Travel Writing/Memoir

Graduate

Creative Writing or Single-taught Interdisciplinary Nonfiction Creative Writing: This course is aimed at those with a special interest in travel writing, a subgenre, we could say, of memoir, and related to "writing the other." A few of the questions that will propel us are: What is travel writing? How far do you "have to go" before you've gone somewhere to write about? How does the time element factor in? Students will be focused on narratives of encounters with unfamiliar places and peoples, with an emphasis on the highly subjective nature of the experience. Aspects of their writing that we'll be alert to include the construction of a narrative, the role of the narrator, and the physical and cultural territory, as well as narrative voice, the development of themes. and the meaning of the journey. To what extent is travel writing descriptive, and to what extent inventive? How do the author's own needs and assumptions affect the record of his or her journey? What is the relationship between the viewer and the viewed? How is the narrative both a window and a mirror? Writing experience is preferred but not a prerequisite. Class time will be devoted to both student and published work. Authors to be read will include Freya Stark, Robert Byron, D.H. Lawrence, and Edith Wharton.