ENGL 230 Syllabus: Literature of Travel
Dr. Jim Bowman
Spring 2011
Tuesdays & Thursdays 11-12:20; Ralph Wilson 102
Office:Basil 128, directly above Cyber Café / Email:
/ Phone:
(585) 899-3791
Office Hours:
Wednesdays 11-12 / Tuesdays and Thursdays 3-4
If these hours do not fit your schedule, please contact me to arrange another time to meet.
“But we love the Old Travelers. We love to hear them prate and drivel and lie. We can tell them the moment we see them. They always throw out a few feelers: they never cast themselves adrift till they have sounded every individual and know that he has not traveled. Then they open their throttle-valves, and how they do brag, and sneer, and swell, and soar, and blaspheme the sacred name of Truth! Their central idea, their grand aim, is to subjugate you, keep you down, make you feel insignificant and humble in the blaze of their cosmopolitan glory! They will not let you know anything. They sneer at your most inoffensive suggestions; they laugh unfeelingly at your treasured dreams of foreign lands; they brand the statements of your traveled aunts and uncles as the stupidest absurdities; […] But still I love the Old Travelers. I love them for their witless platitudes; for their supernatural ability to bore; for their delightful asinine vanity; for their luxuriant fertility of imagination; for their startling, their brilliant, their overwhelming mendacity!”
Mark Twain, The Innocents Abroad
“We travel, then, in part just to shake up our complacencies by seeing all the moral and political urgencies, the life-and-death dilemmas, that we seldom have to face at home. And we travel to fill in the gaps left by tomorrow’s headlines: When you drive down the streets of Port-au-Prince, for example, where there is almost no paving and women relieve themselves next to mountains of trash, your notions of the Internet and a ‘one world order’ grow usefully revised. Travel is the best way we have of rescuing the humanity of places, and saving them from abstraction and ideology.”
Pico Iyer, “Why We Travel”
“If the tourist traverses boundaries, they are boundaries that the tourist participates in creating; that is, an economic and social order that requires ‘margins’ and ‘centers’ will also require representation of those structural distinctions. The tourist confirms and legitimates the social reality of constructions such as ‘First’ and ‘Third’ Worlds, ‘development’ and ‘underdevelopment,’ or ‘metropolitan’ and ‘rural.’ Created out of increasing leisure time in industrialized nations and driven by a need to ascertain identity and location in a world that undermines the certainty of those categories, the tourist acts as an agent of modernity.”
Caren Kaplan, Questions of Travel
Introduction
Using the focused theme of travel and travel literature, this course aims to help you develop the critical skills you need to read, write, and dialogue effectively and critically in collegiate, professional, and personal contexts. ENGL 230 introduces you to different types of travel literature, as well as ways of interpreting and responding to texts from diverse historical and cultural contexts. We will focus especially on critical language skills necessary for you to write and speak clearly, intelligently, and persuasively about a range of topics. By the end of this course, for example, you will be better at summarizing, analyzing, and interpreting travel texts and criticism.
Course Content
This course introduces you to literatures of travel produced by various writers through time and across lands and seas. What we encounter in terms of texts differs according to who is traveling, whom the traveler seems to be speaking to, where they travel, when they travel, how they travel, and with whom they travel—to name just a few of the ways that context informs travel literature. This course invites you to consider how travel literature affects and shapes its audiences, including you. For that matter, since we will be looking in some detail at travel essays as a literary form, you will have the opportunity to join the long and complicated tradition of travel writers by contributing to your own travel essay. After many weeks of surveying travel writing and criticism about travel, you will be in the position to create your own travel text. In our case, this will be a story about food in the Rochester area.
Your own writing of and about travel literature represents an important content type for this course: all major essays will be produced in drafts that are critiqued, reviewed, edited, and finally submitted for evaluation. While the theme of the course deals with literature and travel, the critical skills of writing and rhetoric will also be important to our studies.
Course Objectives
ENGL 230 introduces students, especially those majoring in disciplines other than English, to genres of travel literature. The course emphasizes the basic elements of textual analysis and interpretation and the imaginative power of language. It offers as well an introduction to seeing literature as a valuable means of understanding particular topics, times, places, and cultures.
As a core curriculum offering, we will also be working hard on the following critical skills:
· Increasing our self-awareness about the ways that travel and travel writing are both local and global practices that create points of intersection for our own lives and others;
· Approaching texts and issues from multiple perspectives, with special concern for how cultural assumptions inform literatures of travel;
· Developing an awareness of how our ideas and experiences intersect with and diverge from others;
· Constructing persuasive arguments about social and cultural dimensions of travel texts and contexts;
· Incorporating critical reading and writing skills that include analysis, thesis-driven writing, rhetorical organization of travel texts and your own responses, provision of appropriate evidence, and effective use of language;
· Working collaboratively on cultural analysis of writers and their texts; working collaboratively to create travel texts (about food in the Rochester area)
Required Text and Materials
· Hulme, Peter, and Tim Youngs, eds. The Cambridge Companion to Travel Writing. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2002.
· Select readings made available through Blackboard at the beginning of each unit.
Assignments & Assessment Scheme
Short Response Papers
Weeks 1,2, 3 and throughout term / Short homework assignments—1-2 pages, single-spaced, i.e., about 500-600 words—that you print and bring to class the day they are due. These tasks are designed to create opportunities for you to respond to course texts and ideas while applying the analytical skills covered in class. Short writing tasks will often be part of the writing process for other longer assignments. We will complete approximately 4-5 of these throughout the term. / 10%
Cultural Critique of a Travel Text and Traveler
(4-5 pages)
Weeks 4-5 / The successful cultural critique evaluates meanings and messages, as well as what the text suggests about the culture of the land and the culture of the writer. As in any critique, you will identify strengths and weaknesses of a text according to clear, fair, and sufficiently demanding criteria, such as “the credibility of the story,” “how effectively the writer engages her audience,” or “the descriptiveness—and persuasiveness—of the details.” A critique needs to be about well more than personal opinions and gut reactions. / 10%
Critical Biography and Cultural Critique of a Travel Writer and their Text(s)
(5-6 pp)
Begin working on this in Week 3 and presentations will occur over 2-3 weeks starting immediately after Spring Break (Week 8) / Essays and Oral Presentations on Selected Travel Writers, a well-known text or texts, and their Cultural Contexts. Writers to choose from include the following, but you can propose others: Bill Bryson, Freya Stark, Paul Bowles, Eric Newby, Patrick Leigh Fermor, Wilfred Thesiger, Jan Morris, Lawrence Durrell, Colin Thubron, Dervla Murphy, Jon Krakauer, Rolf Potts, Pico Iyer, Paul Theroux, Rory Stewart, Daisanne McLane, Bruce Chatwin, Pier Roberts. / 25%
Collaborative Travel Text on Rochester food (Digital or Written)
3- & 7-minute videos plus a short descriptive text, 2-3 pages OR
6-8 page travel essay. Begins in late Feb and runs to end of term / More information coming soon… / 25%
Oral Presentations of Collaborative Travel Texts on Rochester food
20 minutes per group divided equitably between presenters
Weeks 10-13 / More information coming soon… / 10%
Reflective Essay on Travel and Literature Using Multiple Perspectives
(4 pages)
Weeks 12-13 / A reflection on and synthesis of the thinking and intellectual legwork of the cultural analysis, writing, and presentations from the semester. Here, you will reflect on course texts and themes to synthesize your thinking about the significance of travel literature. / 20%
Total / 100%
Requirements for Writing Assignments
§ In- and out-of-class writing will be assigned throughout the course. Students not in class when writing is assigned are still responsible for meeting specified deadlines.
§ Late work will not be accepted without penalty unless students make arrangements for an extension before the due date. Papers will be marked down one letter grade for each day they are late.
§ Students must keep copies of all drafts and assignments until after semester’s end—electronic copies are fine, but do make back-ups of your work.
§ Drafts should show significant changes in purpose, audience, organization, or evidence.
§ All drafts of major assignments must be typed and double-spaced with numbered pages and a title. Other formatting requirements will be explained on assignment sheets for specific tasks. As a general rule, you will need to use a standard font size (Times New Roman, 12-point font) and one-inch margins for each document.
Special Project
Collaborative, Creative Group Projects on Food & Travel in the Rochester Area and other joint efforts with C/J 431, taught by Dr. Sodano. To be explained on February 22 in Basil 135 with Dr. Sodano’s class and my class together.
Blackboard and Instructional Technology
Assignments, class notes, homework tasks, and other material will be posted regularly on Blackboard. All drafts of major assignments will be submitted on Blackboard rather than as hard copies, although you may be asked to print drafts of major assignments for purposes of peer review. In the case of absence, please first refer to Blackboard for homework assignments. I also recommend contacting a peer from class to clarify any items you have questions or concerns about; if you still need assistance contact me via email or office hours for further clarification.
Academic Honesty and Plagiarism
St. John Fisher College has a firm policy concerning academic dishonesty that includes, but is not limited to, cheating, plagiarism, or any other action that misrepresents academic work as being one’s own. Students are expected to demonstrate academic honesty in all coursework, whether completed in class or not, individually, or as part of a group project. Violations of academic honesty include, but are not limited to, cheating and plagiarism. Submitting an item of academic work that has previously been submitted without fair citation of the original work or authorization by the faculty member supervising the work is prohibited. All students are expected to be familiar with the details of the Policy on Academic Honesty, which are found in the online Student Handbook at http://www.sjfc.edu/global/pdf/StudentHandbook.pdf.
Extra Help with Writing
I strongly encourage all students to take advantage of the SJFC Writing Center. When you visit, consultants—other students with skill in writing and training on how to help you improve—assist you with writing tasks from all disciplines and during all stages of the process, such as brainstorming, focusing and developing, revising, or editing. Individualized service and extensive writer participation during tutorials enable students to become more skillful writers.Resources at the Writing Center include a lending library of style manuals, handbooks, dictionaries, and workbooks. Computers and printers are also available for client use during regular operating hours. Hours vary by semester. Writing center services are free of charge to all Fisher students. To make an appointment, visit https://tutortrac.sjfc.edu and follow the instructions. “Walk-ins” are welcome but subject to consultant availability. The Writing Center is located on the top floor of the Academic Gateway. Contact the Writing Center at 585-385-8151 for more information about this service.
Attendance
Attendance is mandatory. Classes will include writing tasks, in-class discussions, and peer group work. Therefore, students should not be late and should not miss classes. Any class work missed as a result of tardiness or absence is the student’s responsibility to make up. Students who miss more than 4 classes may fail the course, according to College policy. Late papers will not be accepted without a valid excuse. Illness, family emergencies, religious holidays, and athletics (with a note specifying which event the student must participate in on a certain date) constitute valid excuses. All holidays or special events observed by organized religions will be honored for those students who show affiliation with that particular religion.
Policy on Disabilities
In compliance with St. John Fisher College policy and applicable laws, appropriate academic accommodations are available to you if you are a student with a disability. All requests for accommodations must be supported by appropriate documentation/diagnosis and determined reasonable by SJFC.Students with documented disabilities (physical, learning, psychological) and who may need academic accommodations are advised to make an appointment with the Coordinator of Disability Services in the Office of Academic Affairs, K202. Late notification will delay requested accommodations.
Weekly Schedule—subject to revision
Week 1, Jan 13—Introduction to course and topics; CCTW Intro and Chapter 1, Pico Iyer’s “Why We Travel.” Response paper 1.
Week 2, Jan 18 & 20—Early travel writing; early travelers. Sir John Mandeville, Christopher Columbus. Response paper 2.
Week 3, Jan 25 & 27 (Dr. Bowman absent)—Film, screened in Basil 135 with Dr. Todd Sodano’s film production class; special theme introduced—“Food and Travel.” Select a writer to focus on with your partners. Response paper 3 on the film.
Week 4, Feb 1 & 3—The Grand Tour and its legacies. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, Tobias Smollett and James Boswell’s travels; CCTW essay by Buzard. Response paper 4.