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This is the second of two issues with Forums devoted to
the study of Travelers and Travelers' Accounts in World History. As
editor, I had the luxury of employing the articles in both issues as readings
in my Spring capstone course on this on this topic, alongside the excellent
introduction to the subject (with sample resources) provided by George Mason
University's free "World History Source," project online at http://chnm.gmu.edu/worldhistorysources/unpacking/travelmain.html), books such as Mary Louise Pratt's
Imperial Eyes: Travel Writing and Transculturation (Routledge, 2003) and
articles such as Mineke Bosch's "Colonial Dimensions of Dutch Women's Suffrage:
Aletta Jacobs's Travel Letters from Africa and Asia, 1911–1912," (Journal of
Women's History, Volume 11, Number 2, Summer 1999, 8–34). The results
were satisfying in that the articles in these Forums and associated materials
could be grouped, compared and analyzed for purposes of discussion that ranged
from evidence of the validity of world system approaches to the use of such
sources in the world history classroom.
Readers of this issue will find equally useful the
accompanying articles and reviews, ranging in subject from the place of Haiti in world history to a survey of texts addressing food in world history.
Future Forums are planned which address the role of
Jesuits in world history, the use of architecture to teach world history and
teaching the place of South Asia in world history.
Each of these Forum topics was broached by readers of World
History Connected, which may serve to remind all readers of how essential
they are to the journal's mission of bridging the gap between scholarship and
teaching of world history.
Marc Jason Gilbert
Hawaii Pacific University
Marc Jason Gilbert is Professor of History and National Endowment for the Humanities Endowed Chair in World History at Hawai'i Pacific University. He can be reached at mgilbert@hpu.edu. |
