ABOUT THIS BOOK

Why do we travel? What are we doing—and what do we imagine we are doing—when we leave the house, get on a plane, and thereby step into globalism? The Importance of Elsewhere is a collection of essays, rooted in Randy Malamud’s own lifetime of travel, that addresses those questions and more. Setting today’s tourism in the context of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century experiences of travel and travel writing, he uncovers motives and appreciations of movement, difference, and novelty that are deeply woven into the imperial enterprise—and that remain key drivers of our interest in and enjoyment of travel today. Marrying concrete case studies and lively personal anecdotes, The Importance of Elsewhere will be of interest to any global traveler who has ever stopped to wonder what it is that draws her to faraway places.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Randy Malamud is the Regents’ Professor of English at Georgia State University and the author of eight books, including Reading Zoos: Representations of Animals and Captivity and Poetic Animals and Animal Souls.

REVIEWS

"A deft blend of auto-theory, cultural criticism, and travel writing, Randy Malamud’s The Importance of Elsewhere takes the reader on a delightful journey around the world and through the searching mind. A psychogeographical page-turner!"

— Christopher Schaberg, Loyola University New Orleans and the author of The Work of Literature In An Age of Post-Truth

"Malamud . . . transmit[s] to his readers the way travel can provoke joy, widen our aesthetics and offer a buffet of experiences. . . . On the whole, an entertaining series on unexpected topics."

— Times Higher Education

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Part I: The Globalist Humanist Tourist
Chapter 1: Home and Away
Chapter 2: Should I Stay or Should I Go?
Chapter 3: Travel vs Tourism
Chapter 4: Fear of Flying
Chapter 5: Travel Reading: Reading Travel
Chapter 6: ‘The Importance of Elsewhere’

Part II: Engaging the World
Chapter 7: LEEDS: Literary Tourism
Chapter 8: Łódź: Monty Python’s Academic Circus
Chapter 9: Copenhagen: Projecting a Triumphant Queer Moment
Chapter 10: London: Sex 2.0
Chapter 11: Cottbus: Weltspiegel
Chapter 12: Baghdad: Reconstructing Iraqi Academe
Chapter 13: Berlin: The Psychogeography of Tempelhof Airport
Chapter 14: Tierra del Fuego: Penguins at the End of the World
Chapter 15: Zagreb: The Subversive Summit
Chapter 16: Szolnok: Science and Film
Chapter 17: Berlin: Gestapo Headquarters
Chapter 18: Dubai: A Cinematic Door to the Middle East
Chapter 19: Warsaw: The Bores of Academe
Chapter 20: Courmayeur: Noir
Chapter 21: Svalbard: Introduction to Arctic Studies
Postscript
Acknowledgements
References
Notes
Index