Writing 2: Seeing new frontiers, traversing borders: Narratives of travel With the ultimate goal of building upon the writing, reading and analytical skills developed in Writing 1, and crafting mid size critical college essays, this course will examine travel narratives in essays and literature to probe how individuals of various cultures encounter the other, or spaces foreign to them. Textual analysis will be key. The motivation for travel can extend from the spiritual, such as with someone flying off to a yoga retreat in India or a religious missionary, or it can relate to political issues such as conquest or revolutionary resistance, issues of work, of recreation, or even familial and cultural reacquaintance. Frequently, these narratives involve a "culture shock" and climax with a change in the traveller, sometimes they even involve a realization of one's own identity. It is common to think of travel narratives involving cross cultural exchange as having been fashioned into genre(s) by a European man encountering a non European culture with pen and notebook in hand; however, almost all narratives this class will explore, such as those from Rolando Hinojosa, Rahul Sankrityayan, Ezekial Mphalele and Winnie Wong, will not involve that scenario. Because of this mostly non European focus to travel narratives, it is my hope that a more globally-focused discourse concerning travel narrative will afford for a more multifaceted exploration of travel itself then simply one oriented around issues of imperial or colonial power, and exploitation.

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