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The Great Escape: Exploring Travel Narratives
| Semester and Year | FA 2011 |
| Course Number | IDSEM-UG1688 |
| Section | 001 |
| Instructor | Aaron Hamburger |
| Days | Tue,Thu |
| Time | 2:00 PM - 3:15 PM |
| Units | 4.0 |
| Level | U |
| Foundation Requirement |
Description
Why do people travel, why do they write about it, and why do they read about it? We’ll analyze the surprisingly complex answers to these three seemingly simple questions, as well as how they shape narratives focused on place. Along the way, we’ll consider questions of social identity and cultural difference, the search for adventure and “authenticity,” the relationship between tourism and colonialism, and the relationship of place to the self. Readings will include a variety of nineteenth and twentieth non-fiction texts including Innocents Abroad by Mark Twain, Berlin Diaries by Christopher Isherwood, A Small Place by Jamaica Kincaid, and The Art of Travel by Alain de Botton, as well as essays by George Orwell, Joan Didion, David Foster Wallace, Francine Prose, and Martha Stewart. In addition, we’ll look at a travel-themed work of children’s literature ( The Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum), a novel ( A Passage to India by E. M. Forster), poetry by Patricia Smith about New Orleans and Hurricane Katrina, as well as travel websites like TripAdvisor.
Syllabus
Course Type
Interdisciplinary Seminars (IDSEM-UG)
