Venturing beyond borders – Reflections on genre, function and boundaries in Middle Eastern travel writing

Kitap İngilizce

Künye:

Yazarlar:

Ekle

Emeği Geçenler:

Çeviren: Bekim Agai

Çeviren: Olcay Akyıldız

Çeviren: Caspar Hillebrand

Ekle

Yayın Yılı:

2016

Yayın Yeri:

WÜRZBURG

Yayıncı:

Cilt:

Basım Kaydı:

Sayfa Sayısı:

267

ISBN:

İçerik Dosyası:

Web adresi:

http://https://www.nomos-elibrary.de/10.5771/9783956507076.pdf?download_full_pdf=1

Operatör:

Şafak Varol

Güncelleyen:

Ramazan Acun

Özet:

This volume is the result of a workshop entitled “Travel writing between fact and
fiction – genre, functions and boundaries” organized at Boğaziçi University Istanbul in December 2010 within the frame of the research project “Europe from
the outside – formations of Middle Eastern views on Europe from inside Europe”,
based at the University of Bonn.1 Our aim was to provide a space within which
scholars with expertise in a variety of languages and from disciplines ranging from
Literary Studies to Near and Middle Eastern Studies and History could explore
the complexity of travel writing as a historical, literary and cultural source for the
17th to 20th centuries. The workshop raised the questions of how to approach
these narratives from different angles and in what ways they contribute to our
understanding of their contexts. Although there was a strong focus on OttomanTurkish travelogues to Europe and to other places, we intentionally invited studieson travellers from Iran and the Arabic world in order to broaden the picture.
This book is a contribution to the academic conversation about travel writing
in general and Middle Eastern travelogues particularly in two significant ways:
First, it aims at crossing the paths of expertise on Middle Eastern travellers and
the field of Travel Studies in order to create a basis for comparative research on
Middle Eastern travelogues that reaches beyond the boundaries which Ottoman,
Arabic and Iranian Studies have established both among each other and between
themselves and studies on Western travel writing. Second, the papers provide a
broad analytical framework thus representing various approaches to travel writing
across disciplines, geographies and time. They make use of the theory and methods of Travel Studies, Gender Studies, Postcolonial Studies, Psychology and
Transcultural History.The book’s title, “Venturing beyond borders – reflections on genre, function and boundaries in Middle Eastern travel writing”, reflects these lines of thought. It challenges the reading of borders, frontiers and boundaries constructed by geography, politics, language, and gender, and examines their relevance for travelling and travel writing. This in turn also brings up questions of the contested boundaries of genre and function: Where does travel writing end and memories, geographies, and biographies start? All papers tackle aspects related to these intertwined questions in specific ways. To broaden the scope we also included research on fictitious travel reports in order to complement the reflection on factual/literary fiction, intertextuality, and narrativity in Middle Eastern travel writing. Finally, the main question this volume raises is: What can we learn from
these factual and fictitious travel narratives and how do they contribute to our
understanding both of the travellers and the societies they came from and travelled to? The contributions in this volume have been divided into three parts according
to their content and approach: The first part, entitled “Approaching the field of travel writing – the broad picture”, provides a wide focus and offers an overview and introduction into the theory of travel and travel writing (İrvin Cemil Schick), the historical development of Ottoman travel writing on Europe with regard to content (Bâki Asiltürk)and with regard to numbers and genre, while also providing a list of the sources (Caspar Hillebrand). For reasons of readability, we have moved the extensive bibliographical part of Caspar Hillebrand’s contribution to the end of the book. The second part, “Writing on Self and Other – a closer look”, focuses on theoretical and narrative issues as well, but concentrates on the representation of the Other and the Self and works with exemplary texts to give a more distinct, detailoriented picture. Topics included in this section are Ottoman perceptions of
“Oriental” Others, which are crucial in order to understand whether or not a particular perception of Europe was unique (Nazlı İpek Hüner), the role of religion
in the construction of the travellers’ identity and alterity (Bekim Agai), and gender as a significant factor both in travelling and travel writing and in the encounter with Europe as in the case of a female Iranian traveller (Jasmin Khosravie).
Finally, the third and last part, “Drawing lines – borders and crossings in
genre”, addresses the variability of the genre, asking about its limits and exploring connections between fact and fiction. It examines the relationships between
different genres (travelogue, guide, political treatise) and the variety of sources
that actually form a travel narrative (Leyla von Mende), the functions and techniques of composition, i.e. the construction of a coherent narration, its plot and
fragments (Mehdi Sajid), and the interplay of the world of thoughts and dreams
with reality and the connections between fact and fiction, novel and travelogue,
that are significant in the textual formation (Olcay Akyıldız).
We see our workshop and its proceedings as a starting point to approach the
complex variety of questions with regard to Ottoman-Turkish, Arabic and Persian
travelogues in a comparative way – among each other and within the field of
Travel Studies in general. We hope to inspire further research along this path, beyond the borders that exist within the academic community and along the lines
of different languages. We would like to thank the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research(BMBF), the editor of the series “Istanbuler Texte und Studien” Barbara Puschand the Orient Institut Istanbul as well as our English editor Emily CoolidgeToker for their efforts and support at various stages of the publication of this book