Presentations

Julie: Right out I want to say that I love that Julie chose a text that focused on an area of personal significance to her. I found your personal awareness of the area your text dealt with leant something unique to your presentation, and it got me to thinking how interesting it would be read an traveler's account of my own home area when it was just a budding community. On another note, I really enjoyed the way you addressed both the important historical context of the text- which of course is closely connected to the traveler's travel, his perspectives, and motives for writing- and the political influence of the book after its publication. To be honest, up until your presentation I had considered the important influence of cultural/political contexts on travel writing, but not the possibility of a reciprocal relationship between travel text and culture/politics. I think that in discussing the influence of the text you opened up- at least to me- an interesting area for discussion: the travel text as not only a product of its historical cultural and political context but as a cultural and political influence of itself. I think we've been working in class with this in mind- for example, talking about centers of calculation and the way travel narrative was both product of the desire (as in produced from the desire) to know and name the world, but also the informative well from which knowledge- or the struggle to understand the world- was drawn. However, I really don't think I grasped the potential power of the scientific travel narrative to shape, reshape, or reinforce cultural/political notions of the world until listening to your presentation. If I'm slow on the pickup with this one...well, I'm slow....but your presentation made it clear to me that scientific travel narratives are not just artifacts of an age overflowing with curiosity and the desire to know, but powerful and potentially influential forces in their own right.

Bravo.

Jerry:
From the get go I think your own curiosity and desire to know- to travel deeper in to the narrative you selected, in search of order and meaning- really came through in the energy and excitement with which you presented. I love that you recognized strange inconsistencies in your text as an opportunity to take on the role of an intellecutal sleuth, and suss out the reason for the peculiarity that troubled you in the writing. What you uncovered, a secret spy voyage disguised as a legit travel expedition, made me a little jealous to be honest. How exciting! I think your presentation could open an interesting inquiry into other similair uses of exploratory travel and travel writing to mask alterior (i.e. political) motives for travel. Is it likely that the prevalence of scientific/exploratory voyages and expeditions, and the wealth of narratives produced about such expeditions made it possible your writer and the expedition about which he wrote (and perhaps others like it) to do what he did? One question that remains for me is why he wrote this account at all. If in fact the voyage was for shadowed purposes why risk sheding light on it by producing an account- especially is said account is poorly writen, suspicious, and not altogether very informative? Seems like the move of someone who didn't realize what was going on and just wanted to take advantage of an opportunity to publish- and perhaps thereby profit some- but I doubt that he would not know the real aim of the voyage he was on. Perhaps, this is a question you might persue further- in a sittuation in which the expedition is decidely not scientific, but actually for more covert political ends, why record it in narrative?

Toria:
Okay, I personally loved hearing you narrate passages of your gentleman traveler's wanderings through the world. I think it's absolutely fitting that your text would include with it's observations of world cultures and politics (and donkey riding) a lot of wit. I appreciated the way you summarized what was truly a long journey in detail, providing also actual textual examples of the language with which your traveler spoke about his observations. Together, the detailed outline of the journey and textual examples- which illustrated both writer's vibrant (somewhat egotistical) persona and impressions of the world (also vibrant and egotistical)- did more than beautifully lay out the text for those who hadn't read it; it beautifully illustrated the concept of travel as a search for self (both individual and cultural) in the world. I'm intrigued by the notion of voluntary displacement as a means of locating one's cultural/individual identity, and I think your text provides some interesting possiblilities for examining this notiton in text. Your traveler, it seemed from your examples, even when he attempted to observe and understand Other, was concerned more with orienting his self and his identity among the scenes and spectacles he witnessed. I recall one powerful examlple being a festival he observed, which he suggests in the text flourished and glittered in performance for HIM (him who was decidedly marginalized and invisible in earlier encounters). It could be interesting to further examine visibility and invisibility of the British traveler in an Other setting, and (cultural) identity preformance in travel writing like your's (both of the traveller and of the "native"). Perhaps the preformance is reciprocal? Perhaps the preformance prevents one from really ever understanding the other, while becoming more near an essentialized vision of oneself? Does that make sense? Like when one is out of country (let's say one is British) in a place decidely different from one's home and culture, among people who identify themselves as let's say of a specific African tribe is it possible that cultural identity becomes a preformance in which one actively esssentializes oneself in an attempt to identify and distinguish oneself?.....I think it would be interesting to look at that in terms of a traveler like your's- how does he react to the festival (a literal preformance of cultural identity), how does he preform his identity as a British man/observer/traveler? If anything, you could say that all these questions- be they interesting or just plain indecipherable- arise from my own personal interest in what was I think a really wonderful and rich presentation and travel text. I loved it.

Kellan:
First of all, I love that you found a text that so perfectly falls in line with your interests in colonialism/postcolonialism. I liked how our texts (your's, Toria's, and my own) illustrated what must be only a small smathering of a truly diverse assortment of travel writings. While my text represented I think an example of predominently scientific exploratory writing, and Toria's text seemed almost ethnographic, your text presented an interesting, specifically political use of travel writing, with important colonial undertones. However, in reflection, I think a case could be made that all of our texts were very much concerned with similair interests- all were very much bound of in (forgive me Debbie) imperialism in one way or another. I think your text though, while commericial and strategic motives likely belied the motives of travel and the specific information recorded, presented some interesting questions that you can seperate from imperialism to focus instead on British print culture, and more specifically the construction of a travel text. Specifically, I thought it was really interesting the way you addressed the somewhat strange construction of your text. Given that the writer/traveller was clearly instructed at the opening to study medicinal plants and other things that could be of use medically it is interesting that the text focuses instead on commerical mechanical things, and (for whatever reason) goats (which appeared to be important enough to illustrate). That, as you pointed out, the text does not include more material of medical interest or even botanical illustrations is curious. Listening to you talk about this strange inconsistency in your book I got to wondering how travel texts were constructed- what determined what was or was not illustrated, and how information was organized/presented? Was it purely financial? Is you text typical, or unusual? More generally, do you think illustrations provide authority to a text, or perhaps are unnessecary? I know that these are not questions you were to answer, only thoughts that your presentation inspired in me. I really enjoyed presenting along side you and Toria. You both inspired me to look at my own text from different angles, and to think about travel literature as a whole in new ways.