When the Queen Mary 2 completes her transatlantic crossing in Hamburg in the early hours of the morning, the liner is regularly greeted by a large number of people. The tourists on deck waving back at a mainly unknown crowd at five o'clock in the morning stimulate a net of associations of the experience of the Atlantic: Both parties, those on the ship and those on shore have gotten up early to participate in this event. The event itself is part of a so-called growth industry – cruises are an expanding branch in the tourism sector. Cruises influence city planners and have big impacts on the ecological systems and the societies they stop by. Tourists encounter some of these relations, these different Atlantics, in the pursuit of their own dreams of crossing the Atlantic. These Atlantics facilitate their aspirations or are obstacles to them in that tourists encounter sea-sickness on the stormy ocean or financial or social barriers to the luxurious Atlantic which prevent them from going on a cruise at all. These tourist experiences connected to cruise liners are one example of engagements with the Atlantic.
The collection of articles seeks to explore the wide range of issues around tourists' experiences of different Atlantics and how tourists dealt with these Atlantics in the historical period of the 20th century. It was in the 20th century that numbers of leisure and business travellers crossing the Atlantic increased substantially. This increase underlines continuities since the 19th century of the Atlantic being a space to be crossed, a space which facilitated and restricted exchanges of various kinds. Yet, the relation between pleasure or leisure and the Atlantic remains to be explored. Tying in with the emerging research in the history of tourism this exploration of tourists' experiences and ways of dealing with the Atlantics will contribute to an understanding of the societies on the shores of the Atlantic these tourists came from and went to.
The collection focuses on tourists' experiences of the Atlantic in the 20th century. It seeks to include not only the North Atlantic but the South Atlantic as well. The collection's histories will not only centre on people and their pleasurable travels on or to the Atlantic but also enable us to understand how these travels are related to the complex movement of ideas and things and the barriers to such movements. These barriers, which for example prevented people from crossing the Atlantic, and the ways these people dealt with such barriers should be part of contributions to the collection.
Especially young researchers working on pleasure travels across the Atlantic in the 20th century are encouraged to contribute to this collection. Contributions could include for example analysis on the Atlantic in relation to:
- tourists' experiences of physically crossing the Atlantic
- tourists' things and practices which they related to the Atlantic
- imaginations of the Atlantic or of the respective other side and related efforts to reach it
The disciplinary focuses possible to address these issues range from history, to ethnography and geography to literature.
All contributions are going to be in English and the book is going to be published by the publishing house Lit-Verlag. Professor Dr. Claudia Schnurmann, University of Hamburg, edits the series. Editors of the collection are Birgit Braasch and Claudia Andrea Müller.
Please send a 250 words abstract and a preliminary title until the 30 September 2011 to tourist.atlantics@googlemail.com. After a first selection the editors will be in contact with you about the next steps.