Joyce kept this workbook as a source for expressions and ideas for Finnegans Wake. The structure of the notebook and the way in Joyce used it offer insights into his methods and the writing of Finnegans wake.

This is a collection by diverse hands on the thematic, conceptual and contextual impact of time in and around Joyce's Finnegans Wake. In keeping with the practice of the Zürich James Joyce Foundation workshops, from one of which, over Easter 1992, the collection developed, many essays emphasize the local temporal textures of Finnegans Wake through close readings of individual passages. However, this does not preclude fruitful interaction with wider contexts and theoretical concerns. Two articles are detailed studies of social and political contemporary contexts with which Joyce's last work was in dialogue. Three more explore philosophical, psychological and scientific theories of time which Joyce exploited and transformed in his text. Two essays relate Finnegans Wake to discussions of time in French feminist and deconstructive theory: and finally, four essays concentrate on the temporality of composition - two apiece on each of the chronology of Joyce's early note-taking and draft processes. The collection should prove interesting to all readers and critics of Joyce as well as to critics concerned with the problem of historicizing and contextualising the temporally disruptive texts of high modernism and early postmodernism.

Joyce criticism is a long way from having controlled the treasure trove of manuscript materials in the 63 volume James Joyce Archive. PROBES represents a new effort of incorporating manuscript research into critical concerns demonstrating in a practical manner how genetic work contributes to a fuller and more nuanced appreciation of Joyce's work. The organization of the essays is designed to highlight our two major but interlocking concerns: the nature and theoretical underpinnings of genetic criticism of Joyce and especially of Finnegans Wake, and some of the many ways that theory can be applied to the creative situation reflected in the notes and manuscripts. The questions raised in this volume are both current and important. Like Finnegans Wake itself, the manuscript record, because it is so complete, by stimulating the reader's curiosity and ingenuity, lends itself to a variety of approaches while rewarding specialized knowledge. Here too, as we decipher and transcribe, we are well advised to follow Joyce's advice and wipe [our] glosses with what [we] know. This volume will provide much that is new and of interest for all scholars of Joyce as well as scholars interested in the issues raised by genetic criticism.

This book offers new definitions, vocabularies and insights for “scribbling”, viewing it as a fascinating and revealing process shared by many different disciplines and practices. The book provides a fresh and timely perspective on the nature of mark making and the persistence of the gestural impulse from the earliest graphic marks to the most sophisticated artistic production. The typical treatment of scribbling in the literature of artistic development has cast the practice as a prelude to representation in drawing and writing, with only occasional acknowledgment of the continuing joy and experiment of making marks across many arts practices. The continuous line the author traces between the universal practice of scribbling in infancy and early childhood and the work of radical creativity for contemporary and historical artists is original and clarifying, expanding the range of drawing behaviors to that of avant-garde painters, performance and the digital.