>Irish Homestead,</i> and reports of the obscenity trial of Margaret Sanger.</p><p>Joyce once wrote his good friend Frank Budgen that the idea underlying the famous "Oxen of the Sun" chapter in <i>Ulysses</i>  (set in a maternity hospital) was "the crime committed against  fecundity by sterilizing the act of coition." Drawing upon this and  numerous other instances, Lowe-Evans demonstrates how Foucault&#39;s theory  of the deployment of sexuality is borne out both in Joyce&#39;s work and in  the debates that helped to produce it.</p><p>In <i>Crimes Against Fecundity</i>,  Lowe-Evans reveals new and fascinating aspect of this great writer·s  work, which will be of great interest not only to literary theorists and  Joyceans but to literary scholars in general.</p>