James Joyce’s works abound in references to popular culture. They depict such works as part of the very fabric of modern consciousness. Frequently, Joyce deploys allusions to popular entertainment as a means of underlining the debasement and vulgarity of contemporary existence. But also crucially, in the manner of Walter Benjamin, he depicts popular culture as a site of resistance and the very basis by which his characters may contest the enervating effects of capitalism and of political imperialisms.