After successfully finishing the course:
- You will have acquired general knowledge of and insight in the history of (modern) tourism
- You will have acquired general knowledge of and insight in key topics and recent developments in the historiography of tourism
- You will have acquired experience with finding and interpreting relevant historical primary sources
- You will have enhanced your competences with fruitfully applying theoretical concepts and relevant methods in analyzing historical primary sources in dialogue with secondary literature
- You will have enhanced your competences in designing and carrying out historical research projects
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The tourism industry is one of the most important industries in the global economy. What are the origins of this cultural desire to leave one’s own environment in search for fun, relaxation, knowledge elsewhere? Since when elites, middle classes and working classes discovered the sea, the mountains, bustling capitals or the rustic countryside as prime sites of touristic experience? How did national and local governments, agencies and interest groups promoted tourism at home and abroad? How did tourists behave and interact with local populations, and what kind of social, cultural and spatial conflicts went along with tourism?
The history of tourism offers intriguing possibilities to shed new light on major historical topics: histories of class, gender, ethnicity and age relations; histories of emotions, the body and memory; histories of local, regional, national and transnational identities; urban and environmental history; up to economic and political history. The research field offers a privileged entry to comparative and transnational research, and offers many opportunities for interdisciplinary exchanges with art history, literary studies, media studies and heritage studies.
In this course you will acquire a broad overview of the history of tourism, from the classical age and early modern period, yet focused on the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Starting from Eric Zuelow’s recent introduction A history of modern tourism (2016) and a selection of case studies you will familiarize yourself with the most important historical trends and the most important research themes. You will acquaint yourself with finding and interpreting a wide range of primary sources: from personal travel diaries, printed travelogues and travel guides to government archives and archives of tourist organisations, newspapers, magazines and audiovisual media. Using theoretical concepts and qualitative and quantitative methods from various disciplines you will learn to design and carry out small historical research projects that will genuinely contribute to this quickly expanding field of research - and potentially to new touristic experiences.
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