Year: Final
Part of the year: Full Year
Module Leader: Tim Youngs
Assessments:
Description:
This module focuses on travel writing (that is, narratives of actual journeys written by the person who undertook the journey) since 1780. It considers the representation of the self and of other cultures and landscapes. It shows how travel narratives draw on other forms of writing (for example, the novel, the diary, memoir, letters and journalism) and it considers how these combine to make travel writing a distinctive genre. The module is organised by theme or topic, each of which will be studied for between 2 and 4 weeks. These include, among others: travel writing and ‘race’; gender; tourism; and travel writing in the digital age. An historical and geographical and generic range may be represented within each or several of the clusters, but a number of the texts on the module will focus on one country (e.g. Australia) to allow for a case-study.
Prerequisites: N/A
Useful Information:
Colonialism, Modernism, Postcolonialism, Travel Writing Studies, Cultural representation
The following are some of the set texts. Other reading will be available and may include further books but will mostly be by extract and/or may be found online.
Mary Wollstonecraft, Letters Written in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark (online)
Graham Greene, Journey Without maps (Penguin)
Amitav Ghosh, In an Antique Land
Noo Saro-Wiwa, Looking for Transwonderland
Peter Matthiessen, The Snow Leopard
William Sutcliffe, Are You Experienced?
Robyn Davidson, Tracks (Penguin)
Teaching methods/structure:
lecture, seminars (including work in sub-groups), independent reading and preparation, individual consultation via office hour
Please view the module specification for the learning outcomes for this module.
Contact details for further queries (module leader):
Email: Tim.Youngs@ntu.ac.uk
Tel. 0115 8483276
Office hours in MAE 308: http://timyoungs.youcanbook.me/