K55.1200: Art of Travel

Professor Steve Hutkins

Fall 2008

2-credit course, runs entire semester

Enrollment restricted to students studying abroad in the fall of 2008 at an NYU abroad site.

This online course provides an opportunity for students studying abroad to reflect, analytically and creatively, on their travel experiences. We examine some of the art created by travelers—travel literature, photography, paintings—and consider how traveling can itself be viewed as an art, with its own conventions, styles, traditions, and opportunities for innovation.  All of the course activities are conducted on the class website: students blog about their responses to the readings and their own travels, post photos, etc. Enrollment is limited to students studying at one of NYU’s study abroad sites.  Reading assignments are individualized for the city and country of each study-abroad site, but some readings are for the whole class: these may include selections from de Botton’s The Art of Travel, Urry’s The Tourist Gaze, MacCannell’s The Tourist, and Leed’s The Mind of the Traveler.