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South African Studies
2009 Spring Semester - Course Description
African Travel Writing
CEA Partner Institution: Stellenbosch University
Location: Stellenbosch, South AfricaPrimary Subject Area: English Language & Literature
Level(s): 300
Instruction in: English
Recommended Semester Credits: 3
Contact Hours: 45
Description
Nineteenth century travel writing about Africa was concerned not only with the description of territories previously unknown to European experience, but also with the discursive mastery of the imaginary space of the other. Despite a century of colonial occupation of Africa, the process of attempted mastery persists in twentieth century travel writing. It is as if political and commercial control of African territories did not involve a corresponding imaginative mastery. Africa continues to fascinate by virtue of its inscrutability, its resistance to the discursive and imaginative assimilation, its persistent otherness. In this elective we will study a selection of twentieth century African travel writings, examining such issues as the position of the traveler, in relation to what is described, travel and the making of identity, the construction of the other in a dialectic negation, and the border crossings as a form of translation and transgression.
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