HI5053 - Travel Writing and Tourism in Modern Britain and Ireland

You will learn through a combination of lectures and seminars. The lectures will introduce the broader chronological developments in the history of travel writing and tourism, and the central themes and concepts. You will learn about the different approaches to the study of travel writing and tourism, both within the discipline of history and in literary studies, heritage studies, and historical geography. We will apply the concept of performance to understand travel as a form of self-fashioning and to understand interactions between ‘hosts’ and ‘guests’. We will consider insights from literary studies when we analyse the development of travel writing as a diverse genre, from personal travel narratives to the proliferation of guidebooks such as Murray’s and Baedeker’s.

You will prepare for the seminars by completing essential and recommended reading, which will include primary source material. You will be asked to prepare a short, informal presentation to the class during one week, exploring travel accounts, visual sources, or other primary material. You will be given the opportunity to visit Hadrian’s Wall on a class field trip, in which you will explore the connections between landscape, the heritage industry, and tourism. The seminars will consist of small group and whole class discussions, in which you will engage in primary source analysis. Learning materials, tasks, and readings will be available on Blackboard. You will receive formative feedback throughout the learning process, and the summative assessment will match your learning against the learning outcomes for the module.

On this module you will be supported throughout by your module tutor, the programme leader, and through engagement with your peers. The module tutor will be available on a weekly basis during scheduled feedback and consultation hours, and also by email. In the classroom, your peers will contribute to a collaborative learning environment, and you will be guided through the requirements and expectations of the module by the programme leader. Formative feedback will be provided during the weekly seminars and assessment tasks.

All modules at Northumbria include a range of reading materials that students are expected to engage with. The reading list for this module can be found at: http://readinglists.northumbria.ac.uk
(Reading List service online guide for academic staff this containing contact details for the Reading List team – http://library.northumbria.ac.uk/readinglists)

Knowledge & Understanding:
1. Knowledge and understanding of how travel writing and tourism shaped modern Britain and Ireland; awareness of important historiographical developments; knowledge of the historical sources that help us understand the history of travel and tourism.
2. A critical understanding of conceptual and theoretical categories that relate to these themes.

Intellectual / Professional skills & abilities:
3. Demonstrate a range of transferable skills, including the ability to make independent critical judgements, to critically evaluate sources, to summarise the research of others, to present arguments in a cogent and persuasive way, and to understand contemporary debates around tourism in their historical context.

Personal Values Attributes (Global / Cultural awareness, Ethics, Curiosity) (PVA):
4. Engagement with ethical questions around tourism and economic relations, including topics relating to empire and postcolonialism. Consideration of ethical questions around travel writing and the description of peoples and places, including topics relating to race, gender and class.

2 x 2,500-word essays

The essays will provide an opportunity for the students to demonstrate their understanding of travel writing and tourism in modern British and Irish history, using a range of secondary and primary material, and showing skills in reading, analysis, source interpretation, criticism, and citation. These essays will be written in response to questions chosen from two thematic lists provided by the module tutor.

Formative assessment will be based around short student presentations in class.

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When did we begin travelling for leisure, and why did we write about it? How did travel and tourism become such an important part of our economy, our politics and our culture? In this module you will discover how the history of travel writing and tourism is deeply connected to the making of modern Britain and Ireland. From eighteenth century seaside towns and European Grand Tours to twentieth century holiday camps and heritage tourism, this module introduces students to the historical transformations that made us travellers. You will discover how Queen Victoria’s royal tourism was used to strengthen the political Union; how Thomas Cook’s tours followed the British Empire’s transport routes into the Middle East, Africa and India; and how the tourism industry promoted cooperation in a divided Ireland in the twentieth century. You will explore all of this through travel accounts, photographs, films, and poster artwork from the period.