History 258 - Travel, Self, Identity between Europe and South Asia

With the discovery of a maritime route between Europe and India in 1498, an increasing number of Europeans traveled to South Asia, for commerce, on missionary activity, to collect plants, and as part of colonial enterprises. From about 1600, South Asian elites, and, later, anti-colonial leaders, soldiers, and students, among others, journeyed in the opposite direction. Tracing a long history of cross-cultural contact, this seminar examines the role of travel in fashioning notions of self and "other". It asks how travel narratives visualize place and people, in what ways gender mediates experiences of travel, and how these encounters help reveal what is common and different between cultures.