Reviews for Imperial Eyes: Travel Writing and Transculturation

The average rating for Imperial Eyes: Travel Writing and Transculturation based on 2 reviews is 5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2008-02-08 00:00:00 John Wallace Pratt examines the intersections between travel writing and empire. She examines how the ideals of natural history both developed with the expansion of empire and then contributed to a travel writing that produced imperial relationships in the "planetary consciousness" deployed in its production. This scientific mode complemented another style of travel writing popular at the same time which fit a model of commerce but sentimentalized it through romance. Both the desired trade and the represented romance fit idealized model of reciprocity. These two forms of writing she names "anti-conquest" as they attempt to display European innocence in their travels from the violence of the colonial/imperial project. Pratt's reading moves forward in time and is never ignorant of the specifics of place. She examines the reinvention of America (and American nature) in travel writing after independence from Spain. She talks about transculturation - how writers from the margins absorb, critique, respond to these forms of writing. She critics a reading of romanticism in travel writing as reflecting the romanticism of the period and instead asks how the imperial ideologies and the experiences of the contact zone itself produce the romanticism of the period. Its really an excellent book, and made me rethink how I want to teach U.S. Nature Writing and how I think about the relationship between representations of American landscapes, and representations of territorialized national identities.

Review # 2 was written on 2016-04-19 00:00:00 Glynis Jenkins This is by far the densest book I have ever read, but it is so perfectly relevant to my academic interests that I'm going to be buying my own copy ASAP so I can re-read it again with a highlighter in hand and a notebook next to me. This is just an extremely excellent analysis and has helped me realize how interested I am in the intersection of travel writing (though for me it's specifically female travel writers) and imperialism/colonialism, which might, in fact, end up being what I study when I inevitably (hopefully..) go back to school. So, thank you Pratt for this fantastic work!