Until recently, scholarship on travel writing has primarily focused on its function as a Eurocentric, male-dominated genre, emphasizing themes of conquest, exoticization, and colonial expansion (Bassnett, 2002; Pratt, 1992). While these frameworks remain crucial, recent interdisciplinary studies—ranging from postcolonial critique (Bhabha, 1994; Said, 1978) to mobility studies (Clifford, 1997) and affect theory (Ahmed, 2014)—have opened new avenues for analyzing travel narratives beyond rigid binaries of self and other. This session builds on these developments by exploring travelogues that engage with the Ottoman Empire, not merely as sites of imperial projection but as spaces of cross-cultural encounter, negotiation, and self-reinvention. Recent scholarship has uncovered previously overlooked narratives, such as the role of Ottoman subjects as intermediaries in European travel accounts (Çırakman, 2001) and the interplay between Gothic aesthetics and Ottoman landscapes (Makdisi, 2008). These emerging perspectives challenge conventional readings of travel writing as unilateral acts of representation and instead position these texts as dynamic sites where historical, political, and literary forces converge.
The papers in this session explore various dimensions of travel literature, from the gothic reimaginings of Ottoman landscapes to the role of emotions in transcultural mediation, the Islamic undertones in postwar American travel narratives, and the destabilization of epistemological authority in early Orientalist discourse.
Frank Gunshanan’s paper shifts the focus to the Beat Generation through the lens of Islamic pilgrimage and Ottoman imaginaries. By drawing parallels between Kerouac’s journey and the hajj, this study reveals how postwar American literature engaged with Islamic motifs, blurring distinctions between East and West. Through a comparative reading of 18th-century travel narratives and Kerouac’s portrayal of Mexico as an “Arabian paradise,” Kerouac’s novel is not only a transnational but also a “transreligious” travel narrative.
Selcuk Yazici’s paper highlights how Gothic horror was transposed onto Ottoman settings, thereby extending the conventions of travel writing into the realm of the supernatural. By introducing Eastern folklore into Western literary traditions, Polidori’s work reflects anxieties about the East while simultaneously enriching the Gothic genre.
Emel Zorluoglu Akbey’s paper focuses on Grace Ellison, a British journalist and travel writer, who played a key role in amplifying the voices of Ottoman women through her works and editorial contributions. Using affect theory, this study examines how emotions circulate within colonial and gendered structures, shaping Ellison’s portrayal of Ottoman women and her position as a supposed mediator between East and West. Her perspective questions the extent to which Ellison truly transcended the limitations of Western Orientalist frameworks.
Finally, Yingnan Shang’s paper examines how Lady Mary Wortley Montagu’s Turkish Embassy Letters reimagines the conventions of travel writing by foregrounding movement, instability, and contradiction as central to perception and narration. While much scholarship has explored her engagement with aesthetic discourse and her resistance to gendered constraints, this paper argues that Montagu’s descriptions resist coherence and fixity, oscillating between observation and embellishment, precision and ambiguity. Including this paper is particularly significant as it not only contributes to our understanding of travel writing’s rhetorical strategies but also serves as an inspiration for early career researchers interested in challenging dominant scholarly narratives.
Taken together, these papers illuminate the complexities of travel writing as a genre that transcends geographical, cultural, and disciplinary boundaries. By examining how travel narratives construct and deconstruct notions of identity, power, and belonging, this session contributes to broader discussions on literature, history, and cultural studies.
References
Ahmed, Sara. The Cultural Politics of Emotion. Routledge, 2014.
Bassnett, Susan. Comparative Literature: A Critical Introduction. Blackwell, 2002.
Bhabha, Homi K. The Location of Culture. Routledge, 1994.
Clifford, James. Routes: Travel and Translation in the Late Twentieth Century. Harvard University Press, 1997.
Çırakman, Aslı. From the "Terror of the World" to the "Sick Man of Europe": European Images of Ottoman Empire and Society from the Sixteenth Century to the Nineteenth. Peter Lang, 2001.
Makdisi, Saree. Romantic Imperialism: Universal Empire and the Culture of Modernity. Cambridge University Press, 2008.
Pratt, Mary Louise. Imperial Eyes: Travel Writing and Transculturation. Routledge, 1992.