Module Content and Indicative Topics 

This module will introduce you to the critical study of global cross-cultural encounters in the early modern period. Our main materials will be Portuguese travel narratives, geographical and ethnographic texts produced between c.1450 and 1650. We will read a selection of translated primary texts narrating travels, encounters and confrontations with extra-European cultures, accompanied by a selection of secondary literature highlighting the quandaries of the genre’s intertwinements with imperial expansion and the making of colonial societies in Brazil, Africa and Asia. To highlight the unique characteristics of Portuguese travel writing, the course covers the entire globe, but some emphasis will be placed on early colonial Brazil, West and South Africa, and the so-called East Indies. We shall examine how travel accounts can function as historical sources and promote a better understanding of the world that produced them. The secondary readings (on Orientalism, postcolonialism, indigenous studies, Renaissance worldmaking) will help us reflect on questions of literary invention, appropriation and stereotyping in the representation of other cultures. This, too, will shine a critical light on the “Global Renaissance” and, at the same time, make us think about the world it produced: our own. 

 


	What is travel literature, why study it, and how? 
	
	
	Travel, empire, and the problem of Otherness: Portugal’s African beginnings 
	
	
	The Naked Truth? First Encounters and Otherness in Brazil  
	

	Dancing with Cannibals: man-eaters and noble savages in Brazil  
	
	
	Stormy seas and deadly shores: the melancholy traveller and other critics of Empire 
	
	
	Diplomacy, errancy and the problem of genre: re-reading Camões 
	
	
	Selected topics on travels in India, China and Japan  
	
	
	Themes of Science History  
	
 

This module is taught in English and is open to students not specialising in literature. Students of History may find it particularly interesting as a critical introduction to the making of the early modern world. An intermediate level of Portuguese will give you direct access to many original texts written in Portuguese, but all core materials – both primary and secondary – are available in English. 

Teaching Delivery 

This course consists of 10 lectures of 2 hrs each, with group work and discussions in the second part of each session. Students are expected to read some passages of travel literature (usually around 20-30 pages) in advance for each class. Students will also be given critical literature to go through for each class. 

By the end of the module, you should be able to: 


	Identify key works, authors, styles and currents of Portuguese travel literature 
	

	Contextualise works of travel literature historically 
	

	Outline the History of Portugal expansion and global travels 
	

	Analyse key formal aspects of travel literature relating to truthfulness, credibility, readability, othering 
	

	Perform critical close readings of texts regarding matters of Empire, encounter, race, violence, colonial science, cartography 
	

	Conduct intermediate level research into literary texts and their historical contexts 
	
 

Recommended Reading 

In preparation for the module, we advise reading the following core texts. These can be found in the UCL Library: 


	Mary B. Campbell, “Introduction”, in The witness and the other world: exotic European travel writing, 4001600, Ithaca, Cornell University Press, 1991 
	
	
	Binyavanga Wainaina, “How to write about Africa”, in Granta 92: the view from Africa . London, Granta, 2005 (available online at http://www.granta.com/Archive/92/How-to-Write-about-Africa/Page-1) 
	
	
	Edward Said, chapter 1 of Orientalism, London, Kegan & Paul, 1978 or any other edition. 
	

	Anthony Disney, History of Portugal and the Portuguese Empire, vol. 2 (“The Portuguese Empire”), Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2009. 
	
All primary texts will be available in English translation on Moodle. 

 

 

 