English 2041--Assignment #2--Critique of a Travel Article
Topic -- Critique a travel article that we have read in class using perspectives presented in critical commentary by Holland and Huggan and Debbie Lisle. Choose two assertions made by Holland & Huggan and four by Lisle and show how these assertions are illustrated in the travel article you've chosen. (See list of assertions below). BE SURE you understand what the authors are arguing. These are complex concepts.
This paper is to be written in traditional expository format (introduction, body, conclusion).
Length: 750-1,000 words
Format: Be sure you essay has an engaging lead sentence and introduction. Use an appropriate introductory device. The introduction should end with a thesis sentence which responds to the paper topic (above). The body of the paper should offer proof for your opinion by using appropriate quotations from the texts and then explaining them. The conclusion should not be a summary--your paper is too short for such repetitiveness. See class web page for introduction/conclusion suggestions.
Style:
Odds and Ends
Be sure to name the "article," Magazine, and author you will critique in in your introduction.
For more information, check the editing sheet for this assignment.
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Some Assertions Proposed by Holland and Huggan and Lisle:
First of all, know that all three scholars are "social
constructivists," believing that "discourse"
Holland and Huggan:
Travel writing aids in the commodification/Disneyfication/trinketization
of culture through its promotion of the business of tourism and it's consequent
reduction and distortion of cultural forms.
Travel writing can reproduce a foreign world as an object of western knowledge;
it can be blind to the cultural filter through which "others" are judged.
Tourism causes ecological damage and destroys indigenous cultures.
Travel writers focus on self growth is at "others" expense; the other becomes a
mere backdrop for a personal quest.
Travel writers often assume universal human freedoms and mobility in spite of
differences of gender, race, class, nationality, political freedom. They
do not recognize their often privileged position in their narratives.
Lisle:
Travel narratives do not use meta-narratives to comment
on their construction or perspective. They are too often written from a
disingenuous "neutral and objective" vantage point.
Too much travel writing ignores political and economic conflicts in the country
visited. This depoliticized discourse paints an unrealistically optimistic
picture of the country observed.
Travel writing does not acknowledge any ethical
or political responsibility to the "other."
Travel writers too often present national boundaries as stable geo-political
entities, ignoring the complex, contingent formations of power they are.
Travel writing does not allow others to speak for themselves or define the terms
for cross-cultural encounters
Travel writers promote a linear, progressive understanding of history in which
our country/civilization is at the apex of human development and others should
aspire to it.
Travel writing legitimates new forms of global exclusion, dominations and
violence, perpetuating the same structures of power that lead to child
prostitution, environmental destruction and terrorism. One way this
legitimization occurs is through the construction of false dichotomies
(binaries) such as