Travel and dislocation between old borders and new frontiers

Abstract

This essay is conceived as an introduction to Travel and Trespassing, a volume dedicated to the themes of travel, the border and, trespassing - the act that transcends it. Trespassing is understood as both an intellectual and physical practice for affirming of freedom. The first paragraph of the essay, Ambivalences and Shadow Lines, defines the concepts of journey, frontier and border through a comparative perspective. It also sets out to explore the wider tensions and dissonances that run through this semantic field. Through a subsequent commentary on a passage from Cormac McCarthy's novel The Crossing, there is the opportunity to reflect on recurring themes, such as wandering, encountering the other, and hospitality. The second section, The Frontiers of Travel, engages with a sociological perspective on the multiplication of borders – which gives more emphasis on them as devices that materialise through the media and the imagery they nurture - and the consequences they have on people. The last part of the essay, entitled Crossing the Boundary between Media, Genres and Disciplines, introduces the volume with a brief survey of travel literature and the constellations of knowledge and languages that concern it. In conclusion, the essays that make up the volume are summarized, as well as the thematic and interdisciplinary relations that exist between the sections of the volume and of the journal are highlighted.