ISLS 4200 - Ideas of Travel: Pilgrim, Explorer, Tourist

Examining accounts of travel whose motives include religious pilgrimage, scientific discovery, and adventure, students will explore the extent to which these motives overlap, the extent to which journeys follow patterns that are universal or unique to their cultural moment, and the relationship of who we are to what we see. Primary readings will be drawn from Homer and the Bible, medieval pilgrimage accounts, early American captivity and slave narratives, and travel accounts and ethnographies from the 18th through 20th centuries by writers such as Defoe, Wollstonecraft, Melville, Darwin, Robert Louis Stevenson, Margaret Mead, Levi-Strauss. The focus throughout will be on developing the skills of analysis and research.

Credits: 3