Contemporary Travel Research Articles

W poszukiwaniu tego, co Inne. Współczesne reportaże podróżnicze jako opowieści o Inności

The article focuses on contemporary travel reportage represented by Martyna Wojciechowska, Tomek Michniewicz and Przemek Kossakowski. The texts selected by the author for analysis tell about the unknown. The author of the article puts forward the thesis that modern travel reports are stories about multidimensional otherness. Article also includes a typology of ways of talking about the phenomenon of dissimilarity. Author distinguishes three types of relating to unknown, which are represented by the authors of reports selected for the analysis. It is an emotional, exploratory, and spiritual type.

One-man Canoe: Meandering a Turkish River with Jeremy Seal

As a contemporary travel writer and journalist, Jeremy Seal has been travelling and writing for over twenty years with a special enthusiasm for Turkey. His first publication on Turkey was appeared in 1995 with the title of A Fez of the Heart: Travels Around Turkey in Search of a Hat (1995), which is a deeply instructive piece of present-day history as well as an entertaining insight into the soul of contemporary Turkey. Later publications of Seal cover The Sneakebite Survivors’ Club: Travels among Serpents (1999), The Wreck at Sharpnose Point: A Victorian Mystery (2002), Santa: A Life (2005) and his recent travel book Meander: East to West Along a Turkish River (2012). This paper scrutinizes his last non-fiction Meander arguing that Seal nourishes his masterpiece both with the elements of travel literature and guidebooks of the touristic fashion. Therefore, he creates a unique form of literature encapsulating the new form of contemporary travel guidebooks. Foremost aim of this paper is to demonstrate Seal’s Meander as both in the tradition of travel literature and touristic guidebook.

The future of travel writing: Interactivity, personal branding and power

Changes in technology and media in the twenty-first-century have had significant implications for the travel writing profession. In the social media era, where information about travel is readily accessible for many audiences online, both travel writers and publishers are altering the way that they function to succeed in this new environment. This phenomenological qualitative study, based on interviews with 47 travel writers, explores their experiences in the digital age. Findings resulted in three new conceptual models illustrating the different experiences of contemporary travel writers: (1) The Interaction Model, (2) The Personal Branding Model, and (3) The Power Model. The models reflect the fact that the online environment has facilitated interactivity with readers and personal branding, created a change in power dynamics, and given some writers a sense of communitas with their peers. These experiences have implications for the profession and the depth of travel writing and writers' travelling experiences.

Travel writing: Always has always will be

Travel writing has changed over the past fifty years to reflect the fact, as Jan Morris has said, that ‘nearly everyone has been nearly everywhere’ (Morris 2009). In the 21st century, travel writing has become a medium for authors to investigate their own lives as much as to explore exotic destinations. Examples of this ‘recording (of) the experience rather than the event’ (Morris 2009) in travel writing include: John Krakauer’s Into the Wild (1996) and Into Thin Air (1997), Pico Iyer’s Global Soul (2001), Robert MacFarlane’s The Old Ways (2012), Cheryl Strayed’s Wild (2013) and Raynor Winn’s The Salt Path (2018). The switch to a more character-focused, experiential-based style of travel writing reflects the genre’s roots in one of the world’s oldest story structures, namely the journey narrative. It is through this connection that we can identify some of the universal structures behind successful contemporary travel writing; the ability to look objectively at life by placing oneself in a liminal space (Turner 1964, Mahdi 1987), and the fact that travel and narrative is in all of us through our ancestral memories of Homo sapiens’ seventy-millennia long history of migration around the globe (Harari 2011, Mithen 2005, Tattersall 2008).

The night writer: The emergence of nocturnal travel writing

In 1762, the philosopher and writer Jean-Jacques Rousseau wrote in Emile (1979) that we are blind half our lives because of what we miss during the night. The notion that the night can offer a broader experience and understanding of people, culture and place is one that is particularly relevant to travel writing and travel writers, though it is a perspective that has not been widely studied. As such, this paper will explore the development of nocturnal travel writing. This awareness begins with the influence of the flâneur in Paris and London. The immersed perspective of the street wanderer inspired many writers, including Charles Dickens, who later wrote Night Walks in 1861 of his nocturnal London walking. While technology and security diminished the writers’ fascination of the night in the later 19th and 20th centuries, it has re-emerged as an important subgenre of contemporary travel writing. There is a range of diverse examples of nocturnal travel writing in the 21st century focusing on nature, social and cultural lives and non-English speaking countries. These examples present an opportunity to push the authentic boundaries of the travel writing form in an era of gimmicks and unimaginative storytelling. As a form which draws influence from the flâneur, psychogeography and the literary pedigree of writers such as De Quincey and Dickens, nocturnal travel writing offers the reader a new and imaginative rendering of the ‘other’ within different places, cultures and temporal zones.

The travel selfie: Exploring the writer’s vision in contemporary travel writing

In 2013, the Oxford Dictionary declared ‘selfie’ the word of the year, defining this phenomenon as ‘a photograph that one has taken of oneself, typically one taken with a smartphone or webcam and shared via social media’ (BBC News, 2013). Instagram and personal travel blogs seem to be some of the most popular platforms enabling travel writers to express themselves through selfies, aka travel selfies. Many studies revolving around the culture of travel selfies have been conducted to better understand tourist behaviour, tourist marketing and consumer habits. However, there is a lack of interdisciplinary research surrounding this complex socio-cultural phenomenon. Travel selfies, although popular, often spark controversy and in some places, travel selfies are prohibited for safety reasons or to show respect at memorial sites. Selfies are often considered narcissistic and therefore, sometimes frowned upon by society. In this paper, I explore the larger socio-cultural complexities of travel selfies and explore what a travel selfie may contribute to a writer’s travel account by investigating how the rise of the travel selfie has shaped the travel writer’s personal vision that usually evolves throughout the writing process.

From Richard Eden to Everything Everywhere: Discourses of travel writing from early modern editors to the contemporary travel blog

Travel blogs have become an important new form of travel writing over the last decade with some achieving more than a million page views per month, and their authors becoming topranking social influencers. The ability to load material to web pages and reach readers directly suggests that editors are superfluous in this form of travel writing. However, as this article shows, not only do bloggers adopt many of the roles traditionally associated with editors, they use very similar discourses to the editors of some of the earliest collections of travel writing. This paper explores both the continuities and differences in these discourses showing both their indebtedness, whether conscious or not, to early editors and the ways in which these discourses have changed in contemporary times to reflect the modern world of travel writing.

A sweltering afternoon: Herberton, Far North Queensland

This short prose comprises childhood recollections interspersed with a brief contemporary travel ‘memoir’, juxtaposing past and present narratives in a limited gothic style. It conveys a sense of the sultry ambience of far north Queensland’s tablelands region, inland from Cairns, with a particular focus on Herberton, a town in the ‘dry tropics’, with a mining history.

“ein rise starc unde grôz”: Geographies and temporalities of salvation in St. Jakob in Kastelaz

A pair of naked giants, male and female, gazing toward the congregation, flank the apse of St. Jakob in Kastelaz (c.1215) in Tramin, South Tyrol. This article argues that, rather than portraying specific giants from a particular text, the mural figures embody the notion of “the gigantic” as it appears in contemporary medieval epics, romances, and travel literature. As such, they confront viewers with a variety of geographies and temporalities of salvation, connecting the Flood and its redemptive implications to a broad spectrum of mythical times, sacred history, and cosmology, as well as to a wide range of locations across the globe, both near and far. Amid this rich cultural web, the giants in the frescoes offer their viewers two types of pictorial vision: a false one, represented by the hybrids struggling in the obliterating deluge; and a true vision of the Majestas Domini and the Apostles, attainable by humanity alone.

Cross-medialità odeporica: dai blogs all’intelligenza artificiale

In questo articolo si esplorano alcune forme di cross-medialità digitale della letteratura di viaggio: i blogs, i social network, le apps e il caso estremo in cui è una forma di Intelligenza Artificiale (IA) ad essere in controllo della stesura del testo. Dopo aver evidenziato la difficoltà di trovare una definizione condivisa degli scritti odeporici, si propone di considerarli non solo come un genere, ma anche come una prassi testuale che emerge dal viaggiare e dallo scrivere intese come pratiche sociali. Da questa prospettiva pragmatica si sottolinea il fatto che più la tecnologia è protagonista nel modo di concepire e mettere in forma (digitale) un viaggio, più tale esperienza e la sua testualizzazione sono oggettificate e trasformate in meri atti tecno-linguistici. Nel caso invece in cui un’IA è (messa) in controllo della narrazione, come l’esperimento 1 the Road mostra, si ritorna a una forma di testualizzazione che richiama gli hypomnemata degli antichi Greci, aprendo una nuova strada per una discussione sul piacere letterario, l’autorialità, e l’emergenza (forse) di un tecno-sé.

FUTURES OF GAMING: HOW CASINOS AND GAMBLING MIGHT EVOLVE IN THE NEAR FUTURE

FUTURES OF GAMING: HOW CASINOS AND GAMBLING MIGHT EVOLVE IN THE NEAR FUTURE

Self-Narrative Vizualization in Contemporary Travel Text

The research of photo narrative is currently increasing, the prime evidence is observed in the effective scholars of the interactions between photography and an autobiography. The main questions of this paper are by what means of photo narrative travel bloggers construct the self-image and an imaginary space image as well, in what ways we could explicate the meaning of the visual self-narration in Internet travel writing. The article reveals the essential concepts of study the problem, such as “autoportraitistic pact”, “transmedial narrative”, “phototextuality”. The author stresses that there is no any argumentative research of the correspondence between literature and photography in humanitarian discourse of Ukraine. From an overall perspective the key information that stands out from the analysis of travel blogs is that photography appeals to emotional and symbolic semantics. Taking this argument further this point should be supplemented with the factor of theatralization of bloggers’ behavior, which reflects the autoportraits. The shoots of traveler from behind in front of the open space are the cliché that involves the collective patterns of this practice that are associated with rhe romantic image of a wanderer. As so the portraits can be seen as part of broader culture tradition. The author provides the examples of some variants of this picture composition. More specifically, there are some photos with diegetic function in a travelogue by Orest Zub. The narrative analysis of visual stories turns out that they tend to a distant narrative position. The gaps between the visual and verbal texts indicates the peculiarities of focalization and the tension between the axiological positions of the narrator and the author of the blog. Finally, the stereotypes of visual stylistics, similarity of selfrepresentation due to utopian image of travelling as a practice that releases a person from prosaic everydayness.

Opium Consumption in Batavia: On the High Government’s <i>Madat</i> Regulations, 1671-1747

This paper examines opium consumption in the colonial city of Batavia (current-day Jakarta) and its hinterland (Ommelanden), focusing on regulations of madat—a mixture of opium and tobacco—imposed by the Batavia High Government (Hoge Regering) of the Dutch East India Company (VOC). Analysis of contemporary travel accounts and the initial madat ban in 1671 which prohibited the production, distribution and consumption of madat within the city walls of Batavia and the Ommelanden, reveals that madat consumption spread especially among the Javanese and Chinese. Despite the regulation of 1671, the presence of pubs/dens that provided madat became more apparent in the late 1720s. This emergence resulted in more frequent criminal activities and avoidance of work by both free citizens and slaves composed of multi-ethnic people primarily from the Indonesian Archipelago.

Orientalist reveries: The imaginary creative constructions of the Moroccan space and place by the figures of the non-Muslim male traveller and female tourist − from travel literature to photography and contemporary fashion imagery

Abstract In this body of research and original photographic work to which it responds, I examine the position and connotation of Morocco as a site for artistic inspiration in travel literature, photography and fashion photography in the context of three main themes relating to its imaginary constructions: Orientalism; the western male traveller in contradistinction to the female tourist; and the figure of the cultured flâneur. These themes became associated with European industrialization and imperialism towards the end of the nineteenth century, and the research draws links between this particular period of culture and its values, and our present day, romantic fascination with Morocco, and the revival of such themes and their popular reincarnation in contemporary fashion editorials. The article investigates the role that photography has played in the development of twenty-first century Orientalism and its manifestation in visual fashion storytelling, and the interplay between artist-subject-location: how does the western traveller/photographer view both himself and others in the process of picturing the Maghreb and what are the kinds of relationships and tensions that develop between the traveller/photographer and the North African sites that he observes? The research focuses on the long association between travel and sexual adventure and explores the literary and visual narratives involving the figures of the contemporary traveller and tourist in the North African space and place, and how adventurer and location feed off one another. By examining the appropriation of such figures and motifs from art and literature into contemporary photography of travel and fashion photography, the article aims to consider the visual representation and specific propositions of locations such as Tangier, Marrakesh, Assilah and the Moroccan Sahara as chaotic, dangerous and alien, and understand the complex, post-Orientalist rendition of the North African space and visual culture within the context of fashion photography. More specifically this article poses the following questions: why does our western culture want or need to revisit condescending Orientalist fantasies and an imperialist mode of representation? And in what way are the tropes of Orientalist representation tied to the fantasies, desires and anxieties that the fashion industry and its consumer engage with? The article takes Morocco’s strong ties with western cultural figures as its starting point, and in times of intense political and social unrest in the Arab world – the continuing fascination with and promotion of this Muslim country as a sensual tourist destination by fashion editorial and ad campaign shoots. The article considers two photography monographs by western male travellers/photographers shooting photographic bodies of work in a foreign Islamic country: Paul Bowles’ How Could I Send a Picture into the Desert (Bowles and Bischoff 1994) and Harry Gruyaert’s Morocco (1990), in addition to several case studies from literature (Peter Mayne, Elias Canetti); photography (Irving Penn, Daido Moriyama); and contemporary fashion editorial work (William Klein, Jack Pierson, Azim Haidaryan, Inez Van Lamsweerde/Vinoodh Matadin, Mario Testino, Hans Feurer, Steven Meisel and Daniel Riera). It aims to establish links between the visual representation of travel and the context of gender, fashion, identity and sexuality and the psychological dimension of tourism.

Ibn Khaldūn: A Philosopher for Times of Crisis

Ibn Khaldūn:A Philosopher for Times of Crisis Tamara Albertini (bio) I am most grateful to Philosophy East and West for publishing a special issue on philosopher Ibn Khaldūn (732–808 a.h./a.d. 1332–1406). The time is particularly propitious since his ideas are currently permeating the political and cultural climate of his native North Africa. The team contributing to the present issue comprises six authors from four different continents. Ridha Chennoufi and Mehdi Saiden are philosophers from the University of Tunis (Tunisia), the city in which Ibn Khaldūn was born. M. Akif Kayapınar is a political scientist teaching at Istanbul Sehir University (Turkey), while Jeremy Kleidosty does research at the Centre of Excellence on Reason and Religious Recognition, University of Helsinki (Finland). Cynthia Scheopner is a Ph.D. recipient from the Department of Philosophy and a coordinator in the College of Social Sciences at the University of Hawai'i. Finally, Lenn E. Goodman is a philosopher from Vanderbilt University and an expert on Jewish and Islamic thought. The diversity among these scholars is in itself a testament to Ibn Khaldūn, whose philosophy has inspired scholars in different countries and of various academic backgrounds. In one of his most recent publications, Algerian writer Kamel Daoud includes a short text in which he imagines contemporary travelers from different Arab countries sharing how their revolutions began (or are still being halted). After all travelers finish making their profound statements about the massive failures of their respective governments, they notice that one among them had remained silent during the entire conversation. They press him hard until "The traveler cleared his voice and whispered: 'I am the unknown people. The wandering Arab. The continuation of history. Volume II of the scream and the mason of a future Granada. Some call me Ibn Khaldūn'" (my translation).1 How does Ibn Khaldūn, a philosopher born in Tunis more than six centuries ago, end up playing a role in the coming-to-terms with the "Arab Spring"? It has become fashionable to call Ibn Khaldūn a Muslim Machiavelli, Max Weber, Hegel, or a combination thereof. While these comparisons help the nonspecialist to get a quick sense of where some of his significant accomplishments lie—political philosophy, economy, sociology, and philosophy of history—one needs to be careful not to introduce an established [End Page 651] (Western) figure to give status to the unknown or less known (non-Western) author. The Orientalist bias in such an approach needs no further comment. Ibn Khaldūn was a celebrity and was both recognized and attacked in his world for the originality of his ideas long before the entrance onto the world stage of the Western figures whose counterpart he is alleged to be. What makes him significant is not that ideas similar to his have found acceptance or are deemed exceptional intellectual contributions in another or later tradition. As M. Akif Kayapınar proposes in the present issue of this publication, it may at any rate be best to focus on differences rather than on similarities and parallels. An important lesson of comparative philosophy, and of intercultural studies in general, is not to value those traits primarily in another philosophical tradition that carry weight in one's own. On the one hand it betrays an uncritical mindset vis-à-vis one's own tradition, taking it to be a universal standard of sorts, while on the other it adumbrates the appreciation for intellectual and scientific discoveries, theories, and observations for which there are no known equivalents or that are tackled differently from the way they are in one's home culture. However, to indicate, as Tunisian philosopher Ridha Chennoufi does in this issue, that both Machiavelli and Ibn Khaldūn "help us understand reality as it is and not as we would like it to be" is, culturally speaking, making a neutral statement. It only implies that the two authors are consulted in their respective traditions in times of crisis. In other words, they are relevant since each plays an essential role for the political analysis in his society of origin and neither one is great because the other has already...

العلة والحکمة فی القیاس الأصولی

بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم ملخص البحث العلة والحکمة في القياسالأصولي إعداد شافي مذکر السبيعي أستاذ أصول الفقه المشارک بجامعة الطائف As1044@hotmail.com الحمد لله رب العالمين ، والصلاة والسلام على أشرف الأنبياء والمرسلين نبينا محمد وعلى آله الطيبين الطاهرين ، ومن تبعهم بإحسان إلى يوم الدين . أما بعد: فلقد من الله علي بإنجاز هذا البحث حيث سلطت الضوء على مسألة من أهم مسائل أصول الفقه وهي :العلة والحکمة فيالقياسالأصولي وذلک من خلال التعريف بالقياس وبيان حجته ، ومفهوم العلة والألفاظ ذات الصلة بها ، مع بيان شروط ومسالک العلة ، ومقاصدها في القياس ، ثم ذکرت الحکمة ومفهومها ، واستعمالاتها على ضوء القرآن والسنة ، ثم ذکر أقوال العلماء في حکم التعليل بالحکمة ، ونوع الخلاف في هذه المسألة ، حيث ذکرت الاختلاف الحاصل عند الأصوليين في جواز التعليل بالحکمة من عدمه ، مع العلم أنها إن انضبطت بضابط معين نص الشرع عليه، أو قام عليه إجماع، أو دل عليه دليل مقبول من أدلة ثبوت العلة، فلا خلاف في جواز التعليل بها. فهذا القول خارج عن محل النزاع، وليس في التعليل بالحکمة إلا قولان؛ لأن المنضبطة ليست محل خلاف، فالجميع يقول بجواز التعليل بها إلا الظاهرية المنکرين للقياس مطلقا ، ثم ختمت بتطبيقات على التعليل بالحکمة في النوازل الفقهية المعاصرة بذکر بعض الأمثلة من أهمها : وجوب الرجم في اللواط قياسا على الزنا ، وقطع الجماعة بالواحد ، ولقد ترتب على الخلاف في التعليل بالحکمة خلاف في بعض المسائل الأصولية ومن أهمها : حکم القياس في الحدود والکفارات ،وحکم القياس في الأسباب ، مع بيان تعارضالحکمة والحکمالشرعيوالوصف( العدمي والإضافي ) ثم أردفتها : بتطبيقاتعلىالتعليلبالحکمةفيالنوازلالفقهيةالمعاصرة ، حيث اقتصرت على أربع مسائل فقط للتطبيق کحکم سفر المرأة بدون محرم بالوسائل الحديثة والتي تختصر المسافات ، وتنظيم النسل ، وحکم قتل مروجي المخدرات ، والبصمة الوراثية ، وأضفت أمثلة أخرى :کبنوک الحليب ، وبيع وشراء الأسهم ، والمناظير ، واستعمال الحقن الطبية ، والتشريح ، والفحص قبل الزواج ، وبطاقات الاتئمان ، وزواج المسيار ، والمعاملات المصرفية الحديثة بجميع صورها ، وغيرها من المستجدات ، ولعل هذا البحث مما يعين المجتهدين على استيعاب أحکام النوازل والمستجدات المعاصرة . وصلى الله وسلم وعلى نبينا محمد وعلى آله وأصحابه وسلم تسليما مزيدا . الکلمات المفتاحية : العلة – مقاصد العلة - القياسالأصولي – شروط العلة – مسالک العلة – الحکمة واستعمالاتها – التعليل بالحکمة . Abstract Reasons and Wisdom in Islamic Fundamentalist Analogy Preparation Shafi masculine Alsubaie Associate Professor of Fundamentals of Jurisprudence, Taif University As1044@hotmail.com This research work explores one of the key issues in Islamic fundamentalist Fiqh; namely, the reasons and wisdom in Islamic fundamentalist analogy. The study defines analogy and its strength as a means of argumentation. The study also clarifies the concept of reasoning and related terms in Islamic Fiqh. In addition, the study also tackles the purposes for using analogy and in accordance with the Holy Quran and the Sunna and how Fiqh scholars employed analogy and reasoning together with the disagreement involved. Regarding the use of wisdom only two words; because the disciplined is not subject to controversy, everyone says that it is permissible to explain only the apparent denial of analogy applied to newly emerging Fiqh issues such as the travel of women without a male guardian, stoning of adulterers and sodomites, application of capital punishment when a group intentionally kills an individual. The difference in reasoning has resulted in disagreement in some fundamentalist issues, the most important of which is: the rule of analogy when dealing with punishments for which there is a Quranic or Hadith text and meeting out atonement. Analogy by wisdom is limited to four issues only; namely, contemporary travel of women without a male guardian, birth control, the rule for killing drug traffickers, and DNA. In addition to that, we can add other examples such as: milk banks, selling and buying shares, endoscopic surgery, using medical injections, autopsy, prenuptial examination, credit cards, Misyar marriage, modern banking transactions in all its forms, and other developments. Key words: reasons - Destinations of the reasons- fundamentalist measurement - Conditions of illness - pathways of reason - wisdom and its uses - reasoning with wisdom.

TRAVEL NARRATIVES IN CONTEMPORARY POLISH LITERATURE. ETHICAL, CULTURAL AND SOCIAL ASPECTS

Purpose. The presentation of results and analyses regarding on the journeys of ethical, cultural and social provenance in narratives available in contemporary Polish literature illustrated by chosen examples. Method. To prepare the presentation, qualitative methods were used together with the analysis technique of the content/plot of novels of autobiographies of contemporary Polish prose writers and travelers. The author analysed representative texts of such highly-regarded figures as philosophers by profession – Marek Kamiński, Joanna Bator, Krzysztof Środa – and wellknown writers: Andrzej Stasiuk, Krzysztof Varga, Ziemowit Szczerek and others. Findings. Research showed the authors’ great interest in history, culture, ethical and social issues during their numerous peregrinations all over Poland, Southern Europe and Central and Eastern Europe. The narration of the chosen author-travelers contains numerous reflections of existential-philosophical and cultural-social nature, focusing on sociological analysis. The interpretative framework in the works of the discussed authors fluctuates around local, global and glocal problems. Research and conclusions limitations. The study concerned only the works of Polish authors and concentrated on their journeys all over Poland, Southern and Central and Eastern Europe; borderlands, peripheral and cross-border areas. The phenomenon of the journeys of the analysed authors lies in the fact that their experiences are subjective, and their expeditions are undertaken to a considerable degree in mental space, a depicted world; they are unique imaginary adventures. Practical implications. Reading the works discussed in the article expands knowledge on culture, history and the society of countries where the authors undertake their ethically responsible travels. Their books can successfully become an element of literary/cultural tourism. Originality. In literature on the subject works concerning individual authors discussed in the article are dispersed. The advantage of the presented text is the depiction and analysis of the creative output of the examined authors in one place, including the characteristics of their journeys: spiritual, culinary, pilgrimage, cognitive and escape. Type of paper. The article is a review and a scientific, reflective essay.

Cómo se cuentan los viajes: estrategias narrativas en Sergio Chejfec y Martín Caparrós

Sergio Chejfec y Martín Caparrós, autores hispanoamericanos, residentes fuera de su país de origen y que han tratado poéticas del movimiento, sirven como punto de partida para analizar las estrategias narrativas del viajero contemporáneo. Cómo se cuentan los viajes, qué elementos reúnen o separan estos dos autores, qué nos dice su escritura que permite identificar su condición con la de viajeros y sus libros con la escritura de viajes –ese género fronterizo, híbrido, mestizo–. Entre los elementos analizados está la búsqueda, la hipertextualidad, el problema del tiempo y el espacio, la condición de testigo y traductor del viajero y la premisa informativa que forma parte del relato de viaje más allá de las estrategias narrativas.

Empowering Signs: Writing and e-motions in Michel Houellebecq’s Platform

Abstract This article explores the working of the cultural literacy concepts of rhetoricity and textuality in Michel Houellebecq’s third novel Platform through the lens of French philosopher Frederic Lordon’s affect theory, with a view to understanding the way emotions and motion operate jointly through writing in this post-travel literature text dealing with the contemporary travel industry, sex tourism, and emotional alienation. As such, it contributes to the current reassessment of the role played by emotions in human interactions. By exploring the specific layered textuality of Platform, which purposefully recycles a series of discursive cliches and tropes, I show how Houellebecq’s writing style demands to be considered not only for its literary value but also for its potent, and perhaps unexpected, moving effects, or rhetoricity, which invite readers to reconsider their perception of alterity-i.e. the world and the other-but also of the performative power of art and literature. In order to demonstrate this, the article looks first at the failure of travel writing orchestrated in the novel; it then analyses alternative textual modalities of affect mediation trialed in the text; and finally, it considers the strategies used in Platform to “empowerise” signs and, as a result, those who read them.

Unusual Readers in Early Modern Istanbul

AbstractNew social groups such as janissaries, artisans, madrasa students, and ‘middle-class’ bureaucrats have gradually increased their visibility in the social, cultural, and literary landscape of early modern Ottoman Istanbul. Scholars have discussed this new visibility, among others, by observing official regulations, contemporary Ottoman chronicles and travel accounts, artistic and architectural transformation, diversification of literary genres, and the socio-economic background of their writers. In this article, I offer another modest and intimate first-hand source for elucidating the habitus of these new urban agents: visual and written notes on the manuscripts of popular storybooks dating from the eighteenth and early nineteenth century. Thanks to these notes on hundreds of manuscripts, we learn about political standings, literary tastes, codes of identity formation, the ways of self-depiction, social networks, and emotions of Ottoman individuals. By focusing in particular on the notes and doodles of Janissaries on popular heroic narratives, I argue that the gesture of taking notes and drawing symbols on a manuscript is a way of taking a stance against the political, religious, and literary authorities.