COURSE UNIT TITLE

: AMERICAN TRAVEL LITERATURE

Description of Individual Course Units

Course Unit Code Course Unit Title Type Of Course D U L ECTS
AKE 6040 AMERICAN TRAVEL LITERATURE ELECTIVE 3 0 0 8

Offered By

American Culture and Literature (English)

Level of Course Unit

Third Cycle Programmes (Doctorate Degree)

Course Coordinator

ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR YEŞIM BAŞARIR

Offered to

American Culture and Literature (English)

Course Objective

Perform critical readings of literary work written on American natural and cultural geography by American and European authors.

Learning Outcomes of the Course Unit

1   Define the fundamental aspects of American geography, society, culture and lifestyles in the textual medium of road novels, poems, immigrant writings, journals, and travelogues.
2   Make the discourse analysis of travel narratives written in the perspective of a traveler, an immigrant, a visitor, a passer-by, an artist, or an intellectual.
3   Develop diverse range of readings regarding American values and history in the course of works written in documentary style.
4   Distinguish the shifts in the ideological emphasis and strategic variety according to each literary genre and narrator's point of view.
5   Use theories of space and place in deconstructing the literary texts depicting the rural and urban America

Mode of Delivery

Face -to- Face

Prerequisites and Co-requisites

None

Recomended Optional Programme Components

None

Course Contents

Week Subject Description
1 Introduction Perceptions of Wandering and Voyaging in Literature
2 English Romantics and Victorians "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" (William Wordsworth) "Ulysses" (Alfred Lord Tennyson) "Uphill" (Christina Rosetti)
3 Transcendental Wanderings Summer on the Lakes (Margaret Fuller)
4 Idling as a Spiritual Activity Walking (Henry David Thoreau)
5 Road Mysticism "Song of the Open Road" "As I Ebb'd with the Ocean of Life" "From Paumanok Starting I Fly Like a Bird" (Walt Whitman)
6 Hobo Lifestyles and Railroads The Road (Jack London)
7 MIDTERM EXAM MIDTERM EXAM
8 Less Traveled Roads "Song of Myself" Part 46 (Walt Whitman) "The Road Not Taken" "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" "Desert Places" "Acquainted with the Night" (Robert Frost)
9 Modern Explorations "The Docks of London" "Kew Gardens" (Virginia Woolf)
10 Escapes That Make the New Woman "Susie Asado" "Red Faces" (Gertrude Stein) "Travel" "Departure" "The Unexplorer" "The Snow Storm" (Edna St. Vincent Millay "Hearthside" (Dorothy Parker)
11 The Beat Hits the Road On the Road (Jack Kerouac)
12 Trans-American Journeys Travels with Charley: In Search of America (John Steinbeck)
13 Philosophy of the Road Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (Robert Pirsig)
14 Aesthetics of the Road America (Jean Baudrillard) The Art of Travel (Alain de Botton)
15 Contemporary American Travel Poets Miscellaneous
16 FINAL EXAM FINAL EXAM

Recomended or Required Reading

Adams, Percy G. Travel Literature and the Evolution of the Novel. 1962. Lexington,KY: Kentucky UP, 1983.
Blanton, Casey. Travel Writing: The Self and the World. New York: Routledge, 2002.
Botton, Alain de. The Art of Travel. New York: Penguin Books, 2002
Campbell, Neil, Alasdair Kean. American Cultural Studies: An Introduction to American Culture. New York: Routledge, 1997.
Clark, Steve, ed. Travel Writing and Empire: Postcolonial Theory in Transit. New York: Zed Books, 1999.
Franklin, Wayne, Michael Steiner (eds). Mapping American Culture. Iowa City: U of Iowa P, 1992
Lisle, Debbie. The Global Politics of Contemporary Travel Writing. Cambridge: Cambridge U P, 2006.
Marx, Leo. The Machine in the Garden. New York: Oxford U P, 1999.
Simonson, Harold P. Beyond the Frontier. Fort Worth: Texas Christian U P, 1989.
Tuan, Yi-Fu. Space and Place. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1995.

Planned Learning Activities and Teaching Methods

1. Lectures: Lectures are the primary components of instruction among teaching strategies that lay the theoretical basis of subject and introduce the reading material relevant to the topic of study. Lectures play a central role in getting to know the terms and concepts defining the topic.
2. Textual analysis and discussions: These practices aim at questioning the applicability of course material to diverse situations and increasing the factual tangibility of the information.
3. Visual presentations: It includes the in-class projection of visual data such as pictures, illustrations, photographs, and maps as well as videos and documentaries complementing the topic when necessary.

Assessment Methods

SORTING NUMBER SHORT CODE LONG CODE FORMULA
1 MTE MIDTERM EXAM
2 FCG FINAL COURSE GRADE
3 FCGR FINAL COURSE GRADE MTE * 0.40 + FCG* 0.60
4 RST RESIT
5 FCGR FINAL COURSE GRADE (RESIT) MTE * 0.40 + RST* 0.60


Further Notes About Assessment Methods

Exams are to inquire the correct use of terms and concepts profiling the course material and question the major thinking patterns acquired in the course.

Assessment Criteria

1. Exam questions aim at measuring student's performance on discussing the social, cultural and literary controversies, and help develop an analytical and critical viewpoint.
2. Depending on analytical approach, questions may require multiple responses.
3. Questions examine the student's ability of combining theory with literary and intellectual history.

Language of Instruction

English

Course Policies and Rules

1. Students are required to attend 70% of the course schedule.
2. Exam questions are based on open-book and open-note principle to improve students' thinking abilities and encourage them for higher cognitive responses.
3. Any form of cheating in the exam will result in a zero grade and also in disciplinary action.
4. Midterm exam covers the topics instructed in class from the beginning of semester to the day of the exam.
5. Final exam covers the topics instructed in class after the midterm exam to the end of the semester, with some vital references to the content of the midterm exam.

Contact Details for the Lecturer(s)

yesim.basarir@deu.edu.tr
Office phone: (232) 301 8513

Office Hours

By appointment

Work Placement(s)

None

Workload Calculation

Activities Number Time (hours) Total Work Load (hours)
Lectures 14 3 42
Preparations before/after weekly lectures 14 6 84
Preparation for midterm exam 1 15 15
Preparation for final exam 1 15 15
Reading 14 3 42
Midterm 1 3 3
Final 1 3 3
TOTAL WORKLOAD (hours) 204

Contribution of Learning Outcomes to Programme Outcomes

PO/LOPO.1PO.2PO.3PO.4PO.5PO.6PO.7PO.8PO.9PO.10PO.11PO.12PO.13PO.14PO.15PO.16PO.17
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LO.25554554445
LO.35554554445
LO.45554554445
LO.55554554445