Warwick Venice Centre, 29-30 November 2024

 The Traveller’s Tale workshop brought together 15 researchers based in the UK and Italy to discuss future directions in the study of travel and travel writing. It opened with reflections by some of the leading experts in the field on the forthcoming special issue in Studies in Travel Writing edited by Natalya Din-Kariuki (English) and Guido van Meersbergen (History), followed over the next two days by presentations showcasing Warwick postgraduate research conducted in part under the new Wheeler History of Travel Writing Programme, an interactive travel and maps session, and a roundtable discussion of an AHRC funding bid involving partners at Surrey, Oxford, and Warwick.

2024 marks the 700^th anniversary of the death of Marco Polo, the great Venetian traveller and merchant who crossed Asia to spend time in China, before returning to Venice to write about his travels and in turn helping initiate a new golden age of exploration, trade and connection between East and West. This year we at Warwick have been celebrating this anniversary through our Marco Polo International Programme – a series of academic conferences, educational exchanges and community events on campus, at our Warwick Venice Centre and with our global partners in China and elsewhere – to underline the power, importance and impact of cultural exchange and engagement, in the past and the present (check out www.warwick.ac.uk/mpip for more details).