A common world exists in the imagination of the literate middle-class towards the end of the so-called long nineteenth century held together (1832-1914) by a global economy whose infrastructures make it possible for ideas, images, statements, and information to circulate among located people geographically apart, who in turn can imagine that they belong to a community. Members of the educated middle-class (Kartini, Rivai, Conrad, Conan Doyle, and the fictional characters they have created ) were able to not only imagine that they belonged to the bourgeoisie worldwide but also fashion their bodies and live their everyday lives in a generally similar way as they all consumed similar products as well as ideas. There is a urbanity to the way they view their respective place in the world in that the express their belonging to global community that does not so much center on a geographical site but rather enmeshed in a network of interconnected transportation systems and, more importantly, the distribution of written and printed materials facilitated by the publishing industry and formal schooling through which ideas and discourses circulate. PRINT TECHNOLOGY AND THE URBAN COSMOPOLITAN CONSCIOUSNESS IN THE TURN OF THE CENTURY Ari J. Adipurwawidjana Universitas Padjadjaran Joyce’s Ulysses and Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories present transportation infrastructures of each city as • framing the urban landscape, • determining the spatial movements of its inhabitants, and • being linked to each other via “the interminable waterway” which drains both economic resources and social threats from the colonial peripheries into the imperial metropolis Nineteenth-century British fiction cannot help but to present a world in which England and its colonies form an inseparable whole, as characters and plots depend on access to the colonies for narrative development. The circulation of the novels themselves in both the metropolis and the colonies help the readership to imagine that they were in fact a part of a global community. Print technology and the publishing industry as well as their products, whether they offer fiction or factual information, ride on the availability of land and sea transport infrastructures to bring together members of the literate middle class by having them imagine their common affiliation, driving them to form collective desires. In this sense, the press become a virtual site that the middle-class inhabit. Concluding Thoughts: The Interminable Electromagnetic Waves • DO THE INFRASTRUCTURES OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY OPERATE IN THE SAME WAY AS PRINT PUBLISHING, OR PERHAPS EVEN IN A MORE POWERFUL WAY? • IF MY ARGUMENT HOLDS WATER THAT SINCE AT LEAST THE LATE NINETEENTH CENTURY A TRANSLOCAL COSMOPOLITAN COMMUNITY HAS BEEN CREATED INHABITING AND COMMUNICATING ON THE PAGES OF PRINTED MATERIAL AS VIRTUAL DWELLING SPACE, WHICH IS NOW MIGRATING TO CYBERSPACE, HOW CAN WE POSITION THE NOTION OF THE MODERN NATION IN THIS TRAJECTORY? References Adam, Ahmat B. The Vernacular Press and the Emergence of Modern Indonesia Consciousness (1855-1913). Ithaca, N.Y.: SEAP. Anderson, Benedict. Imagined Communities: Reflections of the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London: Verso, 1991. Atkinson, William. “Bound in Blackwood's: The Imperialism of 'The Heart of Darkness' in Its Immediate Context.” Twentieth Century Literature: A Scholarly and Critical Journal 50.4 (2004): 368-93. Jedamski, Doris. “The Vanishing Act of Sherlock Holmes in Indonesia’s National Awakening.” Chewing Over the West: Occidental Narratives in Non-Western Readings. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2009. Joyce, James. Ulysses. New York: Vintage, 1986 Moriyama, Mikihiro. Sundanese Print Culture and Modernity in Nineteenth Century West Java. Singapore: Singapore University Press, 2005. Nederveen Pietrese, Jan and Bikhu Parekh. “Shifting Imaginaries: Decolonization, Internal Decolonization, and Pos tcoloniality.” The Decolonization of Imagination. (ed.) Jan Nederveen Pieterse & Bikhu Parekh. London: Zed, 1995. Poeze, Harry A. “Early Indonesian Emancipation: Abdul Rivai, Van Heutsz, and the Bintang Hindia.” Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde, Deel 145, 1ste Afl., (1989) hlm. 87-106 Proudfoot, Ian. “Robinson Crusoe in Indonesia. The Asia-Pacific Magazine 6/7, p. 45-48. Web. 24 Sep. 2016 Rubenstein, Michael D. “’The Waters of Civic Finance’: Moneyed States in Joyce’s Ulysses.” Novel: A Forum on Fiction 36.3 (2003): 289-306. Salmon, Claudine. 2010. Sastra Indoneia Awal: Kontribusi Orang Tionghoa. Jakarta: Kepustakaan Populer Gramedia. Weng, Juli Mccormick. 2015.“From ‘Dirty Dublin’ to ‘Hibernian Metropolis’: A Vision of the City through the Tramways of Ulysses.” Joyce Studies Annual 23, pp. 28-54. ©Ari Adipurwawidjana