Technologies of Empire looks at the ways in which writers of the long eighteenth century treat writing and imagination as technologies that can produce rather than merely portray empire. Authors ranging from Adam Smith to William Wordsworth consider writing not as part of a larger logic of orientalism that represents non-European subjects and spaces in fixed ways, but as a dynamic technology that organizes these subjects and transforms these spaces. Technologies of Empire reads the imagination as an instrument that works in tandem with writing, expanding and consolidating the networks of empire. Through readings across a variety of genres, ranging from Smith’s The Wealth of Nations and Edmund Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in France to Maria Edgeworth’s Irish fiction and Wordsworth’s epic poetry, this study offers a new account of writing’s role in empire-building and uncovers a genealogy of the romantic imagination that is shot through by the imperatives of imperialism. 

Technologies of Empire: Writing, Imagination, and the Making of Imperial Networks, 1750-1820

Located between the Pacific Ocean and downtown Los Angeles, Loyola Marymount University is a comprehensive university offering 60 major programs, 55 minor undergraduate degrees and programs. The Graduate Division offers 39 master’s degree programs and one education doctorate, one juris doctorate and 10 credential programs. 
 
Founded in 1911, LMU is ranked third in “Best Regional Universities (West)” by U.S. News and World Report. LMU is the largest Jesuit Catholic university for undergraduates on the West Coast, with more than 6,000 undergraduate students and more than 3,000 graduate and law students. The state-of-the-art The William H. Hannon Library rates among the 20 best in the country according to The Princeton Review’s guide to “The Best 378 Colleges,” 2014. Bloomberg Businessweek ranks LMU sixth in the nation and third in the West in its 2013 Part-Time MBA rankings.

Loyola Marymount University

Dermot Ryan's research focuses on British and Irish literature of the long eighteenth century with a particular emphasis on print culture and postcolonial theory. He is the author of Technologies of Empire: Writing, Imagination, and the Making of Imperial Networks, 1750-1820 (University of Delaware Press, 2013). He has published articles on literature and empire in Studies in Romanticism, Eighteenth-Century Studies, and Études irlandaises, as well as on the romantic lineages of Karl Marx in SubStance: A Review of Theory and Literary Criticism. In addition, he has co-authored (with Casey Shoop) an essay on David Mitchell’s novel, Cloud Atlas and has an article on Marx and translation forthcoming in Boundary 2.

Dermot Ryan

Media

Biography

Education

Columbia University

Columbia University

Columbia University

The Queen's Univeristy of Belfast

Trinity College

Social

Areas of Expertise