Abroad again: Explorations within the genre of travel writing

Travel writing is a critical subject of study as it is a place where so many fields overlap, including autobiography, fiction, historical records, geography, political science, sociology, and anthropology. From early writers, including the European pilgrim Etheria c. 385 C.E. and the Muslim contemporary of Marco Polo, Abdallah ibn Battuta, to present day authors, travelers have written interesting and important books about areas new to them.;As the starting points to my discussion of the genre of travel writing, I use two of the most important studies within the field: Paul Fussell's Abroad: British Literary Travel Writing between the Wars (1980) and Mary Louise Pratt's Imperial Eyes: Travel Writing and Transculturation (1992). I build on their scholarship by widening the scope of the discussion with examples from the last 21 centuries and throughout the world.;The first three essays of my dissertation help orient the reader to travel writing by exploring the justifications people give for traveling, why people write travel books, and how to define a travel book. The following seven essays examine the generic options available to travel writers and publishers in naming travel books, designing cover pages, choosing illustrations, beginning and ending travel books, as well as important plot considerations, such as traveling companions and crossing borders. By comparing travelers from the 1500s to contemporary authors such as Bruce Chatwin, Pico Iyer, the Mad Monks, and Mary Morris, I demonstrate that the genre options of English and American travel writing have not significantly changed over the last 100 years.;My eleventh essay argues against Evelyn Waugh, Paul Fussell, Jan Morris and Dervla Murphy's contention that only tourism, not travel, is feasible in the modern world. My last essays address issues such as why people read travel books while traveling, the standards of accuracy to which travel books should be held, and the frequently argued distinction between travelers and tourists. The final essay discusses how travel writing can impact the countries described.