Travel and the Imagination

Catalog description

Using written texts, film, and photography, this class introduces students to the genres of travel as they reflect the literary and visual imagination. The local and the exotic as presented by authors, directors, and photographers will be explored through visual and literary texts that present the people, cultures and histories of sites around the world, narrated from the individual perspective. Students will read of journeys that invoke the psychological as well as the physical experience of travel, experiences that serve as metaphors for life journeys. Discussions will also center on the ways in which travelers bring a particular, and often western, lens to the places they describe. Discussions will lead to the inter-connections among cultures and peoples as they enter the current global, economic, and political stage.