Techne: James Joyce, Hypertext and Technology

While this study is concerned with the question of technology in its relation to the work of James Joyce and theories of hypertext, it is also, and more specifically, addressed to a concept of technology arising from the language of Finnegans Wake. Drawing upon developments in communication theory and information technology, this study attempts to map a parallel development in Joyce's uses of language in the Wake, arguing that Joyce's writing provides a model for re-thinking the relationship between technology and "all forms of cultural production." The purpose of this is not, however, to suggest that Joyce was necessarily in some way cognisant of a future possibility of hypertext, nor is it simply concerned with a retrospective glance at Joyce from the position of current computing technologies. Rather, it is to examine how Joyce's work is aware of its own position against and within contemporary developments in the sciences and electronic media, and that Joyce incorporated material from these developments into his texts.