ENG 101 - Writing about Travel and Exploration

At some point in our lives, we have all traveled somewhere new and unfamiliar—a new country, a new school, or a new neighborhood. This course examines what it means to travel and explore. What motivates people to seek out the new? How do people navigate unfamiliar places or cultures? What resources are relied upon or given authority by travelers in unknown terrain?

To think through these questions, we will read works by a diversity of authors, including Henry James, Rudyard Kipling, James Baldwin, David Foster Wallace, and Pico Ayer. In doing so, we will pay particular attention to the form as well as the content of each text. We will ask: what opinions or viewpoints are implicitly conveyed or endorsed in a text? How does writing style affect our perception of the authority, impartiality, and reasonableness of a given text? How does writing style affect our perception of the authority, impartiality, and reasonableness of a given text? How does a writer achieve his or her intended effect? What kinds of ideas or experiences are most effectively expressed by which writing styles?

Credits 1