This course is designed to introduce you to the process of writing insightful and well-organized essays on literary texts. In this course we will analyze a range of texts which look at the process of travel. We will discuss questions of travel in the light of larger processes like colonialism and globalization. We will examine categories like the global and the local, the colony and the metropole, the country and the city and how conceptions of travel and mobility are explored by different writers. How do race, gender and ability shape our travel experiences and narratives? How can we describe the pleasure and possibilities offered by the act of travelling? What are the links between travel and creativity?

This course will enable you to put forward complex, well-supported arguments on cultural texts. Regarding writing as a journey in process we will employ response papers, in-class exercises, and workshops to help one another complicate ideas and think critically. This course aims at developing skills fundamental to college-level writers.