Tourism (and) Culture

ART 908

This course will look at the role that culture plays in defining tourism and the role that tourism plays in defining culture.

Artists’ (and other culture makers’) experiences of unfamiliar destinations--as tourists--often informs (and is the subject for) their artistic practices methodologically, stylistically, and in terms of content. Think of Paul Gauguin in Tahiti, Henri Matisse in North Africa or Somerset Maugham in India. At the same time, culture has always played a role in the experiences of tourists, whether they are exploring a pyramid, observing a demonstration of traditional crafts, seeing a Broadway show, or visiting the Louvre.

A more recent phenomenon is the deliberate production and deployment of culture in the attraction of tourists. This happens both in high culture venues, such as the Guggenheim and Hermitage galleries in Las Vegas, and in popular culture settings, such as the dramatic reenactments of historical events. Chicago has marketed its identity in part through the acquisition of high profile public sculpture, from Alexander Calder’s flamingo to Anish Kapoor’s “bean”.

Culture often provides the pretense or alibi for travel, the serious element of an otherwise frivolous pursuit, but sometimes tourist interest is what keeps traditional cultural forms alive where local cultures cannot. A symbiotic relationship between culture and tourism can be studied in the case of Bali where a new dance “ritual” was developed for anthropologists but sustained and performed with other “traditional” forms.

Tourists also access unfamiliar cultures by buying cultural artifacts. Some “souvenirs” are deliberately produced for tourists and, increasingly there are development efforts that teach crafts skills to impoverished populations as a way of providing economic opportunities. Others souvenirs are adapted from traditional forms, as was the case in Afghanistan, where, following the 2001 invasion, traditional rugmakers began to weave new rugs with war related themes including the attacks on the twin towers to market to military personnel. Other souvenirs are gathered from surrounding (or distant) cultures to create a destination marketplace, as in the case of cruise ships’ ports of call.

The practice of tourism is itself a form of culture that merits our consideration. In industrial nations, tourism itself is the subject of many works of art, including films, novels, and paintings and depictions of tourists can also be found in traditional art forms (murals or theater for example) in many parts of the developing world. While the emerging field of tourism studies has given a great deal of attention to the economic dimensions of tourism, only recently has there begun to a cultural approach to understanding the affective dimensions of tourism.

Books such as Dean MacCannell’s classic The Tourist look at the behavior of tourists as a mode of culture production while Barbara Kirschenblatt Gimlet’s Destination Culture looks as the mobilization of collection and exhibition practices in the performance of tourism. We will read some of the “canonical texts” that have broadly defined the field of tourism studies and look at more recent or more niche-based tourisms: eco- and good samaritan tourism, medical and adoption tourism, military and colonial tourism, toxic and dark tourism. We’ll look at art works made for sale to tourists, art works that represent tourists and art works that derive from the experiences tourists have. We’ll probably make a field trip to a regional tourist destination, screen a film or two that narratively represent tourist culture, and host guest speakers with expertise in the field of tourism studies. Student projects will involve representing and critical analyzing existing tourist cultures, developing creative works derived from tourist experiences, and envisioning new paradigms for the production of tourist culture.

This course should be of interest to graduate students who want to think about how to use their travel experiences as source material for their creative work, students who want to think about the role culture plays in marketing, students who want to look at the practices of tourism from a critical perspective. The course will draw students in Art, Design Studies, Theatre, Anthropology, Art History, Visual Culture, Political Science, and Business as well as those in area studies whose work engages specific regional tourist cultures.