<p>Population control was endlessly discussed during Joyce's lifetime, and he was as acutely aware of western civilization's restrictions on artistic and spiritual freedom as on physical fecundity. Lowe-Evans's book explores the specific influence of this controversial debate on Joyce'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 'population' as an economic and political problem." Similarly, Lowe-Evans examines Joyce'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's theory of the deployment of sexuality is borne out both in Joyce'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> Read Less