Early Travel Research Articles

20th century travel to Petra: A narrative study

This study explores the early travelers to Petra, Jordan, during the 20th century. To gain insights into the evolution of early travel experiences to Petra during this specific period, the researchers utilized narrative analysis and conducted in-depth interviews with 14 elderly inhabitants of Wadi Musa who resided in the area at that time. These interviews provided valuable information and served as a basis for visually representing the primary routes that emerged from the participants’ narratives. This study delves into the accessibility of early travelers to Petra in the 20th century by creating a comprehensive map that outlines the trails, byways, and roads used by these travelers to reach Petra. The study’s findings also revolve around the identified stages derived from the data gathered through these interviews.

Did the Laodiceans Drink Lukewarm Water? A Hydrological Inquiry into the Temperature Metaphor of Revelation 3:15–16

Laodicea is the last of the Seven Churches mentioned in the book of Revelation chapters 1–3. This article examines the interpretative issues related to the well-known temperature metaphor found in chapter 3:15–16. The mention of “hot, cold, and lukewarm” has been related to the city’s hydrological situation. First discussed are the early travelers to the site and what they wrote about its water system. In the twentieth century various interpretations arose that suggested its water source was inferior to others in the Lycus valley such as at Hierapolis and Colossae. The excavation of Laodicea beginning in 2003 has revealed much new information about the city’s hydrological situation. The proconsul’s edict about water found at the South Nymphaeum gives further insight into the city’s hydrology. Unfortunately, none of this is being reflected in contemporary discussions of the temperature metaphor in Revelation. After reviewing this new data, the article concludes that the interpretation that the temperature metaphor cannot be related to Laodicea’s hydrological situation.

CONTEMPORARY TRAVEL LITERATURE: A POSTCOLONIAL READING OF FLÂNEUR IN MONISHA RAJESH’S AROUND INDIA IN 80 TRAINS

In the postmodern period, there has been a visible theorization of travel writing in the literary domain as the genre gains constant recognition for its close relation to issues such as colonialism, postcolonialism, globalization and multiculturalism. In fact, early travel writing and its involvement in European expansion has been noticeably reshaped with less exploitative practices of dehumanizing spaces and culture in the contemporary travel narrative. With the socio-political changes that are taking place in the new century, the genre’s establishment in the postcolonial scene has given an impetus to travel literature. This contribution has also given birth to the concept of the postcolonial flâneur, who is often referred to as a modern spectator immersed in observation and overwhelming experiences of the postcolonial society. In connection with this, the paper shall attempt to study the author, Monisha Rajesh as a postcolonial flâneur in her travel book, Around India in 80 Trains (2012). Further analysis shall focus on cultural diversity and paradox, language, religion, capitalism, and the after-effects of imperialism in India through the lens of the postcolonial flâneur.

Mobilidades Turísticas e Saúde Pública Análise Histórica a partir de uma Perspectiva Brasileira

This paper aims at discussing tourism and public health from a mobilities perspective. We analyze tourism not just as corporeal movement, but as a socio-spatial phenomenon that combines material and immaterial elements. For the purposes of this analysis, we take a historical approach on disease outbreaks in Brazil by reviewing press coverage on the poliomyelitis epidemic in the context of political, social, cultural, and economic transformations of the 1950s, with particular interest in the city of Rio de Janeiro. Though this disease did not influence tourism directly – which, in fact, was very incipient in the country at that time – this analysis highlights early travel and tourism imaginaries in relation to public health protocols and concerns. As a main contribution, this study explores different dimensions of (im)mobilities (from pathogens to tourists, from idyllic images to sick bodies), which have the potential to grasp tourism in a more relational way in the so-called post-Covid19 pandemic world.

Colossus at the Crossroads: Reexamining a Hellenistic Cult Statue of Herakles from Kleonai

The small, second-century BCE temple of Herakles at Kleonai has long been a landmark in the southern Corinthia, visited by early travelers in Greece and thoroughly studied and published. Less attention, however, has been paid to the in situ fragmentary colossal cult statue of Herakles, and questions concerning its date, artist, and sculptural “type” remain unresolved. The fragmentary nature, colossal scale, and significant context of the fragment have made these interrelated issues difficult to study using traditional means of documentation. This article presents a novel reexamination of the cult statue in its architectural and archaeological contexts, employing methods drawn from both traditional sculptural study and recent innovations in digital object documentation. In September 2020, the authors undertook a complete restudy of the Kleonai torso, collecting detailed measurements and photographs. This data set was used to create a scaled 3D photogrammetric model that illuminates previously undocumented traces of facture and offers new evidence for the display context of the complete statue. These results resituate this fragmentary sculpture as one of the most notable examples of a Hellenistic sculptural type, the Herakles Epitrapezios, popular across the Graeco-Roman Mediterranean.1

From Polished Stone Tools to Population Dynamics: Ethnographic Archives as Insights

Hafted stone tools fell into disuse in the Pacific region in the 19th and 20th centuries. Before this occurred, examples of tools were collected by early travelers, explorers and tourists. These objects, which now reside in ethnographic collections around the world, make up a remarkable record of vanished traditions. In this chapter I assemble the most extensive survey of these tools to date. I discuss their distributions and how these relate to lifeways and cultural histories. In highland New Guinea I propose that hafted stone tool forms trace three waves of agricultural innovation. I also show how convergent evolution has shaped similar tool types in the Asia Pacific region and the European Neolithic. Lastly, I consider the question of how aspects of material culture and language in the region correlate with each other.

From Polished Stone Tools to Population Dynamics: Ethnographic Archives as Insights

Hafted stone tools fell into disuse in the Pacific region in the 19th and 20th centuries. Before this occurred, examples of tools were collected by early travelers, explorers and tourists. These objects, which now reside in ethnographic collections around the world, make up a remarkable record of vanished traditions. In this chapter I assemble the most extensive survey of these tools to date. I discuss their distributions and how these relate to lifeways and cultural histories. In highland New Guinea I propose that hafted stone tool forms trace three waves of agricultural innovation. I also show how convergent evolution has shaped similar tool types in the Asia Pacific region and the European Neolithic. Lastly, I consider the question of how aspects of material culture and language in the region correlate with each other.

Revisiting the South African Unicorn: Rock Art, Natural History and Colonial Misunderstandings of Indigenous Realities

European ideas about unicorns spread across the world in the colonial era. In South Africa, hunts for that creature, and indigenous rock paintings of it, were commonplace. The aim was proof from ‘terra incognita’, often with the possibility of claiming a reward. There has, however, been little consideration of the independent, local creature onto which the unicorn was transposed. During cross-cultural engagements, foreign beliefs in the mythical unicorn and a desire for evidence of its natural history intermixed to an extraordinary degree with local beliefs in a one-horned animal. For over two centuries, colonists and researchers alike failed to realize that the local creature, by chance, resembled the European unicorn. A new synthesis of southern African ethnography, history and the writings of early travellers, missionaries and colonial politicians provides unambiguous evidence that one-horned creatures obtained in local beliefs before the arrival of colonists. Moreover, it shows that these creatures are depicted in South African rock art, and that they are a manifestation of San (Bushman) rain-animals. By ignoring relevant beliefs and images, previous scholars have failed to acknowledge that the South African unicorn was, apart from its four legs and single horn, a creature wholly different from the European one.

Edward Thomas as a Travel Book Writer

The aim of this paper is to examine Edward Thomas’s literary representations of his walks and bicycle rides from the perspective of the development of the genre of the travel book in Britain. The paper provides a brief outline of the history of the synergy and friction of travel books with the genres of the novel and the autobiography, and the ways in which the developing naturalist and pedestrian discourses influenced travel books and travel accounts. A key argument constructed and developed in the second part of the paper is that the combination of Thomas’s dissatisfaction with the loose collage-like nebulousness of his early travel accounts from Beautiful Wales (1905) to The South Country (1909) and his wide knowledge of 19th-century British travel writers resulted in two ‘conventional’ travel books The Icknield Way (1913) and In Pursuit of Spring (1914), in which Thomas relied on such standard generic features as the diary format and the central role of the narrative persona.

Henry James and the Quest for the Holy Grail: Victorian Medievalism and Modern Criticism

This article offers two case studies. The first examines James’s encounters with medieval buildings in his early travel writings. The second takes as its starting point James’s involvement in The Quest of the Holy Grail, a text which accompanied an 1895 exhibition of paintings by Edwin Austin Abbey. While James’s knowledge of medieval architectural forms seems both confident and coherent, his awareness of medieval literary forms seems more tentative and even sketchy. Reasons for this disparity are considered, but medieval romance motifs are nevertheless found to inform James’s conception of criticism from the outset of his career.

Italian backgrounds. 1835-1837. Ruskin and Viollet-le-Duc’ early travels in Italy

Comparing John Ruskin and Viollet-le-Duc to highlight their opposing approaches to protecting the past is frequent when reading about them and is indeed valid and effective. Here we take this approach, moving along with their travels in Italy which also have never been compared. Interpreting preservation as conservation and maintenance on one hand, or restoration and repair on the other are the opposing strategies upheld by these two authoritative figures in European cultural attitudes to restoration in the mid-19th century. Focusing on the 1830s, and their first visits to Italy implies grasping how their experience of architecture, landscape, and Italian society influenced their later reflections on conservation. The aim is to highlight the impact on contemporary and future generations of a concept of the ‘monument’ as a lasting object, that can be repaired and perfected, rather than a ‘live’ one, because it is marked by time, and conditioned by the nature of the places and local traditions.

Applying Commemorative Museum Pedagogy to Public Music Studies

Applying Commemorative Museum Pedagogy to Public Music Studies

Greek Women’s Habits through the Eyes of Early Travellers to Chios

Focusing on the images and interpretation of clothing in relation to geographical and cultural space, this article explores the verbal and visual representation of the women of Chios in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century travel writing. The juxtaposition of text and image epitomises the women’s ambiguous depiction in relation to the growing interest in cultural differences as they are manifested through customs of dress. In Nicolas de Nicolay’s Navigations, the beauty of the women, who are compared to goddesses and nymphs, parallels the island’s wealth, fertility and glorious past. At the same time, the idealisation evident through the allusions to antiquity is counterbalanced by the women’s sexuality and extravagance, revealed through their dress, gesture and customs. In the context of the Ottoman Empire, which was seen by Nicolay and other early travellers as a realm of sexual depravation, the proliferation and reproduction of the images of Chian women suggest the ways in which gender, in particular, the dressed female body, is used to construct regional, national, and confessional identities. To view the full text, click on the button "HTML".

Eyewitnesses to the Phenomenon of Russian Cold: Robert Boyle and the Accounts of Early Travelers North

This article examines the Russian cold as reflected in accounts of early travelers to the north. For his study of the phenomenon of cold in the early 1660s, Robert Boyle repurposed parts of Giles Fletcher’s travel account of Russia written seventy-seven years earlier. Inspired by Sir Francis Bacon’s work on heat, Boyle sought to understand the extremes of cold but found himself hampered by its absence in northern England. Consequently, he turned, among other sources, to the printed account of Ambassador Fletcher who, sailing north on a Muscovy Company ship, had kept a journal following the Instructions and Ordinances drafted for that Company by Sebastian Cabot. Boyle found verification of the accuracy of Fletcher’s eyewitness description of cold through his friends and compatriots in the Royal Society who had been to Russia. Ultimately, this is the story of the impact of England’s mid-sixteenth century navigational technology and commercial and diplomatic relations with Russia on Robert Boyle’s late seventeenth century early scientific study of cold which, according to the author’s conclusion, demonstrates how the study of the Russian north impacted the early development of natural science in England.

The Contributions of Giuseppe Acerbi and Anders Skjöldebrand to the Knowledge of Early Finnish Folk Music

Abstract Giuseppe Acerbi, an Italian naturalist, explorer, and composer, and Anders Skjöldebrand, a Swedish soldier, statesman, aristocrat, and artist, became traveling companions in the final years of the eighteenth century on a journey through Sweden, Finland, and Lapland to the North Cape. Soon after their journey, each man published travel memoirs containing vivid narratives together with illustrations from their journey. They observed the early performance of Finnish folk music and included transcriptions of this music in their works. More significantly, they described Finnish ceremonial rune singing, years before Elias Lönnrot and others collected the texts of these runes. Acerbi also provided an illustration that, according to its caption, depicts rune singing with kantele accompaniment. Elsa Enäjärvi-Haavio's foundational work showed that, because of inaccuracies in this early illustration, the actual manner of Finnish rune singing was altered. This article examines the early travel memoirs of Acerbi and Skjöldebrand for their musical content, reintroduces the findings of Enäjärvi-Haavio, and evaluates their contributions to the knowledge of early Finnish folk music.

Employment relationships and their implications among self-initiated expatriates

In this article, we explore the employment relationships of self-initiated expatriates (SIE). Drawing on the concept of psychological contract, we, first, derive a typology of SIEs’ employment relationships, differentiated by their perceptions concerning both the employee’s and the employer’s mutual obligations and fulfillments. Second, we explore what characteristics SIEs with different types of employment relationships possess. Finally, we investigate what implications the identified employment relationships have for the involved SIEs. Based on our analysis, we identify four distinct SIE profiles: professional cosmopolitans, early stage careerists, lost-in-transition escapees, and dependent travelers. The analysis adds to the hitherto scarce literature on the nature and the implications of employment relationships among SIEs and, in this way, increases both our understanding of SIEs as a valuable talent pool and the ways to manage it.

The Diaries of Judith Malina, 1958–1971 (Excerpt)

The Diaries of Judith Malina, 1958–1971 (Excerpt)

Clinician Absences and Contributing Factors During a COVID-19 Surge: Potential Areas for Intervention and Planning.

IntroductionOur goal was to quantify healthcare clinician (HCC) absenteeism in the emergency department (ED) during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) surge and to identify potential interventions that may mitigate the number of absences.MethodsThis was a retrospective, descriptive record review that included 82 resident physicians, physician assistants, and staff physicians who were scheduled to work more than three clinical shifts during March 2020 in an urban, academic ED that received a high number of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) patients. Exposure was defined as a healthcare clinician who was not wearing appropriate personal protective equipment (PPE) having contact with a confirmed COVID-19 positive patient in the ED. The main outcome was the number of HCC absences secondary to exposure to or symptoms concerning for COVID-19.ResultsDuring March 2020, of 82 ED HCCs, 28 (34%) required an absence from clinical duties, totaling 152 absentee calendar days (N = 13 women [46%]; N = 15 men [54%]). Median HCC age was 32 years (interquartile range 28–39), and median number of days absent was four (interquartile range 3–7). While 16 (57%) of the total absences were secondary to a known exposure, 12 (43%) were symptomatic without a known exposure. A total of 25 (89%) absent HCCs received COVID-19 testing (N = 5 positive [20%]; N = 20 negative [80%]) with test results returning in 1–10 days. Eleven (39%) symptomatic HCCs had traveled domestically or internationally in the prior 30 days.ConclusionEmergency departments should anticipate substantial HCC absences during the initial surge of a pandemic. Possible interventions to mitigate absences include early and broad use of PPE, planning for many asymptomatic HCC absences secondary to exposures, prioritizing HCC virus testing, and mandating early travel restrictions.

Extreme Exoticism: Japan in the American Musical Imagination, by W. Anthony Sheppard

<i>Extreme Exoticism: Japan in the American Musical Imagination</i>, by W. Anthony Sheppard

Robinson on Con Dao: Mango writing and faltering diplomacy in the precursors of Crusoe in Vietnam

ABSTRACT In this article, a reading of early travel literature confronts indifference to the latitudes of colonialism in resort tourism. The historical role of the East India Company needs to be told in its uneven and questionable coordinates – individualist, opportunist, exoticist, imperious, calculated, collective – in a way that acknowledges implied responsibilities. Might latter-day Robinsons be encouraged or even obliged to respect the past enough to seek out local histories as a kind of repair of the past? Wanting to place the interests of domestic visitors, respect for the dead, and martyrdom in a broader context, the article addresses some less often noticed connections in touristic invocation of Robinson Crusoe, reading Defoe’s book alongside some of its precursors. The article considers the work of the ‘real life’ pirate, navigator, captain, mapmaker, and journal writer, William Dampier. It also considers the unfortunate stewardship of the East India Company Factor Allan Catchpole on Con Dao. Resorting to archival histories and holiday reading, the article navigates an argument about diplomacy and colonial intrigue, raising issues for tourism and Vietnamese studies.