Literature of Travel and Discovery: The Journey of the Self (Spring, 2009) [Home]

Traveling in order to encounter the world and invent the self is older than Odysseus and more satisfying than “Road Rules.” Examining a variety of different types of travel writing, students in this course will not only enjoy the journeys and stories of other adventurers but also develop their own travel dreams. This course will explore the literature and experience of travel, reading broadly across the world, examining both the travelers and the places they explore. Students will also take a special one day journey as an “authentic traveler” to Philadelphia, compose and publish their own travelogue, and plan a personal journey of some length, their travel dream. Some juniors may elect the Signature Experience option, together designing, planning, and then undertaking a long historical bicycle trip along the trail or narrative of their own devising (in the eastern half of the United States), during August 2009 – PJClements & Nick Hiebert

Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.
-- Mark Twain, Innocents Abroad [COURSE SYLLABUS] // [weblog]

The Alchemist, Paulho Coelho

Bones of the Master, George Crane

The Best American Travel Writing, 2008, ed. Jason Wilson & Anthony Bourdain

A Woman's Passion for Travel, ed. Marybeth Bond and Pamela Michael (selections)