Program Overview

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A Brief History of Travel Writing is ideal if you want to learn more about the genre of travel writing or are interested in writing about travel yourself. Taught by literary historian and travel writer

Professor Anthony Bale

, this short online course is also suitable for anyone with an interest in the history and literature of travel writing.

We will explore travel writing from the Middle Ages to the twenty-first century and plan to cover the following:

Mandeville’s

Book of Marvels and Travels

(fourteenth century)

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (seventeenth century)

Sir William Kinglake (nineteenth century)

Evelyn Waugh (twentieth century)

Jan Morris (twentieth and twenty-first century)

Geoff Dyer (twenty-first century)

Monisha Rajesh (twenty-first century)

This course consists of seven 90-minute meetings, each structured around a mini-lecture, close analysis of short extracts, discussion and a weekly quiz. Each week you will also be asked to write a short pastiche paragraph in the style of the chosen text.

On successful completion of this travel writing short course you will have gained:

familiarity with the key debates in the history and interpretation of travel writing

an awareness of debates around the ethics of travel writing

familiarity with narrative strategies such as eye-witnessing, authenticity, subjectivity and exoticism that comprise travel narratives

a general understanding of the overall history of travel writing in English, and its current and future directions.

No prior experience of studying travel writing in detail is needed for this course.

This course is non-credit bearing, so carries no credit points.