2. New York through foreign eyes
Tues., Oct. 28
Post #2. New York through foreign eyes: Look at New York as if you were a stranger to the place, as you’ll be when you go abroad. Do something touristy—go to a tourist attraction, take a ride on the Apple tour bus, go on a walking tour, etc. Or get started on exploring the place you'll be studying by going somewhere in New York that's relevant: if you'll be studying in Florence, go to Little Italy, etc. Observe your own thoughts and feelings, and observe the tourists around you. If you'd like to see what a class last year did with a similar assignment, you can check out their blogs here. You might also take a look at the website page on New York news—some of the items are travel writing pieces about NYC similar to what you might do for the assignment. As always, do the reading before you write your blog post, and see how the readings inform what you write. You can refer to a reading if you like, but it's not required. BTW, the last article, the scholarly piece on the "transatlantic imagination" may be heavy going, so don't get bogged down in it.
While you're out and about, stop by Idlewild Books at Union Square, NY's travel book store, or the Strand on Broadway, which also has a great travel section. Pick up a guidebook like Fodors for the place you’re going, and choose two books that are travel essays, narratives, or fiction (not guidebooks) about the place you’re going. Before you go, look over the Suggested Reading list on the website.
Read:
- Jean-Paul Sartre, "Manhattan" (pdf below)
- Simone de Bouvoir, from America Day by Day, impressions of New York, pp. xvii - 32 (pdf below) (also available in Google Books)
- Camus, "The Rains of New York" (pdf below)
- Le Corbusier, The Fairy Catastrophe (pdf below)
- George Oppen, “Tourist Eye” (pdf below)
- David Gilbert and Claire Hancock, “New York City and the Transatlantic Imagination: French and English Tourism and the Spectacle of the Modern Metropolis, 1893-1939”
