Girls Gone Wild

NEW YORK På University of Pennsylvania i Philadelphia ges under våren och hösten ett seminarium om "kvinnor som reser". Jag har kursiverat kärnfrågeställningen i kursbeskrivningen:

HIST 102.301 Girls Gone Wild: reading women's journeys, from the Wife of Bath to Thelma and Louise
Women have been going on journeys for at least as long as men have, yet the female version of travel has always been proscribed, negotiated, or compromised in some way. As early as the fourth century, women went on religious pilgrimages, and wrote about their journeys. When the Grand Tour of the 17th century was off-limits to them, they used restorative trips to Spa as an excuse to go abroad and see the continent. When Victorian ladies travelled through Africa by themselves, they were dismissed as dilettantes and scientific lightweights. Even in our own "liberated" age, a film about two women on a road trip is instantly labelled "feminist" or a "chick flick". Why have men in almost every period of history found the idea of female travellers so threatening? What strategies have women wanting to see the world adopted over the centuries to help them avoid (or perhaps invite) the accusation that they are dangerous, loose or lustful? As historians, we have to work harder, look closer, and think more creatively to find evidence of women's journeys, yet we are always richly rewarded when we do, and this seminar will be devoted to understanding how to discover and read the female journey amidst centuries of obfuscation and dissimulation.

Jag hittar ingen "syllabus" med litteraturlista, men jag hoppas att de läser texter om och av alla de journalister och reseskribenter som passar in i resonemanget. Jag tänker såklart på personligheter som Isabelle Eberhardt, Freya Stark och Martha Gellhorn.

Började fundera på om det stämmer att kvinnors resande uppfatta(t)s som hotande. Ska fundera vidare, men det tog ju inte många sekunder att komma på ett exempel så tydligt att det faktiskt borde vara med i kursen: när Jan Guillou anklagade Åsne Seierstad för att ha ljugit ihop storyn om bokhandlaren i Kabul (Cecilia Hagen kommenterar).

/Gunilla