Not So Innocent Abroad

The Politics of Travel and Travel Writing
1. Auflage 2009
ISBN: 978-1-4438-1297-9
Verlag: Cambridge Scholars Publishing

Buch, Englisch, 230 Seiten

With its specific focus on the connections between politics, travel, and travel writing, Not So Innocent Abroad offers a fresh approach to the study of travel literature. The authors make clear that travel and travel writing are never an “innocent” enterprise; rather, journeying always occurs within political systems, and travel writing either reflects the traveler’s political stance, includes political aspects of foreign cultures, or directly or indirectly influences political decisions.

In contrast to most scholarly publications that primarily focus on travel literature of former colonial nations, this volume includes a broader range of travelogues depicting cultures worldwide, spanning from the eighteenth to the twenty-first century. It thus offers with its comparative approach not only a geographically wide selection but also an historical dimension to the political aspects of travel writing.

Although most travel literature generally has followed the Horatian principle to instruct and delight the armchair traveler, the authors of this volume clearly address the broader political implications of travel and travel writing within networks of “naked” politics, such as international or interior conflicts, emigration laws, or national propaganda. They also reveal how insidiously political messages are dissimulated through travel writing.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Brisson, Ulrike

Schweizer, Bernard

Über Autor(innen)

Bernard Schweizer is associate professor of English literature at Long Island University. He has published two monographs, Radicals on the Road: The Politics of English Travel Writing in the 1930s and Rebecca West: Heroism, Rebellion, and the Female Epic, and he has edited several books, including Rebecca West’s Survivors in Mexico.
Ulrike Brisson teaches German language and literature at Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Massachusetts. Her publications include several articles about women’s travel writing and the translation of Blanche Willis Howard’s travel narrative One Year Abroad (1877) as Ein Jahr unterwegs: eine Amerikanerin bereist die Alte Welt (2008).