Please just write this for me. Here is the prompt. and it is an essay not a report.

Philosophical Inquiry/Literary Journalism assignment

Spring 2021 – Travel Writing

Dr. Knowlton

Close Reading and Philosophical Inquiry Essay[1]

Length: roughly seven pages, TNR or similar font, standard margins, double-spaced, stapled

Citation style: APA or MLA

Title page: to include name, date, course, and most importantly, a succinct and

insightful title

Works Consulted page: at least seven sources, annotated

Due Date: rough draft due 30 March

Topic Content*:

Mark Twain wrote that travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness. How do any/all of the travel accounts that we’ve read this term reinforce or unravel this statement and what role might an awareness of concepts of cultural relativism play in your response? Consider the epistemological and heuristic aspects of cultural relativism as you assert your claim. What links might be made to moral relativism and what benefit or danger rests therein? What details within the texts that we’ve read support or contradict your response to Twain’s assertion? Consider, too, within the frameworks of cultural relativism, psychology, and philosophy what narrow-mindedness really means as well as what open-mindedness entails; very carefully reflect upon why we travel. How can travel be a liminal space?

The purpose of this essay is, through close reading of external accounts and via contemplation of your own experiences, to examine the philosophy of travel via an anthropological lens and to assert your clear and rhetorically sophisticated claim. Within the highly interdisciplinary field of travel writing, you may find evidence in many fields of inquiry and in multiple academic disciplines. You may also wish to look back to classical rhetoric and philosophy as well as to more recent modern and post-modern scholarship: consider Plato, Heidegger, Aristotle, Cicero, Nietzsche, Wittgenstein, Kant (perhaps especially as his work precedes governing anthropological thought), Baudrillard, Barthes, Morton, Bachelard, etcetera.

The thematic focus of this essay will stem from the material contained within the course readings. Your research will provide further branches/leaves/flowers, if we can use such a metaphor. Limit any summary to a few paragraphs of your total essay; in other words, the purpose of this essay is not to write a modified book report, but rather to make an inquiry regarding what drives an author to create an account of his or her travels and furthermore, what drives a traveler to hit the open road. What cultural forces are at play along the space and path and motion of travel, literally or figuratively or both? Is travel a liminal nexus? How does travel represent a sort of commons?

Recall the class discussions of the strong sentences that we isolated from various travel accounts (yours included). Many of you noted that most of the compelling sentences made attempts to convey the human impulse to travel, explore, or understand. Why are we drawn to this impulse? What happens to time on the road? To concepts of self? To ideas about place?

For this paper, you will analyze the text of any of the travel authors that we’ve covered or will cover this semester: Sullivan, Oliver, Solnit, Gros, Fuller, Thoreau, etc. Look for points of connection or intersection within the books and travel accounts. Keep in mind our discussions of narratives that function through confluence, intersection, or tectonic stratification as you identify a question-at-issue central to the books that you’ve chosen.

Methodology/Inquiry Process:

Remember that a strong essay forms a series of extended questions – and also responses – that reflect the writer’s willingness and capacity to step out on a curious or intellectual limb. In some sense, as strong essay not only conveys the writer’s footsteps on the limb, but also “nourishes” the limb so that it might grow further.

There must be a clear “spine/ribcage” that connects all of the questions raised and answers or responses extended. In the same way that the spine and the ribs support and protect the vital organs of the body, the central question-at-issue supports and connects the vital ideas and supporting evidence contained within an essay.

As this is an advanced writing and rhetoric course, part of your task with this paper is to push beyond the boundaries of the literature review and deliberative essays that you will have covered in a first-year course (if these terms are unfamiliar to you, please do not hesitate to drop by during office hours). In this essay, you will not only establish that you are familiar with the trends and patterns of classical and contemporary scholarship on the nature of being as it relates to travel literature and understandings of place, but you will also seek to establish your own position within this large body of thought and discourse. In other words, you must first acknowledge the complexity (of course, your topic and position must be complex) of your field and direction of discourse, and then you must present a valid claim that expands the ongoing discussion within travel studies. Bear in mind that travel studies, as a rather new discipline, draws from many fonts; you may find this state of affairs simultaneously exhilarating and frustrating (you may feel lost within a large sea of ideas and information, but rest assured that in-class workshops will address this concern and offer guidance).

This assignment will require that you rely on existing, acquired, and developing skills of close and critical reading, analysis of sources, and clear, insightful writing. Remember that a good research paper extends an existing conversation. It is not enough to simply repeat what has already been said. You must display advanced content knowledge by showing that you understand some of the governing arguments attendant to travel writing (see, for example Gaston Bachelard and Rebecca Solnit) – and you must contribute something new to the discussion.

Postnote: please keep in mind that literary journalism is completely acceptable for this paper – we can discuss this further in class as well as in our conferences. For further material on literary journalism, please see: https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/teacher_and_tutor_resou…

(Links to an external site.)

[1] Please remember that these guidelines are for those of you who asked for carefully delineated guidelines – as we’ve covered in class, you may also follow (within reason) your own form of inquiry (see next footnote, too). Always, if you have questions, please ask!

* As always, you are more than welcome to pursue your own research interests within the field of the course dynamic. For example, you may conduct a survey of American highway photography, or trace the economic underpinnings of eco-tourism, etcetera.

READ THIS: below is the sources I would like you to use. If you need more sources let me know. I can send you some pages from the book as well if need be. Just let me know.

Sullivan: https://www.gq.com/story/bunny-wailer-john-jeremiah-sullivan?printable=true

Solnit: https://longreads.com/2014/10/15/the-art-of-arrival/

Mary Oliver: https://onbeing.org/programs/mary-oliver-listening-to-the-world/ (you don’t have to listen to the podcast you an read the transcript)

The danger of a single story: https://www.ted.com/talks/chimamanda_ngozi_adichie_the_danger_of_a_single_story/transcript?language=en

Amanda Gormans Poem: https://www.townandcountrymag.com/society/politics/a35279603/amanda-gorman-inauguration-poem-the-hill-we-climb-transcript/

Brene Brown: https://www.ted.com/talks/brene_brown_the_power_of_vulnerability/up-next?language=en

Katherine May: https://onbeing.org/programs/katherine-may-how-wintering-replenishes/