Liverpool Travel Seminar

Cover image: Gurminder Sikand, The Journey (1987). Courtesy of the Estate of Gurminder Sikand.

Registration deadline: Saturday 31st August, 2024

Lunch will be provided. Please inform the organisers ([email protected]) of any dietary or access requirements

The next meeting of the Liverpool Travel Seminar – scheduled to be held at the Bluecoat in Liverpool on Saturday 14 September (10h00-17h00) – will reflect on the past development, current state and future directions of travel writing studies. Since all speakers are colleagues of, or have published with Professor Tim Youngs, it will also be an opportunity to mark Tim’s foundational and ongoing contribution to the field.

Tim is Professor Emeritus of English and Travel Studies at Nottingham Trent University. He established and directed the Centre for Travel Writing Studies at NTU (2002-2022), and founded the journal Studies in Travel Writing, which he edited from 1997 before moving to an advisory role in 2022. Tim’s numerous authored or edited books on travel writing have played an essential role in asserting the importance of the form as the subject of major cross-disciplinary study. These include key works such as The Cambridge Companion to Travel Writing, edited with Peter Hulme (2002), and The Cambridge Introduction to Travel Writing (2013). His most recent book publications are The Cambridge History of Travel Writing, edited with Nandini Das, and The Ashgate Research Companion to Travel Writing, edited with Alasdair Pettinger (both from 2019). Dedicated to ensuring that the field has suitable infrastructure to support its ongoing development, he co-edited with Peter Hulme, from 2006–22, the monograph series Routledge Research in Travel Writing and edits with Nandini Das the short-form monograph series Cambridge Elements: Travel Writing. He was one of the co-organisers of the ‘Borders and Crossings’ international conference series, launched in Derry in 1998, which continues to define future directions in studies in travel writing. Tim is also a poet, currently putting together his third chapbook.

Confirmed contributors to the event include Susan Bassnett, Robert Burroughs, Michael Cronin, Nandini Das, Betty Hagglund, Peter Hulme, Siobhan Lambert-Hurley, Churnjeet Mahn, Alasdair Pettinger, Andrew Taylor, Andrew Thacker and Carl Thompson

The Liverpool Travel Seminar is a collaborative and interdisciplinary research forum launched jointly by Liverpool Hope University, the University of Liverpool, and Liverpool John Moores University in 2007. It provides a constructive environment in which colleagues with interests in travel and travel writing discuss the latest developments in their fields whilst reflecting on possible future directions. The Seminar provides a cross- and inter-disciplinary research infrastructure, permitting cross-institutional dialogue and research collaboration in Liverpool itself. At the same time, it aims to expand national and international networks of scholars working on travel and associated fields. In addition to organizing a series of events, including conferences and public talks, the Seminar has led to the publication of a number of publications: Travel Writing Studies: A Critical Glossary (Anthem Press, 2019), Microtravel: Confinement, Deceleration, Microspection (Anthem Press, 2024) and a special issue of Studies in Travel Writing devoted to vertical travel (2021).

If you have any queries, please contact Kate Walchester, (), Zoë Kinsley (), and Charles Forsdick ().

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