The Importance of Elsewhere: The Globalist Humanist Tourist

by Randy Malamud

Why do we travel? What are we doing—and what do we imagine we are doing—when we leave the house, get on a plane, and thereby step into globalism? The Importance of Elsewhere is a collection of essays, rooted in Randy Malamud’s own lifetime of travel, that addresses those questions and more. Setting today’s tourism in the context of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century experiences of travel and travel writing, he uncovers motives and appreciations of movement, difference, and novelty that are deeply woven into the imperial enterprise—and that remain key drivers of our interest in and enjoyment of travel today. Marrying concrete case studies and lively personal anecdotes, The Importance of Elsewhere will be of interest to any global traveler who has ever stopped to wonder what it is that draws her to faraway places.

240 pages, Paperback

Published May 15, 2018

About the author

Randy Malamud is an American literary scholar, cultural critic, and Regents' Professor Emeritus of English at Georgia State University. He earned his Ph.D. from Columbia University and specializes in modern literature, ecocriticism, cultural studies, and human-animal relations. His scholarship explores the intersections of literature, ethics, visual culture, travel, and environmental thought. Malamud is the author of numerous influential books, including Reading Zoos, Poetic Animals and Animal Souls, An Introduction to Animals and Visual Culture, The Importance of Elsewhere, Email, Strange Bright Blooms, and CRASH! Aviation Disasters and the Cultural Debris Fields. Earlier in his career, he also published several studies on T.S. Eliot and modernist literature. In addition to his books, he has edited scholarly collections and written extensively for newspapers, magazines, and academic publications. His work has appeared in outlets such as The Atlantic, Salon, The New York Times, and Chronicle of Higher Education. Through his wide-ranging writing, Malamud examines how culture shapes human relationships with animals, nature, travel, and technology.