The empire never ended

Authors

Ika Willis, University of BristolFollow

RIS ID

77481

Publication Details

Willis, I (2007). The empire never ended. In L. Hardwick and C. Gillespie (Eds.), Classics in Post-Colonial Worlds (pp. 329-348). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Additional Publication Information

ISBN: 9780199296101

Abstract

This chapter analyses the use of the Roman empire as a metaphor or analogy for global sovereignty, and compares the ways in which imperial sovereignty was conceptualised in Latin literature with modern global formulations. It discusses how modes of historicisation of the Roman empire have made it synonymous with history itself, and develops an analogy with the trans-temporal force of modern telecommunications technology, against which all resistance might be equally impossible. Since ‘empire’ connects political sovereignty, cultural continuity, and information technology, this chapter explains how this connection has begun to be thought about in the work of Jacques Derrida.