Travel Narratives Research Articles

FORCED ENTERTAINMENT: AND ON THE THOUSANDTH NIGHT (2000) HOW DO ACTORS DEVIATE FROM THE THEATRICAL CONVENTIONS IN AND ON THE THOUSANDTH NIGHT?

The performance "And on the Thousandth Night" by Forced Entertainment is a captivating exploration of endurance, storytelling, and the transformative power of narratives. Premiered in 2000, this production is characterized by its ambitious scope: an uninterrupted, improvised six-day performance where six performers undertake the daunting task of narrating stories continuously for 144 hours. Central to the performance is the notion of storytelling as a fundamental human activity—a means of making sense of the world, connecting with others, and creating meaning amid chaos. The endurance aspect of the performance reflects a profound investigation into the limits of storytelling and human resilience. The production's title, "And on the Thousandth Night," suggests a cyclical, endless narrative journey—an invitation to dive deep into the vast possibilities of storytelling. Each performer takes on the role of a storyteller, weaving together diverse narratives, genres, and characters over the course of the performance. This experimental format challenges traditional notions of theatre, inviting audiences to reconsider the boundaries of performance art and the nature of spectatorship. The absence of a fixed script or narrative arc foregrounds spontaneity and improvisation, emphasizing the raw, unfiltered nature of live storytelling. Moreover, the performance underscores the communal aspect of storytelling, highlighting the symbiotic relationship between performers and audiences. As spectators witness the unfolding stories in real-time, they become active participants in the creative process, co-creating meaning through collective engagement. "And on the Thousandth Night" exemplifies Forced Entertainment's signature blend of innovation, risk-taking, and conceptual rigor. By pushing the boundaries of duration and improvisation, the production challenges conventional norms and offers a profound meditation on the transformative potential of narrative.

Understanding mental health service needs and treatment characteristics for Latin American immigrants and refugees: A focus on CBT strategies for reducing acculturative stress

Abstract Acculturative stress is a key social driver of health impacting the mental health of immigrants and refugees from Latin America, which contributes to inequities experienced by them. While there is a robust scientific literature describing and evaluating evidence-based treatments targeting a range of psychiatric disorders, these treatments often do not primarily target acculturative stress. Thus, the present study examined how psychotherapists ought to treat acculturative stress directly in their clinical practice. Ten therapists were interviewed using a qualitative descriptive approach. Rapid contemporary content analysis was used to describe Latino/Hispanic immigrants’ most common presenting problems, the context in which they provide care for these problems, and the psychotherapeutic approaches currently utilized or considered effective in mitigating acculturative stress. Findings revealed that common mental health conditions that therapists addressed among this population, including depression, anxiety and trauma-related somatization, including the unique context in which therapy was delivered. Additionally, specific strategies for addressing acculturative stress such as the importance of acknowledging this stressor, drawing out immigration journey narratives, and behavioural activation approaches were shared. The results from this study can be used to improve the effectiveness of mental health interventions addressing acculturative stress among immigrant and refugee populations. Key learning aims (1) To explore how acculturative stress represents a key driver of mental health for immigrants and refugees from Latin America. (2) To consider ways that cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) elements can be applied to treating acculturative stress and mental health problems among immigrants and refugees from Latin America. (3) To expand upon strategies that can be helpful in rapport-building and establishing trust with patients who are struggling with acculturative stress.

Ecotheories, Ecotranslation and the (Re)Discovery of Travel Writings

The end of the twentieth century and the beginning of the twenty-first century brought awareness of ʻnewʼ threats, a ʻnewʼ normal, such as ecological disasters, species extinction, and pandemic infectious diseases. This context has impacted environmental thinking, and literature has not been exempted from these global inquiries and movements. I intend, first and foremost, to outline a theoretical overview of the main expressions and publications of what I refer to as ecotheories in Translation Studies originating from ʻperipheralʼ countries. Secondly, I will show how Brazil is undergoing an ecological shift, particularly through ecotranslation. Finally, I will address, based on internationalization projects of Brazilian universities, the recent interest and need to translate travel narratives about and in the Amazon, written in foreign languages by travelers and mostly not translated into Portuguese.

Shifting representations, ambiguous bodies: African colonial subjects in nineteenth-century Spain

ABSTRACT This article explores the racial politics around African colonial subjects in Spain during the second half of the nineteenth century. Between the 1840s and the 1880s, colonial authorities brought to the metropole small groups of Africans from the Gulf of Guinea with the goal of turning them into hispanicized agents of colonization upon return to their communities. Drawing on official documents, newspapers and travel narratives I examine how the representations of the first groups reveal how Spain was moving from a model of social categorization based on monogenetic theories to a new paradigm influenced by the rise of scientific racism, albeit ideas from both would frequently converge. I will also argue that the mutable and unstable representations of African bodies correlate with the politicization of race, sometimes eluding depictions of physical features, while at other times showcasing them to construct an idea of racial difference.

Salomon's Sophocracy as a Source of Inspiration for Changing Madagascar's History

In the unfolding narrative of Madagascar's post-independence journey, the troubling paradox of economic regression persists amidst the nation's bountiful natural wealth, coveted by others. Despite the implementation of diverse policies by successive leaders, the pervasive specter of poverty endures. This theological contemplation propels a fervent call for a policy metamorphosis—a conscientious exploration of sophocracy, rooted in the wisdom epitomized by King Solomon, as a transformative catalyst. A historical-critical analysis of Solomon's governance, woven from biblical texts and scholarly discourse, reveals sophocracy's potential to restore equilibrium, necessitate substantive reform, and harmoniously integrate with other forms of power. Yet, the theologian's discerning gaze acknowledges the need for an adapted Malagasy sophocracy, cognizant of human vulnerabilities. The prospect emerges that a locally nuanced sophocracy, grounded in Malagasy wisdom and identity, could redefine the nation's history. However, this journey is tempered by a vigilant consideration of internal and external risks, echoing the delicate interplay between divine guidance and human agency.

Between a Dream and Its Realization: Locating Utopia and Zionism in Kafka’s American Story

Abstract This article analyzes Franz Kafka’s first novel, Der Verschollene, as an extended meditation on the immigrant’s experience of frustration when he relies on old national, social, and familial constellations grounded in another, far-off place; it thereby demonstrates how the novel depicts immigration as primarily a tale of loss, rather than gain. The article then pivots to situate Der Verschollene, and especially the novel’s final fragment, in light of Kafka’s passionate consumption of both American travelogues and Zionist periodicals and literature. In light of this literary-historical backdrop and the Kafka short story, Wunsch, Indianer zu werden, it argues that the departure of the novel’s main character for “Oklahama” at the end of the work is an implicit celebration of literary travel narratives for their ability to achieve something real-life migration never can: a utopian moment suspended between a dream and its fulfillment.

Fragments Shored Against Ruins: Defragmenting India through the Gathering Storm

Travel between territories which exists contemporaneously is baffling in a psychogeographical sense. What had previously been considered as movement through indifferent space seems to be movement through time, into the future or into the past. The spatial assemblages within which these figures travel each have their own temporality, a rhythm that is produced and maintained by the processes that produce and maintain the human and nonhuman elements of the territory. Therefore travel narrative manifests itself as a narrative of space and difference and consequently travel writing as a format reflects an incessant surge of new concepts, new ways of seeing and being.. In this context, I argue that such an attempt is made by Harish Nambiar in his Defragmenting India: Riding a Bullet through the Gathering Storm, a travelogue narrative of a motorbike trip of the author and his friend across various states. Written in the dramatic backdrop of the 2002 Godhra riots, it provides an account of the various fault lines of Indian society quivering in the temblors that the communal riots of Gujarat sent across the nation. The book maps the urban consciousness of India by juxtaposing lives, issues and situations of educated and the uneducated, craftsman and conservationist, teacher and businessman, daughters and drunks from small towns and non-metro cities of India. It thus succeeds in capturing the undercurrents that flow through the life of a nation, community, city, families and individuals, simultaneously cutting across narrow divisive borders.

India in Bengali Travel Writing on Russia in the Twentieth Century: Travelling The World, Writing about Home

This article examines the discourse on India in Bengali travelogues on Russia/the USSR. In the first half of the twentieth century, Russia attracted a particular type of Indian travellers, politically engaged individuals interested in the ongoing transformations in Russia, to learn potential lessons for India. Later, during the Cold War era, many members of India’s intellectual elite travelled to the Soviet Union at the invitation of Soviet institutions and some wrote their accounts after these visits. A distinctive feature of these travelogues is the strong focus on providing readers with information regarding Soviet social and economic developments, together with frequent comments on the contrasts between the USSR and India. The article demonstrates how Bengali travel narratives on Russia are constructed around similarities and differences between the two countries, but ultimately concentrate on the challenges for India in fields such as education, poverty, agriculture, gender equality and housing. Seven travelogues were selected for this analysis. The earliest, on Revolutionary Russia, is Soumyendranath Tagore’s Biplabð Rå›iy˙å (Tagore, 1930), while the most recent sample is Sunil Gangopadhyay’s Rå›iy˙å Bhramaµ (Gangopadhyay, 2012 [1985]).

Diasporic Imagination and Chronotopes

Abstract The ways diasporic groups emerge and diasporic identities are constructed have recently become important research topics in sociolinguistics. However, these works have not paid sufficient attention to the spatial-temporal configurations of diasporic imaginations. In this article, I intend to shed light on the ways differing diasporic imaginations are inscribed on what kind of language-related diasporic activities are created by the diasporic subjects. To answer this question, I draw on the data of an ethnographically informed critical sociolinguistic study of diasporization among Hungarians in Catalonia that I conducted between 2018 and 2022. In the analysis, I compare the chronotopic figures appearing in the life journey narratives of Hungarians in Catalonia with the ways the ideal diasporic subject was imagined in the activities of two salient diasporic organizations. The article points to the fact that diasporic imaginations do not only contain moral guidelines on how diasporic subjects should behave, but they are also determined by the time and the space diasporic subjects inhabit.

Female Representation In Select Travel Writings: A Critical Reading

From the advent of the twenty first century onwards, travel has become a culture along with the development of tourism as a recreation, an escape from the chaotic work schedules of the modern world, and also the increase in the desire for adventures and exploration. But the world of travel is also gender biased and women are far behind men in terms of getting travel opportunities, their travel narratives are often neglected. Seldom women venture into travel individually, of course with group travel especially to some pilgrimage places like Aadhiparashakiti temple, Tirichandur Murugan shrine and so on. This research paper aims a comparison between Anees Jung's Unveiling India and G. Willow Wilson's The Butterfly Mosque. The study reveals two distinct perspectives on the experiences of Muslim women in different parts of the world. While both books explore the complexities of identity, culture, and religion, they differ in terms of their tone, style, and focus. Both books can be read as the collective experience of women in two different parts of the world.

Mystical and Archetypal Journeys in Leila Aboulela’s Bird Summons

This article aims at exploring the significance of intertwining the mystical and the archetypal journey structures in Leila Aboulela’s novel, Bird Summons (2019). It highlights the author’s indebtedness to Islamic Sufi tradition and shows how she appropriates Farid ud-din Attar’s mystical pilgrimage of the seven valleys to a postmodern context where three Arab-British female characters attain spiritual transcendence. On the other hand, the article employs Joseph Campbell’s structure of the archetypal journey narratives to explicate the relationship between the narrative structure and the author’s chief thematic concerns. Campbell’s seventeen stages of the “Monomyth,” or the “hero’s journey,” illuminate Aboulela’s proficient projection of the characters’ spiritual quest in their physical movement from the city into the forest. England performs a cultural contact zone which entices the protagonists to overcome their identity crises caused by traumatic experiences, acute sense of displacement, and nostalgia. The success of their physical journey to Lady Evelyn Cobbold’s grave functions as an allegory for the redemptive impact of spirituality which ultimately empowers them to become more functional individuals and to integrate into English society. The study concludes that Aboulela’s deliberate fusion of Islamic journey structure with a Western one attests to the author’s belief in the universality of Islam and the possibility of religious tolerance and intercultural coexistence.

The Timurid Regions and Moghulistan through the Eyes of a Ming Diplomat: An Annotated Translation of the Xiyu fanguo zhi and Selected Poems by Chen Cheng (1415)

Abstract The article investigates the fifteenth-century Ming diplomat Chen Cheng’s travel accounts by situating them against the backdrop of Islamic and Mongol history. The first part of the article presents Chen Cheng’s travels and his reports in the context of Ming-Timurid relations and comprehensively studies the existing editions of Chen’s writings. The second part of the article provides a complete, critical, and annotated translation of Chen’s travel narrative, the Xiyu fanguo zhi, and a selection of his poems that describe the Timurid and eastern Chaghatayid regions through which the ambassador traveled. The translation is based on the text from Chen’s personal literary collection, the Chen Zhushan wenji, which has not yet been adequately utilized in English scholarship. Incorporating information from contemporary sources, the annotated translation contextualizes Chen’s accounts in Islamic history of Western and Central Asia. Finally, the article supplements the translation with a biography of Chen Cheng and information extracted from his itinerary.

Under the shade of colonialism: Mary Kingsley and her Travels in West Africa

Texts are not independent entities that are detached from their social, ideological, economic and cultural background. They are shaped by their authors who are affected by the discourse of their times. Thus, they make valuable sources in getting more information about social, political, and economic conditions of their periods. Mary Kingsley’s Travels in West Africa, as a part of colonial discourse, reflects the colonial world at the end of the Victorian period, which was rich in literature. This was a period during which British Imperialism reaches at its peak and leads to the saying, “the empire on which the sun never sets”. Travels in West Africa, as a travel narrative, serves the interests of the colonizing powers by describing the lives of the natives in West Africa and their lands sometimes using wry humour, unlike some other contemporary fictional works that depict a savage and brutal Africa as the dark continent. Michel Foucault’s theories regarding discourse and power have been used to understand the ideological formations and power relations in the mentioned travel account in the second half of the nineteenth century. Kingsley’s female narrative, with its representation of Africa, echoes the superiority of the white over the black through an embedded ideology in text.

Imaginary worlds: Karl May and the refugees

ABSTRACT Linhard’s article shows how the imaginary worlds of German pulp author Karl May (1842–1912) appear in the memories of Jewish and anti-fascist refugees who found asylum in the Americas. Yet the refugees were not the only ones who had once been avid readers of May’s fictions: his novels were just as appealing to supporters of fascism, even, some claim, to Hitler himself. May’s novels are built on racialized and gendered imaginaries that made them equally suitable for those who saw indigenous cultures in the Americas as ultimately inferior and in need of guidance from the European characters, and those who brought with them romantic visions of still racialized, yet benevolent and noble natives. These visions bear no relationship to indigenous cultures in Latin America and instead are transposed from beliefs and tropes about the ‘Indians’ featured in the adventures of Winnetou and Old Shatterhand. Writers forced into exile, among them Leo Spitzer, Klaus Mann, Gertrude Duby and Egon Erwin Kisch, wrote about the ways in which reading May shaped how they once saw the Americas. The traces of May’s influence in the writings of displaced Jews and anti-fascists reveal a certain blindness to colonial racism that, while characteristic of the times when these authors came of age, was still part of world-views that many were not ready to challenge. Understanding the impact of the work of a man who called his novels ‘travel narratives’ (even though he never visited the places he claimed to be writing about) brings us one step closer to understanding more about the inner lives of Holocaust refugees in the colonial world.

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.

The Pragmatics of Paratextual Apparatus of Contemporary Latvian and American Travelogues

The present research aims at investigating the pragmatic features of paratext and their functions in contemporary American and Latvian travelogues. The presence of numerous paratextual elements in travel writing often helps to differentiate the genre among other literary genres. This, together with the fact that Latvian travelogues are not frequently studied, adds novelty to the present research. In addition, paratextual apparatus plays an essential role in constructing the modality of a travel narrative; moreover, certain paratextual elements (photographs, illustrations, archival documents, etc.) serve as a witness for the veracity and authenticity of narration as well as create a communicative bond with a potential reader. Paratextual apparatus can be viewed from various perspectives due to the fact that its elements bear various functions from informative (preface, postscript, genre specification, etc.) to performative (dedication, epigraph, etc.). The research focuses on such paratextual elements as extended titles, genre specification, dedications, epigraphs, illustrative and archival materials used in several Latvian and American travelogues of 1962–2015. The research methodology was based on the analytical and cultural historical methods, which contributed to the deeper insight into the concept of paratextuality. The pragmatics of paratext in travel writing was investigated by means of synthesising the structural-semiotic method and the method of comparative analysis in the critical perception of travelogues under consideration.

Seeing your life story as a Hero's Journey increases meaning in life.

Meaning in life is tied to the stories people tell about their lives. We explore whether one timeless story-the Hero's Journey-might make people's lives feel more meaningful. This enduring story appears across history and cultures and provides a template for ancient myths (e.g., Beowulf) and blockbuster books and movies (e.g., Harry Potter). Eight studies reveal that the Hero's Journey predicts and can causally increase people's experience of meaning in life. We first distill the Hero's Journey into seven key elements-protagonist, shift, quest, allies, challenge, transformation, legacy-and then develop a new measure that assesses the perceived presence of the Hero's Journey narrative in people's life stories: the Hero's Journey Scale. Using this scale, we find a positive relationship between the Hero's Journey and meaning in life with both online participants (Studies 1-2) and older adults in a community sample (Study 3). We then develop a restorying intervention that leads people to see the events of their life as a Hero's Journey (Study 4). This intervention causally increases meaning in life (Study 5) by prompting people to reflect on important elements of their lives and connecting them into a coherent and compelling narrative (Study 6). This Hero's Journey restorying intervention also increases the extent to which people perceive meaning in an ambiguous grammar task (Study 7) and increases their resilience to life's challenges (Study 8). These results provide initial evidence that enduring cultural narratives like the Hero's Journey both reflect meaningful lives and can help to create them. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

The Narrative Features of Involuntary Time Loops

ABSTRACT: This essay introduces the category of involuntary time loop (ITL) stories and investigates their narrative specificities. These are stories in which the protagonist repeatedly lives through a certain period of time while all or most of the other characters do not experience the repetition. After a certain amount of time has passed in the protagonist's timeline, or after a specific event has occurred in the storyworld, the loop resets, and the character finds herself back at the beginning. I will argue that the involuntary loop is distinct from other time loops as well as other forms of time travel narratives not only on the subject level but formally. For this purpose, the essay outlines a typology of ITL narratives from different genres and media. I will demonstrate how recent examples explore and expand the possibilities of this peculiar narrative device. Case studies include Stuart Turton's murder mystery novel The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle (2018), Leslye Headland, Natasha Lyonne, and Amy Poehler's TV drama Russian Doll (2018), Max Barbakow's romantic comedy movie Palm Springs (2020), and the adventure video game 12 Minutes by developer and designer Luis Antonio (2020).

Figuras y geopolíticas del ruido y de la escucha: En tierra yankee (1895) de Justo Sierra

Abstract: The travel chronicles En tierra yankee (Notas a todo vapor) (1895) by Porfirian intellectual Justo Sierra Méndez lead us to reflect on the ways in which they imagined the sonic and the audible in relation to changing urban spaces, the Mexico/United States border, and communication and transportation technologies such as the steam train in unequally modernized spaces. The narrator employs a terminology of musical composition and sound to indicate the emergence of an economic and industrial hegemony that reorganized the new noises that marked the modern rhythms of the first half of the twentieth century. Noise holds a prominent place in establishing and unveiling postcolonial and racist relations with the other (the Yankee , the Afro-descendant). The nature of the travel narrative as a genre was not limited to mobilizing bodies or goods but also encompassed aural sensitivities, enabling a reflection on the geopolitics of sound, and listening. At a time when ideas and discourses are developing about the need for a Latin Americanist front to counteract North American postcolonial impact, the problematization of Latinamericanism is manifested through noise according to Sierra.

Sustainable cultural heritage landscape: an imaginary journey inside the veins of deserts

IntroductionTravel narratives are very attractive sources that examine the destination from the point of view of tourists with different attitudes. A group of studies has been conducted on travel narratives, but this type of analysis has been done very little in Iran despite their potential.Methods11 Persian qanats (PQs) have been recognized as UNESCO World Heritage sites. Visitors who explore the qanats as conduits of the desert have extraordinary experiences that can seem like captivating fiction. The main focus of the current research is on the narratives of tourists who have visited these PQs. Qualitative and narrative analysis methods were used to avoid relying on numerical data.ResultsThe study includes 30 participants who had visited the qanats and shared their travel stories. The study findings show that Persian qanats are a distinctive draw for foreign tourists that can leave a lasting impression.DiscussionThe PQs listed as a UNESCO World Heritage property are one of the unique attractions of Iran’s tourism, so far its tourism potential has been less noticed, and qanat tourism is a nascent branch of tourism in Iran. The narratives of travelers can be instrumental in promoting this invaluable groundwater engineering heritage.