Travel Writing and Transculturation from the Global Renaissance
- Course Number: ENGL 231
- Prerequisites:
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- Advisory Enrollment Information:
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- Quarter: Spring 2025
Building on the critical paradigms of transculturation, the “contact zone,” and the Global Renaissance, we will delve into various genres under the rubric of travel writing. Possibilities include Hasan ibn Muhammad al-Wezzan/ John Leo Africanus’s Description of Africa, which was the most authoritative source on the region for Western Europeans until the nineteenth century; writings from the early East India Company ventures, which involved the global travel of women from Asia; and John Smith’s account of his travels in the Ottoman empire and the nascent English colonies in North America, which intersected with Pocohantas/ Matoaka’s itineraries. These works inspired stage plays, such as Shakespeare’s Othello and The Tempest, along with lesser known performances for the public stage and the royal court. Along with these travel writers, we will investigate methods to read the imprint, and even the agency, of subaltern travelers to England in the period, with an emphasis on women’s lives. This course will allow for extensions into contemporary remediations of these travelers’ writings and lives in novels, plays, films, video games, and more. It therefore can fulfill multiple graduate distribution requirements.