Travelers’ tales are older than writing itself and have lost little of their popularity over time. For historians, travelers offer unique insights into cross-cultural exchange, as well as interpretive challenges.
This armchair journey with area scholars considered the role travelers have played in understanding history from ancient Rome to modern Pakistan. A panel of k-12 educators also shared ways this theme could be employed to engage students.
Presentation Summaries
Written by Stephen Pitcher
Partition: Recording untold stories of forced displacement from the creation of India and Pakistan, Guneeta Bhalla
Big History Perspective, Cynthia Brown
Smiling through Tears?: Jewish Humor in the Diaspora, Erich Gruen
Discovering Global Blackness: African Diaspora World Travelers, Sean Hanratta
Contested Travelogues of Conquest: Bernal Diaz del Castillo and the fall of the Aztecs, Alex Saragoza
Roma/Gypsies: Stereotypes and Realities, Carol Silverman
Double Agents and Strategic Deception in the Second World War, Bruce Thompson