This workshopLink opens in a new window focuses on significant theoretical and methodological developments in the interdisciplinary field of travel studies and reflects on the directions that it might take next. We will consider the legacies of the New Historicist and postcolonial approaches which shaped the study of travel in the 1980s and 1990s before turning to the insights and provocations offered by more recent scholarship rooted in feminist, queer, Black, migration, and decolonial studies. With these various theories and methods in mind, we will examine items drawn from the Newberry Library’s extensive collection of materials on travel, including maps. In doing so, we will discuss the questions these materials raise about issues at the heart of travel studies, such as the relationship of knowledge and power, different forms of positionality and perspective, the challenges of translation and comparison, and the definition of “travel” itself.

Led by Natalya Din-Kariuki (University of Warwick). May 16, 2025, 9:30am–4:30pm, at the Newberry. The application deadline is November 15, 2024.

A fully-funded PhD studentship, to begin in September 2025, is available at the University of Warwick’s Department of History, in collaboration with the Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers), through the Midlands4Cities Doctoral Training Partnership.

The Hakluyt Society has published hundreds of travel accounts mostly of European colonial ‘discovery’. Yet despite its celebration of Elizabethan empire-builders, support for Victorian explorers and connections with the Royal Geographical Society and India Office, it has never been studied in relation to British imperial culture and its public legacies, until now.

Many congratulations to Sara Akhavan-Malayeri, the Maxine Berg Prize winner of 2024! Her dissertation entitles "The Fight over the Five ‘Soviet-born Wives of British Subjects’: the Impact of Anglo-Soviet Marriages in Early Cold War Britain”.

In 2024, the year marking the 700th anniversary of the death of one of the world’s great explorers, Marco Polo, the University of Warwick is proud to partner with 36 global institutions to launch the Marco Polo International ProgrammeLink opens in a new window.

As part of the Marco Polo International Programme, Warwick academics, in conjunction with our European, Singaporean and Chinese partners, are involved in:

• the rediscovery, restoration and public display of 14th century records of Venetian travellers in India;
• the high-resolution scanning and interdisciplinary study of textiles, ceramics and lacquerware to aid our understanding of goods that travelled across the Silks Roads culminating in a series of virtual and physical exhibitions across the globe;
• the first-ever digitisation of the writings of the Islamic traveller Ibn Battuta as he explored around Africa and Asia;
• a deep dive into the worlds and cultures, which Marco Polo travelled through;
• the uncovering of the views of modern travellers to China during key moments of 20th century Chinese history;
• as well as a wider re-examination of what is at stake in travel writing – in the past and today.

Hosted by Professor Tim Lockley, this guest lecture by Lonely Planet co-founder and Warwick alumnus, Tony Wheeler, will be a guided tour through the history of travel writing, from guidebooks through to modern travel blogs, drawing on Tony's unique insight through his years at the helm of the Lonely Planet.

Wednesday 8 May, 15.00 – 16.00, FAB0.08 Faculty of Arts Building.

Followed by a drinks reception for Faculty, Staff, and History PhD students only hosted by Professor Rachel Moseley, Faculty of Arts Building Terrace, Fifth Floor (next to FAB5.03)Link opens in a new windowLink opens in a new window at 16.00 - 17.00.

Register hereLink opens in a new window