“Men wanted for hazardous journey. Low wages, bitter cold, long hours of complete darkness. Safe return doubtful. Honour and recognition in event of success.”
Such was the sublime spirit of Ernest Shackleton’s ill-fated voyage into the mouth of the Antarctic. Since Shackleton ran the above advert in the London Times in 1913, many European explorers have set out to conquer the world in the name of glory. From the adventures of the Victorian and Edwardian eras (1837-1910) to the ‘mountain madness’ of the interwar years, the colonial world became an object of conquest and exploration, one that formed the basis for European theories of the sublime and the beautiful. Today, Nepal, Tibet, and Pakistan continue to serve as the sublime objects of exploration (and exploitation) in the name of mountain tourism and pro-poor tourism. This seminar discusses the implications of mountaineering and adventure tourism to postcolonial societies through select novels and films.
Felice Benuzzi, No Picnic on Mount Kenya, 1953.
Jon Krakauer, Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mt. Everest Disaster, 1997.
John Quellen, Tempting the Throne Room: Surviving Pakistan’s Deadliest Climbing Season, 2013
essay(s) (2000 words) for 3 ECTS, additional term paper (6000 words) for 6 ECTS
