Course Synopsis:

This course explores the experiences and literatures of tourism and travel in historical perspective, focusing on the evolution of the commercial hostelry in various forms and  national/transnational settings.  You are welcome to choose a period and area of study of interest to you; we will be engaged in seminar reading, as well as hands-on archival visits, historical street tours of the motel, hotel and boarding house landscape, and other experiential learning opportunities.

By the end of this course, you will have:

1.    examined a broad range of perspectives on the evolution of the hotel as a social, cultural and commercial institution, from a variety of disciplines including sociology, architecture, geography, and history;
2.    critically appraised the relationship of the hotel to travel practices in specific national and transnational contexts;
3.    critically evaluated the evolution of writing about the hotel as public space, from the late nineteenth century to the present day, and embedded your understanding of those waves of scholarship within specific historical contexts;
4.    surveyed the expansive range of primary materials that may be incorporated within original research into the history of the hotel, appreciating the widening textual field used in tourism and travel history, from architecture to maps and ‘ephemera’; and
5.    refined and practised skills of oral and written communication in the development of a major research paper incorporating a critical literature review.

Methods of Evaluation and Weights:

Research presentation - 15%
Seminar participation - 15%
Research paper outline and annotated bibliography - 20%
Final Paper - 50%

Texts and/or Resources Required:

All resources are online or placed on reserve.

*Please note:  This is a preliminary web course description only.  The department reserves the right to change without notice any information in this description.  The final, binding course outline will be distributed in the first class of the semester.