Matthew Rowney

My research and teaching focus on the literature of the British Romantic period and its intersection with Empire and ecology. I understand such phenomena as globalization, industrialization, and climate change as set into accelerated motion during the Romantic period, and argue that the literature of this period offers dramatic insight into our current moment, where social and environmental issues are mutually constitutive. My current research is concerned with the ethics and aesthetics of industrial tourism as it arose in Britain from around 1790 and later spread to other parts of the world. This project closely attends to how the profits made from enslaved labor funded early industrialization in Britain.