Page - 12 - in >mcs_lab> - Mobile Culture Studies, Volume 2/2020

12 Mobile Culture Studies. The Journal 6 2o20 (Travel) Birgit Englert, Sandra Vlasta | Travel Writing The interplay between text and the visual in travel writing Although the field of travel writing studies has thus far given precedence to the visual over other senses (though the latter have started to receive attention in recent research; see Pettinger and Youngs 2019), we believe that the relation between text and the visual in travel writing is still under-researched and in need of attention. In general, there seems to be a growing awareness of the hitherto paltry research on the relation between text and the visual, as recent dedicated calls for papers and conferences show.5 With regard to travel writing, standard introductions to the field usually refer to visual aspects of the texts, although dedicated studies of visual ele- ments and their function in travelogues are rare (for a recent exception, see Alù and Hill 2018). As the contributions to this special issue show, however, the visual is not a mere illustration of the text in travel writing; it has particular functions that vary from travelogue to travelogue. Furthermore, the text and the visual are closely related and must therefore be analysed together, taking into account the ways in which they refer to each other. With this special issue, we want to shed light on some of these questions and thus to contribute to a growing area of research. Narratives about travel take different forms. In this special issue, we bring together con- tributions that focus on printed forms of travel writing that have generally also been edited — such as classic travelogues, graphic novels, and illustrated books — and analyses of alternative forms of travel narratives, such as contemporary travel diaries, which are often published in the form of blogs. These are usually available instantaneously to a broad readership and are generally self-published. These examples also illustrate the broad time frame of this issue, which spans the late seventeenth century up to the present. We rely on a comprehensive understanding of the ‘text’ and the ‘visual’; our focus is the interplay between what is verbally formulated (text) and visually presented (e.g. sketches, dra- wings, images, maps, photos, films, etc.) in travel writing. These two elements can clearly also overlap, for example in the form of ekphrasis or of texts that are inscribed within images, as in comics and graphic novels. The visual presentations in the travelogues thus range from (mobile) motifs in texts (Winkler), to copper engravings (Vlasta), sketches (Englert), and comics (Thom- sen), to photographs (Helm, Riggert, Waller), films (Sennefelder, De Almeida/Müller/Wim- plinger), and computer-generated maps (Unterpertinger), and ultimately to intermedial formats such as zines (Kapp) and tableaus (De Almeida/Müller/Wimplinger). The contributors to this issue come from different disciplines, including African studies, comparative literature, French and Italian studies, German studies, and film studies. They use different approaches in their analyses; some have a background in travel writing studies, while others are more rooted in mobility studies or in media studies. This crossover makes this special issue a transdisciplinary one, which is further supported by the fact that most of the contri- butions are indeed working in a transdisciplinary way; that is, in most cases the authors have combined approaches and frameworks from different disciplinary backgrounds. We believe that the broad range of these contributions sheds new light on the very diverse and (more often 5 For instance, at their next congress in 2021, the Société d’études anglo-américaines des XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles (The Society of Anglo-American Studies of the 17th and 18th Centuries) will deal with ‘Maps and Mapping in English-speaking Countries in the 17th and 18th Centuries’. The Deutsche Gesellschaft für die Erforschung des 18. Jahrhunderts (German Society for Research on the 18th Century) dedicated its annual conference in 2020 to the topic of ‘Pictures of Enlightenment’. Finally, the British PERLEGO network dedicated its inaugural (digital) conference in October 2020 to ‘Critical Perspectives on Image and Text’.