HIST 102 Business or Pleasure? A History of Vacations from the Grand Tour to Let's Go: Europe
Ghazvinian
Taught as schedule allows (consult the Course Directory)
SEM
The ability to travel for pleasure is a comparatively recent luxury, and the concept of tourism is barely two centuries old. So who were the first people to say openly that they wanted to travel, not as merchants, or diplomats, or explorers, or soldiers, but just as ordinary travelers, looking for a change of scene? How were they received by their families, their communities, their peers, and by the people in places they visited? And how did they adjust to life when they came back from their trips? This seminar begins with the English gentleman's tour of the 16th-18th centuries, and goes on to survey the rise of mass tourism in Britain and the United States, from the Cooks Tours of the 19th century, through the package tour boom of the post-war period, to the various niche tourisms of today—eco-tourism, sex tourism, "post-tourism", etc. A key theme will be how ideas about class, taste, and cultivation intersect with changes in tourism over time, as types of tourism enjoyed by the elite become gradually democratized. Drawing on classic texts, such as Thorstein Veblen's Theory of the Leisure Class and Dean MacCannell's The Tourist, as well as newer studies in tourism history and such cultural icons as National Lampoon's European Vacation, students will be expected to answer a central question by the end of the semester: is there a difference between a "traveler" and a "tourist"?
