Travel and Tourism: Economies of Pleasure, Profit, and Power

What are the reasons for travel, both historically and in the modern world? What factors draw individuals to travel singly and as members of collectivities? What sites draw the traveler and/or the tourist? What is the relationship between the (visited) site and the sight of the visitor? How is meaning of particular sites produced? How do these meanings differ, depending on the positionality of the traveler? What is the relationship between the visitor and the local inhabitant? Can one be a traveler in one’s own home (site)? What is the relationship between travel and tourism and between pleasure and power in/through travel? How are race, gender, and class articulated in and through travel? These and other questions will be addressed in this course through an examination of commercial (visual and written) writings on travel and tourism; diaries, journals, and memoirs by travelers; and films and scholarly writings on travel and tourism. Our emphasis in this course will be an examination of tourism in a historical context. In particular, we will focus on the commodification of travel as an acquisition of social (and economic) currency and as a source/site of power. Throughout, the relationship between material and physical bodies will remain a central focus of the course. Conference possibilities include analyses of your own travel experiences, examination of travel writings pertaining to specific places, and theoretical perspectives on travel and/or tourism. Other conference work possibilities include different forms of tourism such as ecotourism, heritage tourism, or sex tourism, as well as cyber travel. And while business, work, and myriad other forms of travel will not be a central concern in the seminar readings, students are free to explore these topics in their conference work.