HIST 2070

The Occidental Tourist: Travel Writing and History in Southeast Asia and Beyond

Course Description

Course information provided by the Courses of Study 2015-2016.

Travel can change our understanding of ourselves and the world. Throughout the course, we explore the connections between a writer's subjectivity and their experience of the world through their writing. We examine novels, diaries, short essays, and photographic collections by explorers, colonial officials, naturalists, and tourists who travel to and from Southeast Asia. To the extent we can, we also read works about Europe and America written by Southeast Asians. In addition to attending to a writer's subjectivity as it is produced through writing about others, we also consider the historical, political, and economic conditions that make travel possible. We will examine how travel writing is inflected with assumptions about the cultural values, race, class, and gender of both travelers and their domestic audience, on the one hand, and the people and places they write about, on the other. We will write about our own travel experiences and photos even as we critique the travel writing genre. The course ends by questioning the role of the internet in the future of tourism and travel in Southeast Asia.

When Offered Fall.

Breadth Requirement (GB)
Distribution Category (CA-AS)

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