Empire on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown

the long version

This book instructs readers who want to feel their ways through disciplinary conventions towards new and clearer understandings of how empires and texts shiver and fall, and why. Literature makes a difference to the ways that these questions are asked and explored. A cavalcade of writers has written about empire, femininity, Spain, pain, wounds, war and love. Symptoms of imperial panic abound in their pages, very frequently manifesting directly or indirectly in allusions to Spain and things Spanish.