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As many places around the world confront issues of globalization, migration and postcoloniality, travel writing has become a serious genre of study, reflecting some of the greatest concerns of our time. Encompassing forms as diverse as field journals, investigative reports, guidebooks, memoirs, comic sketches and lyrical reveries, travel writing is now a crucial focus for discussion across many subjects within the humanities and social sciences.
An ideal starting point for beginners, but also offering new perspectives for those familiar with the field, The Routledge Companion to Travel Writing examines:
- Key debates within the field, including postcolonial studies, gender, sexuality and visual culture
- Historical and cultural contexts, tracing the evolution of travel writing across time and over cultures
- Different styles, modes and themes of travel writing, from pilgrimage to tourism
- Imagined geographies, and the relationship between travel writing and the social, ideological and occasionally fictional constructs through which we view the different regions of the world.
Covering all of the major topics and debates, this is an essential overview of the field, which will also encourage new and exciting directions for study.
List of contents
Part 1. Key Debates and Critical Approaches
1. Truth, Lies and Travel Writing, Daniel Carey
2. Inner Journeys: Travel Writing as Life Writing, Simon Cooke
3. Travel Writing and Postcolonial Studies, Claire Lindsay
4. Travel Writing and Gender, Dúnlaith Bird
5. Travel Writing and Sexuality: Queering the Genre, Churnjeet Mahn
6. Travel Writing and Ethics, Corinne Fowler
7. Travel and the Body: Corporeality, Speed and Technology, Charles Forsdick
8. Travel Writing and Visual Culture, Margaret Topping
9. Travel Writing: Reception and Readership, Robin Jarvis
Part 2. Historical Overviews
10. Travel Writing in the Ancient Mediterranean, William Hutton
11. Chinese Travel Writing,
James M. Hargett12. Indian Travel Writing,
Shobhana Bhattacharji13. Arabic Travel Writing, to 1916,
Nabil Matar14. European Travel Writing in the Middle Ages,
Anthony Bale15. Western Travel Writing, 1450-1750,
Matthew Day16. Western Travel Writing, 1750-1950,
Barbara Korte17. African Travel Writing,
Aedín Ní Loingsigh18. Travel Writing Now, 1950 to the Present Day,
Carl ThompsonPart 3. Styles, Modes, Themes
19. Pilgrims,
Laura Nenzi20. Discoverers and Explorers,
Paul Smethurst21. Travellers and Tourists,
Zoë
Kinsley22. Picturesque Travel: The Aesthetics and Politics of Landscape,
Elizabeth A. Bohls23. Guidebooks,
Scott Laderman24. The Romantic Literary Travel Book,
C.W. Thompson25. Modernist Travel Writing,
David Farley26. Postmodernizing Travel Writing,
Manfred Pfister27. Travel Blogs,
Kate Douglas and Kylie Cardell28. Dark Tourism,
Justin D. Edwards29. Gay Travel Writing: An Unstable Category?
Gregory WoodsPart 4 Imagined Geographies
30. Ultima Thule / The North,
Graham Huggan31. Europe,
Wendy Bracewell32. North America / USA,
Susan L. Roberson33. Latin America,
Jennifer Hayward34. The Middle East,
Eva Johanna Holmberg35. India / South Asia,
Tabish Khair36. China,
Julia Kuehn37. Australia,
Richard White and Justine Greenwood38. Sub-Saharan Africa,
Laura E. Franey39. The Polar Regions,
Janice Cavell40. Deserts,
Rune Graulund41. Mountains,
Simon Bainbridge42. The Sea,
Steve Mentz
Summary
The Routledge Companion to Travel Writing offers the ideal springboard for beginners to the area, but is also an essential resource for those already working in the field. Each essay provides the historical, theoretical and cultural contexts as well as cutting-edge approaches and close readings of travelogues.
Report
"Readers of this volume will be transported away from a cosy middle-class voyeuristic observation of travel into a serious new world, which offers new perspectives and insights into travel writing. This is a welcome addition to a respected series of volumes, which aim to throw new light on familiar topics. Having approached this volume with the feeling that I was entering familiar territory, I soon realised that the journey had only just begun. With its excellent bibliographies and wealth of references, the way is well signposted."
- Diana Dixon, Freelance reviewer and Editor Local Studies Librarian, Oakham, UK
