Book Description

Fourteen essays provide a challenging outlook on narratives by women explorers and travellers from five different continents, spanning nearly one century from 1850 to 1945. The map thus drawn enables one to revisit, restore, and reassess the content and the originality of these narratives by women. The essays are relevant to the fields of travel writing and gender studies, and all draw from referential contemporary theoretical and critical works (Michel Foucault, Homi Bhabha, Edward Said, Roland Barthes, Michel de Certeau, Gilles Deleuze, Sara Mills, Kristi Siegel, and Jane Robinson). The main interest and originality of the volume result from the perspectives adopted by the different authors. The text-oriented analyses rely on close reading, thus definitely providing accurate and perceptive critical insights into the narratives. Such perspective precludes erasing the differential features characterizing each geographical space and each travelling subject. It also moves away from any temptation at creating a naturalized mythical image of these women.