Keywords for Travel Writing Studies ― A Critical Glossary

In its attention to the ‘keywords of travel’, Keywords for Travel Writing Studies’ takes into account the established status of studies in travel writing and the field’s significance for an audience beyond the academy. It responds to what might be described as the ‘mobility turn’ in the arts and humanities over the past two decades. Each entry in the volume is around 1,000 words, and the style is more essayistic than encyclopaedic, with contributors providing a reflection on their chosen keyword from a variety of disciplinary perspectives. The emphasis on travelogues and other cultural representations of mobility drawn from a range of national and linguistic traditions ensures that the volume has a comparative dimension; the aim is to give an overview of each term in its historical and theoretical complexity, providing readers with a clear sense of how the selected words are essential to a critical understanding of travel writing. Each entry is complemented by an annotated bibliography of five essential items suggesting further reading.

Charles Forsdick is James Barrow Professor of French at the University of Liverpool, UK, and AHRC Theme Leadership Fellow for ‘Translating Cultures’. He has published widely on travel writing, colonial history, postcolonial literature and the cultures of slavery.

Zoe Kinsley is senior lecturer in English literature at Liverpool Hope University, UK. Her publications explore the literary representation of travel, space and landscape in the long eighteenth century.

Kathryn Walchester teaches in the Department of English and Cultural History at Liverpool John Moores University, UK, and has published on nineteenth-century women’s European travel.