Representations of "the Jew" have long been a topic of interest in Joyce studies; in James Joyce, Ulysses, and the construction of Jewish identity Neil R. Davison argues that Joyce's lifelong encounter with pseudo-scientific, religious, and political discourse about "the Jew" forms a unifying component of his career.

Davison offers new biographical material to support the claim that "the Jew" was a dynamic aspect of Joyce's imagination from youth to adulthood, and presents a detailed reading of Ulysses to show how Joyce draws on Christian folklore, Dreyfus Affair propaganda, Sinn Fein politics, and theories of Jewish sexual perversion and financial conspiracy.