Instructions for the final.

Post by class time, Tuesday, Dec. 15.

The theme for the assignment is "Epiphany." Write two posts of about 600 words each. They don't have to be obviously related, but think of them as companion pieces that resonate with each other. The two topics are:

Post #1. Epiphany essay: A short essay discussing a moment of epiphany in one of the books we read. Think about religious epiphany as it relates to travel as pilgrimage (discussed by MacCannell and Cohen). Consider moments in the books when the characters experience something sacred, or come upon an object, place, or person that has some spiritual dimension which shakes up their worldview.  Epiphanies may be non-religious too—a moment of illumination or peak experience. Focus on a moment that has something to do with travel: departures, arrivals, local meets traveler, traveler in a natural environment, cross-cultural encounters, stasis amid motion, etc.

Post #2. Final story: Write a very short story (fiction or non-fiction) about a travel epiphany, along the lines of the pieces in Paul Theroux's "Five Travel Epiphanies." Or, write a short piece (story or essay) about an epiphany you yourself have had this semester in connection with the course.

Questions to consider in writing about epiphanies:

What was the character in the dark about before the epiphany?

Was the character in search of this particular illumination, or does it come unexpectedly, out of the blue?

What’s the nature of the insight? What’s it about? Can it be verbalized, or is it somehow beyond words?

In what ways is the epiphany spiritual or religious?

How has the travel experience itself led to the epiphany? Or how has the epiphany inspired travel?

In what ways is the epiphany a positive or negative experience? (The realization might be about something terrible.)

What happens after the character has the epiphany? What are its effects?

Here's some background courtesy of Wikipedia.

Epiphany comes from the Greek for "appearance" or "manifestation." It refers to the Christian holiday celebrating the revelation of God in the person of Jesus, commemorating (in the West) the visitation of the Magi to the child Jesus, or (in the East) the baptism of Jesus in the river Jordan. It falls on January 6 or on a Sunday close to that date.

As a feeling, an epiphany is the sudden realization or comprehension of the essence or meaning of something. The term is used in either a philosophical or literal sense to signify that the claimant has "found the last piece of the puzzle and now sees the whole picture," or has new information or experience, often insignificant by itself, that illuminates a deeper or numinous foundational frame of reference.

As a literary device, epiphany was made famous by James Joyce in Dubliners, in which his protagonists come to sudden recognitions that change their view of themselves or their social condition, often sparking a reversal or change of heart.

Some related concepts that may be helpful:

Theophany, from the Greek meaning "appearance of God," refers to the appearance of a deity to a human, or to a divine disclosure. Examples include appearances of the gods in the Homer, God appearing to Moses on Mount Sinai, god in the burning bush, etc.

Anagnorisis is a moment in a play or other work when a character makes a critical discovery. A Greek term made popular by Aristotle's Poetics, it originally meant "recognition," not only of a person but also of what that person stood for, and it represents "a change from ignorance to knowledge, producing love or hate between the persons destined by the poet for good or bad fortune." It was the hero's sudden awareness of a real situation, the realization of things as they stood, and finally, the hero's insight into a relationship with an often antagonistic character.

Peak experience is a term used to describe certain transpersonal and ecstatic states, particularly ones tinged with themes of euphoria, harmonization and interconnectedness. Psychologist Abraham Maslow in his 1964 work Religions, Values, and Peak Experiences describes peak experiences as especially joyous and exciting moments in life, involving sudden feelings of intense happiness and well-being, wonder and awe, and possibly also involving an awareness of transcendental unity or knowledge of higher truth. They usually come on suddenly and are often inspired by deep meditation, intense feelings of love, exposure to great art or music, or the overwhelming beauty of nature.