Travel Fictions
Course Number: K10.0043
Meeting days & times: TR 11:00-12:15
Instructor: Steve Hutkins
Course Description:
The American novelist John Gardner once said there were only two plots to all of the stories ever told: a stranger comes to town, and someone goes on a journey. There may be other plots, but the encounter between those who are settled and those who are on the move is one of the most intriguing and compelling of literary themes. This course focuses on novels and short stories and asks what happens when travelers and tourists come into contact with the locals and native-born. It examines the way travelers preconceive and apprehend foreign places, the problematic search for the "authentic" and "essential," and the view of tourism as a form of neo-colonialism, involving issues of power and possession, race and class, exoticism and Otherness. Supplemental readings explore the history, sociology, politics, and economics of travel and tourism. Readings may include works by Twain, Verne, Conrad, Forster, Bowles, Maugham, Greene, Llosa, Naipaul, and Tyler.
