Literary Journeys from Metaphor to Plot: Travel, Mind, and Experience

The theme of this conference explores travel as both an idea and a specific form of human experience, examined through various representations ranging from literature to visual arts to philosophy. The aim is to investigate how travelers’ minds are altered by their experiences along their respective paths. The conference is not focused on travel writing per se, which has its own established venues, but rather on the relationships, discoveries, escapes, and new awarenesses that arise through travel—the cognitive and emotional dimensions of displacement in both familiar and unfamiliar places. Investigations also include treatises discussing travel as a prescribed action or manuals on the arts of travel. The range of possibilities is vast, from Petrarch’s ascent of Mont Ventoux to Jack Wilton’s flight from Sixteenth-century Rome. Ultimately, the goal is to uncover new understandings of travel and the mind, even in unexpected contexts.

Register to attend in Royce 314

Cosponsored by UCLA CMRS-CEGS