Christian Heresy, James Joyce, and the Modernist Literary Imagination

Reinventing the Word

Gregory Erickson

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN: 9781350212794
• eBook ISBN: 9781350212770
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: English Literary Criticism
• Index: Literature

Shortlisted for the AAR Book Award for Excellence in the Study of Religion 2023 Organized by heretical movements and texts from the Gnostic Gospels to The Book of Mormon, this book uses the work of James Joyce – particularly Ulysses and Finnegan's Wake – as a prism to explore how the history of Christian heresy remains part of how we read, write, and think about books today.
Erickson argues that the study of classical, medieval, and modern debates over heresy and orthodoxy provide new ways of understanding modernist literature and literary theory. Using Joyce's works as a springboard to explore different perspectives and intersections of 20th century literature and the modern literary and religious imagination, this book gives us new insights into how our modern and "secular" reading practices unintentionally reflect how we understand our religious histories.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Halftitle Page
• Title Page
• Dedication Page
• Contents
• List of Figures
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Abbreviations for Works by James Joyce
• 1 Christian Heresy, James Joyce, and the Modernist Imagination
• 2 Five Moments of Schism: A Selective History of Heresy
• 3 Reversals of History: From Gnostic Heretics to James Joyce and Back Again
• 4 Arius and the Anxiety of Vampiric Creation
• 5 Joyce, Medieval Heresy, and the Eucharist: Fragmented Narratives of Doubt
• 6 Alternative Reformations: Iconoclasm and Finnegans Wake
• Epilogue: Heretical and Sacred Reading Strategies: The Book of Mormon and Finnegans Wake
• Fin Again: Writing and the Practice of Heresy
• Bibliography
• Index
• Imprint