This article studies the account of travels in Palestine by one of the most controversial travel ... more This article studies the account of travels in Palestine by one of the most controversial travel writers in early nineteenth century Britain, James Silk Buckingham, whose life, career, and writings sparked a political storm. Buckingham criticised British imperial and missionary activities in the East through his journalism and travel books which reached large audiences. He was the first writer in nineteenth century Britain to use a travel narrative about Palestine as a medium to develop and express liberal, anti-colonial attitudes at a time when Britain's imperial stock in the Middle East was on the rise. While in Palestine, Buckingham uncovered evidence that confirmed and justified his liberal views. He exposed the hypocrisy of missionary activities and undermined the rising calls in Britain for restoring the Jews. He did not call for possessing the land and reconstituting it anew; nor did he see it, as his countryman the Earl of Shaftesbury did, as an empty land needing the restoration of its original Jewish possessors. Yet the fact that he saw the land as a repository of religious fanaticism to which all religions contributed indicate his limited understanding of the diverse communities of Palestine. As this article shows, Palestine, in Buckingham's travelogue, constituted a test case, a laboratory for testing anti-colonial and liberal ideals rather than a land of invested identities and ways of life of equal worth to those in Europe.
In Jerusalem, many Christian, Muslim and Jewish pilgrims, European excavators, writers, local ped... more In Jerusalem, many Christian, Muslim and Jewish pilgrims, European excavators, writers, local peddlers, and Ottoman soldiers crossed paths despite the different purposes of their walks. This essay examines the travel accounts of three Britons who enjoyed walking in a city whose economic, social and religious life was, in part, sustained by pedestrianism. James Silk Buckingham, Robert Richardson and John Ashworth, toured Jerusalem on foot; and in so doing, they showed how walking was essential to the British modern experience, one fraught with tensions over the value of living in modern society shaped by the ethos of progress. Their encounters with traces of the Biblical and Muslim heritage of the Holy City gave rise in their travel accounts to opportunities to create in their writings cultural and discursive sites of truth production while struggling to maintain the autonomy of the self in a modern world dominated by de-personalising forces. 1 Walking for these three travellers was, as Frédéric Gros put it in his A Philosophy of Walking, "a gentle shock-free rolling of happy legs" which generates "a labyrinth of stories" in which "challenges arise and "their solutions are found". 2
This dissertation sets out to rethink, contextualise and historicise a commonplace notion in the ... more This dissertation sets out to rethink, contextualise and historicise a commonplace notion in the Scottish Enlightenment which poses nations and societies as either improving or primitive. The Scottish Enlightenment philosophers were the eighteenth-century pioneers in an intellectual project of improvement pointing the light emerging in Europe, particularly in Britain. The Act of Union with Scotland (1707) and the process of modernisation in the Highlands of Scotland allowed for rhetoric of improvement which called upon Scotland with its Highlands to join the great British modernising project. The Scots literati were aware that joining this project jeopardises older cultural habits and values and also brings corruption into society but the other option was nothing but the dilemma of living in premodern, less commercially advanced age, one which, as they thought, prevailed in Arabian deserts and Islamic societies. Their rhetoric of improvement was one of difference between an improvin...
In the wake of Edward Said's Orientalism, first published in 1978, scholars began rethinking ... more In the wake of Edward Said's Orientalism, first published in 1978, scholars began rethinking the intricacies attached to the topic of cross-cultural interaction between Europe and the Orient. Among scholars of European travel writing, this topic has always been contested. Mary Louise Pratt, like Said himself, preferred to argue that the interaction between Europe and its others has always been hegemonic. The proposition set forth here is that such an important topic needs to be rethought. In doing so, the author examines the travel narratives written by two Englishmen who looked east in the second half of the 18th century, John Carmichael and Abraham Parsons. These travellers moved across the Great Syrian Desert Route, which connects Syria with Mesopotamia. The imperial paradigm set forth by Said and Pratt does not work in studying the interactions between these two Englishmen and the Arab space across which they move, for these travellers did not show imperial gestures in their...
This article shows how some early-modern British travellers found in the idea of travelling among... more This article shows how some early-modern British travellers found in the idea of travelling among and writing about Arabs an opportunity to reflect on a changing society at home. In Enlightenment Britain, many philosophers and writers thought of economic achievements as the roadmap to civility, humanity and progress. Many conservative moralists and clergymen of the period, however, protested this ideology and associated excessive materialism with moral decline, but they were not the dominant force in society. British travel writings about Arabs during the period confirmed and unsettled this dominant discourse. In these accounts, the images of primitive and polite Arabs appeared as screens upon which British anxieties about improvement were projected. This paper concludes with the contention that British travel writers appeared more concerned about their own society than about those about whom they wrote.
This essay is about some eighteenth-century cross-cultural encounters between Europeans and Ottom... more This essay is about some eighteenth-century cross-cultural encounters between Europeans and Ottomans. It mainly shows how eighteenth-century British and European travels and travel writings about the Ottoman Levant revealed the notion of plurality in the field of Enlightenment medicine. In reporting their medical encounters with Ottoman culture, British and European travellers showed their fascination with Levantine medical practices and medicines. Similarly, local cultures in the Ottoman Levant appreciated European medical knowledge. In these encounters, as this essay argues, a circulation of knowledge between East and West re-settles and complicates narratives of European triumphalism, heroism and colonialism usually attached to eighteenth-century European scientific travels and writing travels about non-Europeans.
This article examines the travel accounts of some eighteenth-century British travelers to Aleppo.... more This article examines the travel accounts of some eighteenth-century British travelers to Aleppo. It shows how these travelers' identities were steeped in the world of others—in the entanglement with people from different cultures and religions—with no mention recalled in their diaries that Islam and Muslims were their enemies. As this article shows, these Britons posited Aleppo as a multi-cultural, multireligious city in which Europeans were not only men of riches and influence but also free to pursue their cultural and religious practices. This article concludes by emphasizing that British enlightenment practices—tolera-tion, improvement, and freedom—were pursued both within European grand cities such as Paris, Edinburgh, and London as well as in Aleppo.
This article studies the account of travels in Palestine by one of the most controversial travel ... more This article studies the account of travels in Palestine by one of the most controversial travel writers in early nineteenth century Britain, James Silk Buckingham, whose life, career, and writings sparked a political storm. Buckingham criticised British imperial and missionary activities in the East through his journalism and travel books which reached large audiences. He was the first writer in nineteenth century Britain to use a travel narrative about Palestine as a medium to develop and express liberal, anti-colonial attitudes at a time when Britain's imperial stock in the Middle East was on the rise. While in Palestine, Buckingham uncovered evidence that confirmed and justified his liberal views. He exposed the hypocrisy of missionary activities and undermined the rising calls in Britain for restoring the Jews. He did not call for possessing the land and reconstituting it anew; nor did he see it, as his countryman the Earl of Shaftesbury did, as an empty land needing the restoration of its original Jewish possessors. Yet the fact that he saw the land as a repository of religious fanaticism to which all religions contributed indicate his limited understanding of the diverse communities of Palestine. As this article shows, Palestine, in Buckingham's travelogue, constituted a test case, a laboratory for testing anti-colonial and liberal ideals rather than a land of invested identities and ways of life of equal worth to those in Europe.
In Jerusalem, many Christian, Muslim and Jewish pilgrims, European excavators, writers, local ped... more In Jerusalem, many Christian, Muslim and Jewish pilgrims, European excavators, writers, local peddlers, and Ottoman soldiers crossed paths despite the different purposes of their walks. This essay examines the travel accounts of three Britons who enjoyed walking in a city whose economic, social and religious life was, in part, sustained by pedestrianism. James Silk Buckingham, Robert Richardson and John Ashworth, toured Jerusalem on foot; and in so doing, they showed how walking was essential to the British modern experience, one fraught with tensions over the value of living in modern society shaped by the ethos of progress. Their encounters with traces of the Biblical and Muslim heritage of the Holy City gave rise in their travel accounts to opportunities to create in their writings cultural and discursive sites of truth production while struggling to maintain the autonomy of the self in a modern world dominated by de-personalising forces. 1 Walking for these three travellers was, as Frédéric Gros put it in his A Philosophy of Walking, "a gentle shock-free rolling of happy legs" which generates "a labyrinth of stories" in which "challenges arise and "their solutions are found". 2
This dissertation sets out to rethink, contextualise and historicise a commonplace notion in the ... more This dissertation sets out to rethink, contextualise and historicise a commonplace notion in the Scottish Enlightenment which poses nations and societies as either improving or primitive. The Scottish Enlightenment philosophers were the eighteenth-century pioneers in an intellectual project of improvement pointing the light emerging in Europe, particularly in Britain. The Act of Union with Scotland (1707) and the process of modernisation in the Highlands of Scotland allowed for rhetoric of improvement which called upon Scotland with its Highlands to join the great British modernising project. The Scots literati were aware that joining this project jeopardises older cultural habits and values and also brings corruption into society but the other option was nothing but the dilemma of living in premodern, less commercially advanced age, one which, as they thought, prevailed in Arabian deserts and Islamic societies. Their rhetoric of improvement was one of difference between an improvin...
In the wake of Edward Said's Orientalism, first published in 1978, scholars began rethinking ... more In the wake of Edward Said's Orientalism, first published in 1978, scholars began rethinking the intricacies attached to the topic of cross-cultural interaction between Europe and the Orient. Among scholars of European travel writing, this topic has always been contested. Mary Louise Pratt, like Said himself, preferred to argue that the interaction between Europe and its others has always been hegemonic. The proposition set forth here is that such an important topic needs to be rethought. In doing so, the author examines the travel narratives written by two Englishmen who looked east in the second half of the 18th century, John Carmichael and Abraham Parsons. These travellers moved across the Great Syrian Desert Route, which connects Syria with Mesopotamia. The imperial paradigm set forth by Said and Pratt does not work in studying the interactions between these two Englishmen and the Arab space across which they move, for these travellers did not show imperial gestures in their...
This article shows how some early-modern British travellers found in the idea of travelling among... more This article shows how some early-modern British travellers found in the idea of travelling among and writing about Arabs an opportunity to reflect on a changing society at home. In Enlightenment Britain, many philosophers and writers thought of economic achievements as the roadmap to civility, humanity and progress. Many conservative moralists and clergymen of the period, however, protested this ideology and associated excessive materialism with moral decline, but they were not the dominant force in society. British travel writings about Arabs during the period confirmed and unsettled this dominant discourse. In these accounts, the images of primitive and polite Arabs appeared as screens upon which British anxieties about improvement were projected. This paper concludes with the contention that British travel writers appeared more concerned about their own society than about those about whom they wrote.
This essay is about some eighteenth-century cross-cultural encounters between Europeans and Ottom... more This essay is about some eighteenth-century cross-cultural encounters between Europeans and Ottomans. It mainly shows how eighteenth-century British and European travels and travel writings about the Ottoman Levant revealed the notion of plurality in the field of Enlightenment medicine. In reporting their medical encounters with Ottoman culture, British and European travellers showed their fascination with Levantine medical practices and medicines. Similarly, local cultures in the Ottoman Levant appreciated European medical knowledge. In these encounters, as this essay argues, a circulation of knowledge between East and West re-settles and complicates narratives of European triumphalism, heroism and colonialism usually attached to eighteenth-century European scientific travels and writing travels about non-Europeans.
This article examines the travel accounts of some eighteenth-century British travelers to Aleppo.... more This article examines the travel accounts of some eighteenth-century British travelers to Aleppo. It shows how these travelers' identities were steeped in the world of others—in the entanglement with people from different cultures and religions—with no mention recalled in their diaries that Islam and Muslims were their enemies. As this article shows, these Britons posited Aleppo as a multi-cultural, multireligious city in which Europeans were not only men of riches and influence but also free to pursue their cultural and religious practices. This article concludes by emphasizing that British enlightenment practices—tolera-tion, improvement, and freedom—were pursued both within European grand cities such as Paris, Edinburgh, and London as well as in Aleppo.
Sakhnini's impressive and original study of late eighteenth-century British travelogues illuminat... more Sakhnini's impressive and original study of late eighteenth-century British travelogues illuminates both imperial history and Enlightenment ecology. Anxious to establish the fastest routes between England and India, intrepid agents of the East India Company charted itineraries between Aleppo and Basra, but, becoming fascinated by the Syrian desert and its inhabitants, projected agricultural improvements at every turn."-Gerald MacLean, Emeritus Professor, University of Exeter. "This is a study of unexpected enlightenment. Exploring land routes to India in the eighteenth century, Briton could find in the deserts of Syria and Mesopotamia spaces of civility and sociability. Rather than importing improvement to the desert, they were themselves improved.
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