Schedule
Week Zero–Prior to Departure
Readings Due:
- Read ASAP: Pico Iyer, “Why We Travel” (2010)
- Blogging Instructions
- Read on the plane:
- Patricia Clough, excerpt from Umbria: The Heart of Italy (under Readings tab)
- Ian Campbell Ross, excerpt on food and wine culture from Umbria: A Cultural Guide (under Reading tab)
Assignment Due–Tuesday 5/16 by midnight:
- Blog Post 1:
- For your first blog post, your goal is to craft a more individualized answer to the question Pico Iyer poses in his article “Why We Travel.” Why do you travel? Why are you traveling? Begin by engaging Iyer’s article, quoting and engaging points he makes that feel most relevant and salient to you. You are using Iyer here as a sort of jumping-off point. If you would like to engage more critically, that’s fine as well. The goal is to begin to answer that key question–why you travel–as both a response to Iyer, and an articulation of your own motivations. Conclude by forecasting a bit: what are your hopes for this trip? What kind of disposition do you want to bring to your travels? Who do you want to be? What do you want to see and accomplish? What do you want to learn? How do you want to change? As with all of your blog posts, write for an outside audience (don’t assume familiarity with Iyer, or the essay–so introduce them both), and add some images and links.
Week 1:
Monday 5/22: Fundamentals of Travel Writing—Place, Character, Self, and Story
Readings Due:
- Jonathan Lorrie, The Travel Writer’s Way, Chapters 1-4 [under Readings tab]
- Lindsey Tramuta, “The Untapped Region Where Italy’s Oldest Culinary Traditions Live On.” Afar (2018)
Assignments Due:
- Journaling:
- Please complete one of the exercises from Chapter one (there are two prompts) and one of the exercises from from chapter 2. Be ready to share what you’ve written in class.
Wednesday 5/24: Travel Writing Genres and Writing about New Places
Readings Due:
- Travel Genres: An Informal Overview
- Audrey Ferber, “A Daughter’s Guide to Florence,” from The Best Women’s Travel Writing Vol. 12 (2020) [under Readings tab]
- Ingrid K. Williams, “36 Hours in Florence,” The New York Times (2016)
- Anne Harrision, “10 Unusual Things to Do in Florence“
Assignments Due:
Blog Post 2:
You have had the opportunity to explore some of what Spoleto and its environs has to offer, and also to reflect upon some fundamentals of travel writing. Ahead of last Monday’s class, you wrote some brief journal entries on place and character. For this prompt, compose a 600-800 word essay that introduces your reader to Umbria framed through your experiences during our opening weekend and excursions up to this point. Attend carefully to not only to place and character, but to elements of self and story as well. The Tramuta reading is a model here, but you have creative license.
Week 2:
Monday 5/29
Readings Due
- Marcy Gordon, In Lardo We Trust, from The Best Women’s Travel Writing (2011) [available under Readings tab]
- Daniel Verdu, “The Italian Grandmas Going Viral with the Art of Making Pasta,” El Pais, 2022
- How to make Ubricelli Pasta from Umbria | Pasta Grannies (YouTube)
- Ligaya Mishan, “What We Write About When We Write About Food.” (PDF file if necessary)New York Times Style Magazine (2022)
- Slow Food Manifesto, from Slow Food International
Assignment Due
- Blog Post 3: Florence in Genres
- How do we say something fresh about Florence? By trying to find something new and distinctive? By writing from our own unique perspective? By offering an unexplored angle? By honing in closely to a single moment or experience? Before our excursion, we discussed a range of travel writing genres and read a few examples. Think about your post from the perspective of genre, and then do you best to compose within that genre and the rules and assumptions that govern it. 600-800 words. If you want to create in other media formats, we. can discuss how this might affect word count.
Wednesday: 5/31
Readings Due:
- Samantha Schoech, “Sono Felice.” The Best Women ‘s Travel Writing (2017) [available under Readings tab]
- Laura Fraser, “Dance of the Spider Woman.” The Best Women ‘s Travel Writing (2012) [available under Readings tab]
- Diane LeBow, “A Bedtime Story,” The Best Women ‘s Travel Writing (2020) [available under Readings tab]
- Laura Deutsch, The Rhythms of Arezzo,” The Best Women ‘s Travel Writing (2011) [available under Readings tab]
Assignment Due:
Blog Post 4: Culinary Experience
- Although food has been central to our Umbrian experience thus far, we have just started our more dedicated excursions related to Umbrian food culture. For this post, focus fully on the food: the textures, the names, the smells, the flavors, the characters, the context, the memories. Go for excess and baroque metaphors. Bring the experience to life. Think carefully about the tone and mood you want to create. The characters and landscape that surround the food. The memories and recognitions it evokes. Keep the food central. Aim for 800 + words.
Week 3: Travel Writing Today: Word, Image, Media—Travel Writing 2.0
Monday 6/5:
At this point in our trip, it’s important to focus more on writing and individual research and less on shared readings. During this final week, your own writing will be central to our work in class.
Research Due: Research travel writing in a range of newer media: travel blogging, vlogging, TikTok. What genres and practices are emerging? Where are you finding the most compelling content? Compose a journal entry offering a brief content analysis of a specific mode—you can focus on a specific creator, a specific genre, a specific platform. Reflect on what seems to be driving this content, who is the audience, and so on.
Assignment Due
Blog Post 5: Tell the Story of your excursion in a travel essay of your choice. Think carefully about how you want to organize it and what genre you want to compose in. We will workshop the drafts / ideas in class.
Wednesday 6/7–Final Reflections, On Departure: Advice to Future Travelers, Group Workshop
Assignment Due:
- Select 1 piece from this class that you think is a most likely candidate for inclusion in the blog. Be prepared to share it in class and we will workshop in small groups. Also, revisit this material from Iyer’s “Why We Travel” article.