The Aesthetics and Politics of Travel Writing (15-17)

What are the two most popular literary formss related to journeys?

Travel writing and quest narratives

What genre regarding journeys has been immensely popular for as long as prnted books have existed?

Travel writing

What book genre predates the modern concept of tourism?

Travel writing

What is part of the reason that travel writing predates the concept of tourism?

Before photography, television, broadcast, news and the internet, travel guides were for most people the only way to learn about and encounter different locations and cultures

Aside from teaching people about different locations and cultures what else did travel guides help readers understand?

The right way to travel, act in certain countries, and the best times of year to travel

Aside from providing information why was travel writing popular?

Its ability to explore the nature and purpose of traveling itself

Which 2 scholars argued that travel writing about the nature and purpose of traveling worked to be part of an autobiographical project, or a larger attempt to explain yourself to the world?

Judith Hamera and Alfred Bendixen

What did Judith Hamera and ALfred Bendixen argue about travel writing for the sake of exploring the nature and purpose of traveling?

That this writing has worked as either
"Part of an autobiographical project, part of a larger attempt to explain oneself to the world or at least to the reading public” OR “the external details of nature and society in a specific location”

What are examples of informational types of travel writing?

“Walden” (1854), “Wild” (2012)

Who wrote “Walden?”

Henry David Thoreau

When was “Walden” written?

1854

Who wrote “Wild?”

Cheryl Strayed

When was “Wild” Written?

2012

What are examples of travel writing which explores the nature and purpose of traveling?

“On the plains of Snakes” (2019) and “South” (1919)

Who wrote “On the Plains of Snakes”

Paul Theroux

When waws “On the Plains of Snakes” written?

2019

Which writer is known for having many types of travel books which explore the nature and purpose of traveling?

Paul Theroux

Who wrote “South?”

Ernest Shackleton

When was “On the plains of Snakes” written?

2019

When was “South” written?

1919

What genre is “Wild?”

A travel guide memoir

What does “South” depict?

It is an account of the author’s antarctic expedition

Much travel writing is _________

Nonfictional

Why was much f travel writing been nonfictional?

The genre has often been seen as away to gain information about distant locations and cultures

Which of the types of travel books are most popular?

The guidebook/travelbook (informational)

Much of travel writing falls into 2 categories _________ or __________ AND __________

Artistic or literary and informative

What were travel books designed to do?

Provide practical information in an unassuming way to the average tourist about a regions famous locations, transportation methods, and cultural nuances

Where were Frank Hurley and Ernest Shackleton photographed?

Ocean Camp, Weddell Sea

Where were Frank Hurley and Ernest Shackleton photographed?

1914-15

What guidebook does Stevens rely on for his planning of his motoring trip in The Remains of the Day?

“The Wonder of England”

Who wrote “The Wonders of England” in The Remains of the Day?

Jane Symons

What does “The wonders of England” depict in The Remains of the Day?

“Marvelous descriptions with illustrations”

What magazine does Stevens reference which displays locations across the world?

National Geographic

Stevens references his familiarity with what media in magazines which display locations?

Photographs and essays

Stevens is a proud _________. What does this mean for his beliefs of the landscapes of the world?

Englishman; That the english landscape is finest even when compared to “vast deserts and mountains ranges”

Stevens knowledge of his country and other countries is filtered through what?

Travel guides he read

What aspect of travel writing is both part of its appeal BUT ALSO its most dangerous quality?

Its ability to shape understanding of other cultures and places

How have travel books and writing often been viewed?

An effective way of writing about different cultures and regions and thus connecting people

How has the way that travel writing has been viewed differed from the ways it has often been applied?

Its viewed as connecting people yet is primarily a way that people seperate themselves from the “foreign other”

Which two individuals argued that travel writing is “constitutive, a tool of self- and national fashioning that constructs its object even as it describes it?”

Judith Hamera and Alfred Bendixen

What did Hamera and Bendixen argue about travel writing and its use?

“is constitutive, a tool of self and national fashioning that constructs its object even as it describes.”

What does Hamera and Bendixen’s argument come down to, in other words?

Travel writing allows writers to define where they’re going and where they're coming from

How would Americans of the 18th and 19th centuries describe their journeys into the country’s interior?

As a journey into a vast, empty world ready to be captured and controlled

What did the way that Americans described the journey into the interior of the US make a claim about?

The nature of the space they visited (which wasn't empty but full of vast, complex indigenous civilizations) and the values of the community they left behind

Travel writing has been a primary vehicle for which process?

Orientalism

Who coined the term “Orientalism?”

Edward Said

What book coined ORientalism?

“Orientalism”

When was “Orientalism” published?

1978

Edward Said’s “Orientalism” can be described as>

Influential

WHat does orientalism refer to?

The process by which European countries created the idea of the “Orient”

European countries created their idea of the orient with what?

Stories about Asiana and Middle Eastern countries, specifically their writing about encountering different cultures

What occured as a result of orientalists attempting to connect and explore different cultures?

They ended up creating enduring and ultimately false images of them

What does Edward Said claim about the Orient?

That it was never an actual place but instead referred to a “regular constellation of ideas” that authors through their narratives established as the “facts” of non-european cultures

The photograph of Edward Said is from what year?

1993

How did travel writers describe non-european cultures>

As exotic, over sexualized, and inscrutable, emphasizing the supposedly irresolvable incompatibility between eastern and western cultures

Over time Orientalist ideas became seen as what?

Concrete facts which influenced everything from pop culture representations to colonial policy

Writing about travel is ultimately not just about recording details about trips to faraway places but also what?

A way of making claims about the traveler’s place in it

Who calls the locations which disparate cultures meet “contact zones?”

Mary Louise Pratt

What does Mary Louise Pratt define contact zones as?

Social spaces where disparate cultures meet, clash, and grapple with each other

The meeting, clashing and grappling Mary Louise Pratt describes which occurs in “contact zones” is often of what nature?

Highly asymmetrical relations of domination and subordination

According to Mary Louise Pratt _________ encounters in contact zones can do what?

Narrating; encourage cross-culture interaction or promote mutual misunderstanding

Travel writing __________ to _______ as ________ anything that is _______ or _________, or it can ________ orientalist __________ and amplify ________ ___________

Refuse to judge as deficient anything that is different ur unknown, or it can encourage Orientalist ideologies and amplify nationalist rhetoric

While a quest narrative can tell us “ _______….” travel writing can _______…?

About a culture’s ideas on heroism and mortality, a work of travel writing can tell us a great deal about a culture's ideas and the meaning on certain concepts such as national identity, mobility, and home

What concepts of a culture can travel writing elaborate on?

Ideas of national identity, mobility, and home

What concepts of a culture can quest narratives tell us about?

Their ideas of heroism and mortality