And I thought soul-buying was the Devil's trade...

With Portrait, our course has finally come full circle - we started out debating what our texts of Empire had to do with Modernism, and we will doubtlessly now debate what this text of Modernism has to do with Empire. (Kidding…sort of…) I'll have to admit to looking out for references to Empire throughout the first three chapters, eyeing each instance Stephen considers the boundaries of his world with suspicion… Of course, overlooking for now the complicated relation Ireland has to the British Empire, the only obvious references I've seen in them are the ex-students "now…in the burning tropics," (117) and "saint Francis Xavier…the apostle of the Indies," (115) and the latter is something that struck me.

"He went from country to country in the east, from Africa to India, from India to Japan, baptising the people. He is said to have baptised as many as ten thousand idolaters in one month…He wished then to go to China to win still more souls for God…" (115)

Perhaps I'd spent too much time last week staring at the commodification of women in Stoler's article, but the impression this description of the "great soldier of God" (115) gives me is that of a commodification of the African and Asian natives on the part of the Church. From this extract, it occurs to me that the missionaries who ventured to the colonies were seeking as much of a profit as the colonists (whose overriding economic agenda has been impressed on us week after week) - albeit a profit for their immortal souls. Natives are not looked upon as persons in their own right, but merely as potential converts for a "soul in devotion pressing like fingers the keyboard of a great cash register." (160) Of course it's a lot easier to grab such great bargains, converts by the swathe, in regions where Christianity is newly introduced than back home - a "true conqueror" saint Francis Xavier indeed was, as shrewd a businessman as any in the EIC…

[So sorry for posting so late last week, Dr. Koh! I'm posting a little earlier this week in penance...]