TRAVEL NARRATIVES
| Title | ΤΑΞΙΔΙΩΤΙΚΕΣ ΑΦΗΓΗΣΕΙΣ / TRAVEL NARRATIVES |
| Code | Λογ6-425 |
| Faculty | Philosophy |
| School | English Language and Literature |
| Cycle / Level | 1st / Undergraduate |
| Teaching Period | Winter/Spring |
| Common | No |
| Status | Active |
| Course ID | 600020322 |
Programme of Study: 2024-2025
Registered students: 6
| Orientation | Attendance Type | Semester | Year | ECTS |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| KORMOS | Elective Courses | Winter/Spring | - | 6 |
| Academic Year | 2025 – 2026 |
| Class Period | Spring |
| Faculty Instructors |
|
| Weekly Hours | 3 |
| Total Hours | 39 |
| Class ID | 600292327
|
Course Type 2021
Specific Foundation
Course Type 2011-2015
Knowledge Deepening / Consolidation
Mode of Delivery
- Face to face
Digital Course Content
- e-Study Guide https://qa.auth.gr/en/class/1/600292327
- At the Website of the School:
- eLearning:
Erasmus
The course is also offered to exchange programme students.
Language of Instruction
- English (Instruction, Examination)
Learning Outcomes
By the end of the course students are expected:
1) to have acquired a deeper knowledge of travel writing as a literary form and register within eighteenth and nineteenth-century British literature and literary history
2) to have acquired a theoretical awareness of the narrative devices and literary practices involved in writing within this form
3) to have broadened and deepened their critical and theoretical skills in reading and understanding the various discourses (gender, power, imperialistic, aesthetic) that shape these writings
4) to have practiced their oral skills and academic writing
General Competences
- Apply knowledge in practice
- Retrieve, analyse and synthesise data and information, with the use of necessary technologies
- Adapt to new situations
- Make decisions
- Work autonomously
- Work in teams
- Work in an interdisciplinary team
- Generate new research ideas
- Appreciate diversity and multiculturality
- Respect natural environment
- Demonstrate social, professional and ethical commitment and sensitivity to gender issues
- Be critical and self-critical
- Advance free, creative and causative thinking
Course Content (Syllabus)
The aim of this course is to introduce a flourishing literary genre and investigate the ways travel writing has become relevant to a broad range of cultural, political and historical debates. After outlining competing definitions and offering a brief overview of the evolution of Western travel writing, the focus will fall on non-fiction and fiction travel accounts written by British travellers in the 18th and 19th centuries, a period during which the relationship between Britain and the wider world changed radically. The texts under examination will feature personal, scientific, touristic, antiquarian, diplomatic, and exploration discourses and will invite us to discuss the narrative techniques and literary devices authors used to achieve their effects. In addition, the course will address questions such as: what do travelogues reveal about the traveller’s subjectivity and their views of other peoples and other cultures? How did travel accounts help Britain understand the world? How do issues of identity construction, gender and sexuality impinge on travel writing?
Keywords
travel writing, narrative, gender, imperialism, Great Britain, identity, history
Educational Material Types
- Notes
- Slide presentations
- Video lectures
- Multimedia
- Interactive excersises
- Book
Use of Information and Communication Technologies
Use of ICT
- Use of ICT in Course Teaching
- Use of ICT in Communication with Students
Description
The form of information technology that the teacher of this course uses most is the e-learning (Moodle) in conjunction with the internet.
Course Organization
| Activities | Workload | ECTS | Individual | Teamwork | Erasmus |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lectures | 117 | ✓ | ✓ | ||
| Reading Assigment | 10 | ✓ | ✓ | ||
| Written assigments | 20 | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | |
| Exams | 3 | ✓ | ✓ | ||
| Total | 150 |
Student Assessment
Description
Assessment is based on 1) Final exam only or 2) on an brief critical essay with limited bibliography (30% of the final grade) and on a final examination with a combination of two short essay questions on taught materials (70% of the final grade)or 3) on a final examination (80%) and an in-class presentation (20%) along with a 1000-word written report. The essay is assessed on the basis of organisation, argumentation, quality of expression in English and skills of analysis and synthesis in interpreting the gothic and its social-political-psychoanalytical dimension. The final examination is assessed on the basis of factual knowledge and familiarity with the required readings, in addition to the above criteria. Regarding the optional oral presentations, students are responsible for a fifteen-minute presentation of a critical or theoretical source. Students will also have to produce a handout/ppt to facilitate class discussion. Prior consultation with the instructor is necessary. The criteria are made known to the students at the beginning of the course.
Student Assessment methods
- Written Exam with Extended Answer Questions (Formative, Summative)
- Written Assignment (Formative, Summative)
- Performance / Staging (Formative, Summative)
Bibliography
Course Bibliography (Eudoxus)
The primary texts can be found in
• The Norton Anthology of English Literature
• Travel Writing 1700-1830: An Anthology (eds. Bohls and Duncan) [Scans available on e-learning]
• The Norton Book of Travel (ed. Paul Fussell) [Scans available on e-learning]
Additional bibliography for study
SUGGESTED SECONDARY READING (Folder with electronic files available on E-learning)
WEEKS 1-3
Thompson, Carl. “Introduction.” The Routledge Companion to Travel Writing. Ed. Carl Thompson. New York: Routledge 2020 [2016].
Youngs, Tim. “Historical Overview.” The Cambridge Introduction to Travel Writing. Cambridge: CUP 2013 (this file contains the chapters “Medieval and early modern travel writing” and “Travel writing in the eighteenth century,” so it can also be used as a reference source for Weeks 4-6 and 7-9).
WEEKS 4-6
Hunter, Paul J. “Gulliver’s Travels and the Later Writings.” The Cambridge Companion to Jonathan Swift. Ed. Christopher Fox. CUP, 2003.
Buzard, James. “The Grand Tour and after (1660-1840).” The Cambridge Companion to Travel Writing. Cambridge: CUP, 2002.
Cooke, Simon. “Inner Journeys: Travel Writing as Life Writing”. The Routledge Companion to Travel Writing. Ed. Carl Thompson. New York: Routledge 2020 [2016].
Kinsley, Zoë. “Travellers and Tourists”. The Routledge Companion to Travel Writing. Ed. Carl Thompson. New York: Routledge 2020 [2016].
WEEK 7-9
Cardinal, Roger. “Romantic Travel.” Rewriting the Self: Histories from the Renaissance to the Present. London: Routledge, 1997. 135-155.
Fay, Elizabeth A. “Travel Writing.” The Cambridge Companion to Women’s Writing in the Romantic Period. Ed. Devoney Looser. CUP, 2015.
Bohls, Elizabeth A. “Aesthetics and Orientalism in Mary Wortley Montagu’s Letters.” Women Travel Writers and the Language of Aesthetics, 1716-1818. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995.
Chard, Chloe. “Women who Transmute into Tourist Attractions: Spectator and Spectacle on the Grand Tour.” Romantic Geographies: Discourses of Travel 1775-1844. Ed. Amanda Gilroy. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000.
Turhan, Filiz. “Desire and Disdain: The Travels of Lady Elizabeth Craven.” The Other Empire: British Romantic Writings about the Ottoman Empire. New York: Routledge, 2003.
Mills, Sara, “Written on the Landscape: Mary Wollstonecraft’s Letters Written During a Short Residence in Sweden, Norway and Denmark.” Romantic Geographies: Discourses of Travel 1775-1844. Ed. Amanda Gilroy. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000.
Bohls, Elizabeth A. “Mary Wollstonecraft’s Anti-aesthetics.” Women Travel Writers and the Language of Aesthetics, 1716-1818. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995.
Bohls, Elizabeth A. “Helen Maria Williams’ Revolutionary Landscapes.” Women Travel Writers and the Language of Aesthetics, 1716-1818. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995.
WEEK 10-12
Hooper, Glenn. “The Isles/Ireland: the wider shore.” The Cambridge Companion to Travel Writing. Eds. Peter Hulme and Tim Youngs. Cambridge: CUP 2002.
Smethurst, Paul. “Discoverers and Explorers.” The Routledge Companion to Travel Writing. Ed. Carl Thompson. New York: Routledge 2020 [2016].
Pratt, Mary Louise. Imperial Eyes: Travel Writing and Transculturation. New York: Routledge, 1992. Chapt. 1, 2.
Last Update
12-06-2025
