HISTORY OF TRAVEL AND TOURISM

The exam is useful for the master's degree in History from the Middle Age to the modern times and in Cultural Anthropology, Ethnology, Ethnolinguistics.
This is a 30 hours course, divided in 10 lessons of 3 hours. Each week a pack of 2 lessons of 3 hours, in other words 6 hours, is offered, so it’s a 5-week course. The course is opened for Graduating students (master) mainly in history and anthropology, but also to students who work in other subjects, as philosophy, foreign languages or literature. The course is structured as a series of lectures adapted to the diversity of students’ expectations.

Useful skills for the students who intend to be educated to acquire more professionalism in the fields of cultural exchange, understanding of foreign people, travel and tourism.
The course deals with the relationship between the Europeans and travel from the 15th to the 19th century. Its aim is to propose a critical approach of the phenomenon of travel, considered as determinant for the making of European societies. The course is supposed to supply the students with general knowledge and points of reference if they want to research more precisely into the history of mobility, travel and tourism all around the world, even if the examples will be limited to Europe and neighbouring territories (from the Mediterranean to Scandinavia, with focus on Italy).
The theorical approach is pursued with a succession of topics and various sources, such as travel accounts and guidebooks, theories of travel, geographical maps and historical descriptions, registers for policing of foreigners... At the intersection between social, political and economical history, history of intellectual and cultural exchanges, history of the representations and knowledge, a global vision has to emerge about methods and problems of an approach which target is to understand how travel has contributed in a decisive way to the processes of transformation of the societies.

No pre requisite is required, except a general knowledge of early modern and modern history, and basic linguistic competences. It's desirable to know English but part of the sources are in italian. The course will be in Italian if all the students are Italian-speakers.

The course will cover early modern period in the widest sense (from the end of 15th to the middle of the 19th century), starting with pilgrimage and academical « peregrinatio » to arrive until the emergence of tourism.
I. Social order and disruptions. First will be interrogated the phenomenons of travelling in connection with the strategy of the Grand Tour as a way to confirm the social and political order which was predominant in Europe from 16th to 18th century (i.e. at the age of extra European discoveries and of the establishment of colonialism). Secondly we will examine how the conception of travelling in Europe as a means of increasing knowledge by the contact of young people with people and cities in other countries had only the aim to favour the exchange between future leaders in the European States. Then we will emphasize by contrast the variety of the experiences of travelers in Europe, either for the protagonists, or for the types of countries that were visited, and the ability of travelling to change the value systems and social hierarchies in European societies. Thirdly we will examine the role of memory and travel writings as a way to reinforce the social order by putting together in the texts the fragments of a disturbing experience. Finally we will describe the geographical and political constraints and the numerous instruments that were used by the authorities of the cities, the States or the editors to help the travelers to overcome the many obstacles they had to face: means of transport, hotels, laying of the roads, improvement of maps and travel guides. All these items made travelling easier.
II. Groups of people and original practices of travelling. Another part of the course will concern the various practices of travel, with the idea to disturb the classical approach of the Grand Tour based on the observation of young people belonging to the upper classes. Beyond noblemen, pilgrims and traders, we will pay particular attention to two categories of travelers which were decisive for the modification of the approach of the territories during the early modern period: i.e the scholars and the artists. Both were increasingly in contact with nature, and they have leaded other travelers above all from the 18th century to be aware of the history of the earth and of the specific beauty of unspolled and picturesque nature.
III. Dimension of space. The last section of the course will deal with the representations of landscapes and people in order to find how travelling has been able to change previous knowledges during the early modern period. First with a description of the long-lasting attraction for cities and towns, which are remained the main goals for every european traveler in Europe until the present tourism. Then with an examination of the passion for archeology all around the Mediterranean Sea, and the sudden appearance of passion for mountains from the middle of 18th century and of the seashores a little bit later (English and northern seasides first, then Mediterranean ones, as Alain Corbin has demonstrated). We’ll study the effects of the minerological discoveries at the end of the 18th century - the appeal of stones, plants and animals descriptions, the growing taste for painting outdoors, in the open - upon the way of travelling not only for scholars and artists, but also for the various types of travelers, including noblemen and members of the middle classes at the end of the 18th century and during the 19th century (from Romanticism to the era of tourism).
At the end of the course will be discussed the problem of a complete and precise chronology of the various periods of this history of travel and tourism in Europe.

I)Basic bibliography
1-Berrino (Annunziata), Storia del turismo in Italia, Bologna, Il mulino, 2011.
2-De Seta (Cesare), L’Italia nello specchio del Grand Tour, Milano, Rizzoli, 2014.
3-Leed (Eric J.), La mente del viaggiatore : dall'Odissea al turismo globale, Bologna, Il Mulino, 1992 (1st ed. in english : The mind of the traveler : from Gilgamesh to global tourism, New York, N.Y., Basic Books, 1991).
4-Maczak (Antoni), Viaggi e viaggiatori nell'Europa moderna, Roma-Bari, Laterza, 1992 (1st ed. in polish 1980, then in english : Travel in Early modern Europe, Cambridge, Polity Press, 1995).
II)To go further / Per approfondimenti
Bertrand (Gilles), Le Grand tour revisité. Pour une archéologie du tourisme : le voyage des Français en Italie, milieu XVIIIe-début XIXe siècle, Rome, Ecole française de Rome, 2008.
Bertrand (Gilles), « Grand Tour (tourisme, touriste) », in Olivier Christin, dir., Dictionnaire des concepts nomades en sciences humaines, Paris, Métailié, 2010, p. 171-187.
Black (Jeremy), The British Abroad. The Grand Tour in the Eighteenth Century, Stroud, Sutton, 1992.
Black (Jeremy), Italy and the Grand Tour, New Haven-London, Yale University press, 2003.
Colley (Linda), Britons : forging the nation : 1707-1837, New Haven-London, Yale University Press, 1992, reed. 2005.
De Seta (Cesare), a cura di, Storia d’Italia. Annali V, Il paesaggio, Torino, Einaudi, 1982.
Gomez-Géraud (Marie-Christine), Ecrire le voyage au XVIe siècle en France, Paris, PUF, 2000.
Mazzei (Rita), Per terra e per acqua. Viaggi e viaggiatori nell’Europa moderna, Roma, Carocci, 2013.
Ouellet (Réal), La relation de voyage en Amérique (XVIe-XVIIIe siècle). Au carrefour des genres, Québec, Les Presses de l’Université Laval/Editions du CIERL, 2010.
Pemble (John), The Mediterranean passion. Victorian and Edwardians in the South, Oxford-New York, Oxford University Press, 1988 (trad. italiana : La passione del Sud : viaggi meditaerranei nell’Ottocento, Bologna, il mulino, 1998).
Reichler (Claude), La découverte des Alpes et la question du paysage, Ginevra, Georg Editeur, collection « Le Voyage dans les Alpes », 2002.
Roche (Daniel), Humeurs vagabondes : de la circulation des hommes et de l'utilité des voyages, Parigi, Fayard, 2003 (it exists in paperback in French : Les circulations dans l’Europe moderne, XVIIe-XVIII siècles, Parigi, Fayard, coll. « Pluriel », 2011).
Schnakenbourg (Eric), Figures du Nord. Scandinavie, Groenland et Sibérie. Perceptions et représentations des espaces septentrionaux du Moyen Age au XVIIIe siècle, Rennes, Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2012.
Stagl (Justin), A history of curiosity : the theory of travel 1550-1800, Chur [etc.], Harwood, 1995.
Sweet (Rosemary), Cities and the Grand Tour : the British in Italy, c. 1690-1820, New York, N.Y. [etc], Cambridge University Press, 2012.
Venturi (Franco), « L'Italia fuori d'Italia », in R. Romano, C. Vivanti, a cura di, Storia d'Italia, vol. 3, Dal primo Settecento all’Unità, Torino, Einaudi, 1973, p. 985-1481.
Wolff (Larry), Inventing Eastern Europe : the map of civilization on the mind of the Enlightenment, Stanford, Stanford University Press, 1994.
Wolff (Larry), Venezia e gli slavi : la scoperta della Dalmazia nell’età dell’illuminismo, Roma, Il veltro, 2006 (1st ed. in English : Venice and the Slavs : the Discovery of Dalmatia in the Age of Enlightenment, Stanford, Calif., Stanford University Press, 2001).

According to the Italian academic structure, the final exam is an oral examination which is supposed to assess the capacity to have read and assimilated some of the books that are pointed out in the bibliography. In the first part of the examination one book is explained in more detail. Then other titles in the bibliography are discussed.

oral

Frontal classes and discussions throughout the seminars. Analisis of some historical sources.

The lecturer receives by prior appointment. It's always possible to contact him by e-mail: gilles.bertrand@univ-grenoble-alpes.fr