B1756 - Travel Literature (1) (LM)

Learning outcomes

The course aims to explore Italian travel literature from the Middle Ages to the contemporary, with particular reference to the genres of exploration and emigration, philosophical or “sentimental” travel, through the analysis of archival documents, logbooks, letters, fictitious travel accounts, poetic/theatrical/historico-geographic works, reports, novels, ethnographic treatises, etc. In this sense, the course is at the intersection of several fields of investigation (literary, historico-geographic, ethno-anthropological, interculturalism), aiming to provide the tools useful for a conscious evaluation of the original and traditional aspects of travel literature.

Course contents

Travel literature. Themes, problems, historical examples.

Travel literature and travel in literature; travel writings and the “odeporic genre”; literature as a journey.

Course theme

The lessons will focus on some travel trajectories and experiences of male and female travelers in the mirror of literature:

- traveling in the Middle Ages: adventures, pilgrimages, “journeys of the soul”;

- the modern age and voyages of discovery, exploration, conquest, trade; the spa, the holiday, the “pleasure trip”;

- from the seventeenth to the eighteenth century: diplomatic trips, religious propaganda trips, scientific trips, “training trips”.

The course intends to illustrate trajectories of travel literature, with an interdisciplinary, intercultural, inclusive, intersectional approach.

Among the sources, attention will be paid to the investigation of documents and testimonies (letters, diaries, reports, dispatches, logbooks, etc.) and erudite treatments (historical-geographical compilations, ethno-anthropological repertoires, technical-scientific manuals, “encyclopedias of knowledge”, etc.), considered at the crossroads of different skills. Within a rich and restless framework, a privileged focus will be on writings which, like fictional stories and works of poetic art, manage to rework the dimension and experience of traveling in the regions of the “imaginary”.

Travel literature allows us not only to meditate on the knowledge of peoples, places and traditions through concrete traces, but also to reflect critically on political, economic and social events which (such as undertakings of conquest and experiences of colonization and exploitation) question, with gesture of vivid concern, our consciences.

N.B. The material illustrated in the classroom (i.e. the collection of texts read, commented on and discussed during the course) is available on the ‘Virtual’ e-learning platform.

People with DSA (Specific Learning Disorders) or temporary or permanent disabilities are recommended to contact the responsible University office (https://site.unibo.it/studenti-con-disabilita-e-dsa/it) : it will be the responsibility of the Service to propose, together with the teacher, any adaptations to the program in relation to the expected training objectives, seeking the most effective strategies in following the lessons and/or preparing for the exam.

Readings/Bibliography

The exam will be an opportunity to verify the ability to analyze the material illustrated in the classroom and study the lesson notes.

Recommended texts:

S. Scioli, Letteratura italiana di viaggio. Percorsi critici dal Medioevo al Seicento, Bologna, Pàtron, 2024 (capp. I, II, III, V, excluding Search Paths);

L. Formisano, Filologia dei viaggi e delle scoperte, Bologna, Pàtron, 2021 (I: capp. II e V)

Those who do not attend lessons will replace the study of the material illustrated in the classroom and of the notes with that of:

S. Scioli, Letteratura italiana di viaggio. Percorsi critici dal Medioevo al Seicento, Bologna, Pàtron, 2024 (capp. I, II, III, V, excluding Search Paths),

L. Formisano, Filologia dei viaggi e delle scoperte, Bologna, Pàtron, 2021 (I: capp. IV, VI e VII),

A. Campana, Viaggi scientifici, filosofici e moralistici (nel secolo XVIII), in Id., Percorsi nella letteratura italiana di viaggio. Secoli XVIII-XX, Roma, Carocci, 2023, pp. 9-39.

To delve deeper into topics covered in class, one of the following “paths” (a, b) is also recommended for those who do not attend lessons:

a) P. Fasano, Viaggio, in Dizionario dei temi letterari, a c. di R. Ceserani, M. Domenichelli, P. Fasano, Torino, UTET, 2007, III, pp. 2607-2626 and Id., viaggio, letteratura di, in Enciclopedia italiana di scienze, lettere ed arti, Roma, Istituto della Enciclopedia italiana, Appendice VII. XXI Secolo (2007), pp. 441-443 (also available online on the Treccani website), together with L. Azema, Viaggio a Misogistan (cap. 2) and Decolonizzare il viaggio (cap. 4), in Ead., Donne in viaggio. Storie e itinerari di emancipazione [2021], it., [Roma],Tlon, 2022, risp. pp. 57-85 e pp. 117-139;

b) S. Scioli, Letteratura italiana di viaggio. Materiali per un corso universitario, Bologna, Pàtron, 2024 [in press]: cap. I (La letteratura di viaggio e il viaggio in letteratura. Prospettive di studio e ricerca) and cap. II (La fortuna (contemporanea) d’un tema seicentesco. Il punto fijo e lo spazio della scrittura: L’isola del giorno prima di Umberto Eco, excluding the Appendix), or cap. III (La letteratura di villeggiatura e vacanza), or G. Capecchi, Sulle orme dei poeti. Letteratura, turismo e promozione del territorio, Bologna, Pàtron, 2019, pp. 15-74.

Teaching methods

Lectures with critical reading of texts and historical-literary framework.

Assessment methods

The test consists of an oral exam on the topics covered in class and on the texts on the exam program (for those who do not attend the lessons the test will focus exclusively on the texts indicated above).

Teaching tools

Books

Slides and PowerPoint

Audiovisual material and resources of the “digital world”

‘Virtual’ e-learning platform

Office hours

See the website of Stefano Scioli