LITERARY TOURISM AND THE CULTURAL GEOGRAPHY OF A PLACE: CASE STUDY - JAMES JOYCE CENTRE AND DUBLIN

The article presents the results based on the critical discourse analysis of the on line language used by the James Joyce Centre. The publications are related to activities of the Centre, to the presentation of Joyce and to the tourist promotion of Dublin. The Centre's presentation of the tourist destination, the town of Dublin, is interesting from the point of view of the cultural geography of the place itself. With the analysis we tried to answer the following questions: how is the poet presented, how does the author of the publications refer to the tourist and how is the place identity described. We also tried how the promotion offered by the Centre is placed on the global market. We concluded that Joyce was presented as a national and European icon due to his open-mindedness related to the fact that he spent most of his life on continental Europe. Consequently, Dublin is not presented as a place where Joyce would be cherished during his life time. He gained national recognition only in the last decades of the 20th Century. The Centre is now trying to rehabilitate the image of the writer and his literary work. That's way they try to use different approaches to promote Joyce, from lectures to workshops, walking tours and other projects that include famous people like the actor Stephen Fry. The goal of these activities is to attract different groups of potential tourist, although as we could see the current presentation is targeting mostly intellectual and educated tourists. The fact that Joyce is presented as an international icon and that the promotion includes a vast number of different activities can help the Centre on the long run when speaking of the global tourist market.