Particular attention will be given to the trans-cultural nature of travel, and the interactive aspects of the gulf between the observer and those observed. Students will analyze the diverse motivational factors behind excursions and expeditions, and apply a critique to written accounts in light of such factors as self-discovery, knowledge and imagination, Eurocentrism, orientalism, cultural relativism, colonialism/imperialism, race, gender, and eco-tourism. The focus is on the exchange between film, fiction, and ‘fact’, and on how the values and concerns of the present shape creative recreations of the past in popular culture. The sequence however will not be chronological.
Particular attention will be given to the trans-cultural nature of travel, and the interactive aspects of the gulf between the observer and those observed. Students will analyze the diverse motivational factors behind excursions and expeditions, and apply a critique to written accounts in light of such factors as self-discovery, knowledge and imagination, Eurocentrism, orientalism, cultural relativism, colonialism/imperialism, race, gender, and eco-tourism. The focus is on the exchange between film, fiction, and ‘fact’, and on how the values and concerns of the present shape creative recreations of the past in popular culture. The sequence however will not be chronological.
