Transcript travel writing

TRAVEL WRITING
The Contested Space Between Journalism, Literature, and Ethnography
◦ Anthropologist James Clifford articulates a key rift in
travel discourse between literature and
anthropology: “The travel writer’s transient and
literary approach, sharply rejected in the disciplining
of fieldwork, has continued to tempt and
contaminate the scientific practices of cultural
description” (65).
The travel writer’s
role as something
more than a
tourist, yet
something other
than an
anthropologist,
denotes a liminal
space important
to depictions of
travel. Clifford’s
anthropological
perspective
contributes an
approach to
travel that
influenced many
writers: the desire
accurately to
reflect experience
and space.
However, travel writers also
balanced this desire for authenticity
with the imperative to create
cohesive and interesting
narratives—otherwise, their books
would neither be literarily
meritorious, nor would they sell.
Travel
narratives are
often about
one’s own
experience, so
writers found
it necessary to
make
intentional
decisions
about how to
frame the
narrative and
how to situate
themselves in a
story or place.
The basic editorial pattern of National
Geographic changed little over the next fifty
years. The magazine was heavily
photographic, and a large portion of its
illustrations were in color; in 1910 it became
the first magazine in the United States to use
natural color photographs. It gave a loose
interpretation to the word "geographic." Its
articles—often quaintly florid and quietly
enthusiastic—and its pictures dealt with such
subjects as taming wild blueberries,
America's national parks, traveling through
England in a Canadian canoe, Ancient Ur,
Burmese temples, the snow peaks of the
Equator, work and war among the ants,
parrots, kingfishers, flycatchers, the
sculptured temples of India, and Ulster
through mist and sunshine.
Reading H. G. Wells’ The Time Machine or E. M.
Forster’s A Room with a View for the first time might
have changed the perspectives of countless
readers. But so too did the less well-known
everyday reading materials of the mass market:
magazines like these helped to shape the opinions
of many about class, imperialism, nationalism, and
the aims of culture in general. Both ordinary and
extraordinary writing—famous novels as well as
mass-market magazines—fed the appetite of the
middle class and helped define the values of those
readers.
The very title of Travel & Exploration plainly
expresses two subjects of mass appeal to
Edwardians, yet this magazine has not been
analyzed until now for its value as an important
cultural artifact. These kinds of magazines also
allowed those armchair travelers who might never
travel an opportunity to imagine what such travel
would be like.
SO WHAT DO YOU WANT TO DO?
◦ As a summary, travel writing seems to entail the following features:
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Personal connections and understandings of a place
The geography (physical geography) connected to said place (or space)
Visual images to exemplify geographical elements (both physical and human)
The relative cultural importance of difference as realized in understanding a
different space or place (greater expansion of perspective)
GENERAL GUIDELINES
◦ INCORPERATION OF 19TH CENTURY AND/OR EARLY 20TH CENTURY LITERATURE (ORAL
HISTORIES) ON HAIDA GWAII (HISTORICAL FOUNDATION)
◦ MODERN UNDERSTANDING OF THE PHYSICAL AND SOCIAL GEOGRAPHY OF HAIDA GWAII
◦ THESE TWO ELEMENTS ARE NECESSARY BUT HOW YOU BALANCE THEM IS UP TO YOU (EX. ¾
FOCUS ON MODERN UNDERSTANDINGS AND ¼ ON HISTORICAL UNDERSTANDINGS OR VICE
VERSA)
◦ VISUAL EXAMPLES THAT COULD INCLUDE ANYTHING FROM:
◦ PHOTOGRAPHS
◦ DRAWINGS (SKETCHES)
◦ PAINTINGS (ARTISTIC WORKS IN GENERAL)
TRAVEL MAGAZINE EXAMPLES:
◦ https://readcereal.com/
◦ http://www.travel-almanac.com/
◦ http://www.wherevermag.com/
◦ http://tinyatlasquarterly.com/
◦ http://www.boat-mag.com/
◦ http://www.sidetracked.com/