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Victor Xu

Professor Saha

English 166: Travel & Empire Writing

29th November 2015

Prospectus/Abstract [Final Paper]:

The purpose of this paper is to compare/contrast how Ghosh (In an Antique Land) and

Winterbottom (“In This World”) use varying techniques to capture the amount of free agency

protagonists have (scholars and refugees, respectively), when traveling under a power-

knowledge hegemony; a structure which is invariably tied to the dint of empire and colonialism.

At the start of English 166, the class focused on travel from the perspective of citizens

tied to powerful empires. Characters such as the enigmatic Philias Fogg in Verne’s Around the

World in Eighty Days demonstrated that privilege – of being a subject of England speaking the

English language – and wealth, makes it possible to resolve even the most far-fetched

complications. Even the titular character in Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels (despite being gullible) is

able to voice judgment on foreign cultures; noting how the people of Laputa lack ‘rationality’

and a ‘sensible’ way to integrate science and mathematics into the everyday. Similarly, non-

fictional pieces such as Lady Montagu’s travel diaries and the leisurely flaneur, demonstrated

how travel is bound to privilege – a construct of empire and conquest. Thus, I found myself

slowly questioning if other forms of travel existed, perhaps from the perspective of outsiders

estranged from the heart of empire. This interest and curiosity matched the second half of the

course, where alternate forms of travel were explored.

Ultimately, I decided to narrow my primary sources to Amitav Ghosh’s In an Antique

Land and Michael Winterbottom’s “In This World”. My research question became: To what

extent (and with the use of what varying techniques) do Ghosh and Winterbottom (In an Antique

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Land, “In This World”) strike a balance between reality and fiction (the literary versus the

historical within a real, imaginative world)? Furthermore, how much free agency during travel

(for scholars, refugees) do the protagonists have, under a power-knowledge hegemony? Both

works lent to a wealth of secondary sources and analysis by published scholars (fulfilling the

research and analytical requirements), while including narratives (with stylistic techniques) that

clinched my interest. Another rationale for selecting these works, would be challenging myself to

craft a completely original paper that compares film with text; while taking the opportunity to

explore two works that have been excluded from the focus of previous course papers/essays.

From preliminary readings, I understand that In an Antique Land blends aspects

of a personal bibliography with imagined circumstances and secondary characters. Similarly, “In

This World” uses the format of a docudrama (key techniques inclusive of voice overs and

panoramic nature shots) to capture an improvised account of how Afghan refugees travel. In this

paper, I hope to consider the effect of these formats, and whether a sense of realism is

successfully developed. This is important because in the article "Winterbottom is a Winner in

this World" (from selected bibliography) Journalist Neil Norman reveals how the film

“reconcile[s] the difference between fact and fiction...with Winterbottom articulating the film’s

authenticity in capturing a slice of reality...” The research process will also allow me to examine

some of the challenges that Winterbottom and Ghosh faced when crafting the two works. For

instance, Ghosh wrestles with the difficulties of ethnographic translation, facing an anthropology

“process fraught with complications, one which often violently alters the meaning of original

sentences.” Thus, several secondary sources offer varying perspectives on the successfulness of

Ghosh’s novel as a hybridity between the fiction and the postcolonial.

In addition to the primary research topic, several overlapping/branching

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shadow questions will also be considered. Case in point, I wish to learn more about what allows

the traveler (here, it is the refugee and the scholar) to have a voice and perception of place.

Additionally, I question what remains of personal emotions in a world where almost everything

is connected by power and the history of empire. Perhaps it is almost impossible to completely

disaggregate travel (regardless of form), from the dint of empire and colonialism. Specifically,

these shadow questions will tie into the overarching topic of how much ‘free-agency’ travelers

have under the modern power-knowledge hegemony. Analysis in these areas will be mostly

drawn from close reading/watching of the two primary sources.

In order to fully answer the research question, I will need to conduct additional research

on how to analyze film (specific, precise terminology used to effectively discuss the medium of

film versus novel), defining free-agency and the power-knowledge hegemony, and secondary

sources discussing realism versus fiction (within the scope of the two selected works). These

research sources will come from JSTOR and ABC-CLIO (formatted as scholarly articles,

reviews, journals, and publications). These academic databases will allow me to more deeply

understand the subject area, and inject the occasional expert opinion (citation) into the final

paper. When crafting the paper, I expect to find that the gap between reality and fiction as

thinner than initially discernable. In other words, perhaps the use of imagined circumstances

does not distract from overall message/effectiveness of a work. When it comes to comparing the

two primary sources, I expect scholars (even someone like Ghosh, who travels under the notion

of a direct, historical tie between India and Egypt – made possible by the Slave of MS H.6) to

have far greater free-agency than refugees. However, I also expect to detect surprising

similarities in the way both types of travelers are swayed by empire (the past still affecting the

present), despite scholars ranking higher on a power-knowledge hegemony…