Saturday, October 10, 2020

Antillean crested hummingbird: UC Berkeley's TSWG - Shayan Lallani - "Caribbean Cultural Encounters in Early-to-Mid-Twentieth Century Cruise Ship Tourism" - 9 Oct 2020 * * Semester at Sea food menus (where Semester at Sea begins in 1963)? * * Modernity, Postmodernity, Internetity, regarding history and social theory too?

 

Shayan S. Lallani 

"Caribbean Cultural Encounters in Early-to-Mid-Twentieth Century Cruise Ship Tourism"

UC Berkeley TSWG 

9 Oct 2020


The Tourism Studies Working Group

is pleased to present


"Caribbean Cultural Encounters 

in Early-to-Mid-Twentieth Century Cruise Ship Tourism"

http://campaign.r20.constantcontact.com/render?m=1103050552852&ca=eb4bebf8-77e1-472c-bc5e-d1d6f2e4e07e


*

Thanks, Shayan, for your edifying UC Berkeley TSWG talk. Am curious now about Semester at Sea food menus (since 1963), as well as Tall Ships' menus, & postmodern historical approaches to complement what I think of as your modernist approach to tourism food history, & re Tourism Studies' theory, and regarding:   

Gazing at the Box: Tourism in the Context of the Internet and Globalization (Internetity)

As a history of cruise ship menus, to the Caribbean, in a sense, and regarding a tourism studies’ approach vis-a-vis cruise passengers where ’tourism can be defined as visiting marked sites, often involving travel, or more specifically, following off site markers to onsite markers’ (a definition of tourism by Dean MacCannell), in what ways could postmodern approaches to history offer complementary analysis to what I think of as your modernist approach to history. (And in these regards, I'm exploring developing 'internetity' - a word, comparable with modernity and postmodernity, as conditions, I coined in a 2001 paper in Nelson Graburn's course - approaches to tourism history). (And also, for example, has Semester at Sea's cooks prepared menus of the food of the countries they are coming to next - in the Caribbeans - for college students on board?)


And here are my questions from the Zoom text chat:

"Did you come across, by any chance, menus from individual cruising boats with smaller parties than large cruise lines - eg sailing and power boats - that might offer helpful contrasts and comparisons re approaches to your interpretation of tourist mediation in the Caribbean (eg Bohemian type cruising in the 20th century, hippy Greenpeace type sailing craft in the 1960s and 1970s - who may have also lived long-term in the Caribbean)?"  

"Thank you, Shayan, for your interesting talk! (Am wondering further regarding my above questions, is the role of other kinds of cruise ship menus from ships which are schools - e.g. some Tall Ships - and with an educational mission, or Semester at Sea, or even historical reenactments (if these exist) … re teaching the mediation of touristic cultural encounters  - and even as critical approaches to large cruise lines? (e.g. 'alternative cruising’ with paying passengers). (And in what ways, regarding my own research, could one reconstruct such large cruise line experiences in virtual reality eg here - https://twitter.com/hashtag/RealisticVirtualEarthForOceans?src=hashtag_click ?) Thanks. (And following on Nelson's question, what role, for example, might rum play on the menu of such alternative ships - and similar - re mediating cultural encounters even?)"


Here are the 2 current Tourism Studies' wiki subject pages for open teaching and learning (not yet in the ~200 countries in the world's main languages)


... and not yet with CC-4 MIT OpenCourseWare for credit for WUaS's online students.

Thanks again for your edifying talk, Shayan! 

Regards, Scott 



I found too these Tall Ships' cruises (but which aren't historical enactments) - 



Searched on too: 
'Tall Ships' cruises which are historical reenactments'
and found this from Australia (which ship was made in The Netherlands) -
(don't know about the menus on them:)


* * * 




(Oxford Ph.D. student Zhan Huang, online too:

https://www.anthro.ox.ac.uk/people/zhan-huang







-- 
- Scott MacLeod - Founder, President & Professor

- World University and School

- 415 480 4577

- CC World University and School - like CC Wikipedia with best STEM-centric CC OpenCourseWare - incorporated as a nonprofit university and school in California, and is a U.S. 501 (c) (3) tax-exempt educational organization. 


*

Dear Scott,


Thank you for touching base! I remember your questions well; they were thoughtful and engaging, and I appreciate you bringing those to our attention yesterday. Certainly, I think it contributed to the learning experience for everyone, including myself! Additionally, I appreciate you appending your article. I shall read it with pleasure. I'm also appending here an article you might enjoy, which takes on cruise ship dining in the context of globalization; it's sociological in its analysis, limited largely to the 21st century.

I mentioned, indeed, that I would mention some sources that may contain the types of menus you're after. The first place I would look is New York Public Library's "What's on the Menu?" page. There are thousands upon thousands of historical menus there, including hundreds for cruises: http://menus.nypl.org/menus. I've also had luck at the Culinary Institute of America Special Collections & Archives, as well as at various museums dedicated to steamships and cruise ship tourism. For instance, the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts, as well as the South Street Seaport Museum in New York City, are just two such museums where I've found historical cruise menus.

Regarding your question about speciality cruise menus, I would start by searching for the best cruises for a particular subject. "Best cruises for vegans/jazz music/gourmet cuisine." You'll probably get some extremely select and niche cruise lines that many haven't heard of, but these themed cruises are becoming increasingly popular; they have been since the 1990s as a way for the differentiation of the cruise product. Thereafter, I would go out to the websites for those lines and find menus. If they're not there, you might contact companies and ask them to send you photographs of their menus (Carnival did this for me, and I imagine any cruise line would have copies of its menus for interested clientele).

I hope this answers your questions, Scott. I look forward to keeping in touch!

Best,
Shayan


_____
Shayan Lallani
Ph.D. Candidate
Department of History
University of Ottawa

*

Dear Shayan, 

Thank you for your email, and the menu resource. What an interesting abundant evidence focus for your historical explorations. I don't see however the appended paper you mention. And here are some further theoretical questions:

How would you describe your theoretical orientation in terms of your historiography? And if in Tourism Studies, your historical theses are theoretically potentially Dean MacCannell-informed, - https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13032917.2015.1063283 - I'm curious how they might also become John Urry informed eg re
https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Tourist_Gaze.html?id=-t9-AAAAMAAJ as a leading Tourism Studies' thinker regarding postmodernity (potentially in contrast to Dean MacCannell). (Please check out my "Gazing at the Box: Tourism ... " paper especially in these regards - http://scottmacleod.com/anth250v.htm - and regarding advertising discourse too, as an aspect of Tourism Studies' theorizing - and newly and exploratorily  regarding the discipline of history). And theoretically could new approaches emerge in historiography which would be 'internetity' informed ? This is a new theoretical opportunity to write about - and in the academic disciplines, Tourism Studies-wise, of history, as well as Anthropology, for example. 

Thanks for the menus' link!

Having traveled on Semester at Sea twice (and my father was the academic dean on the first voyage in 1999), I might be able to put you in contact with sources for historical menus from SAS if interested. 

Best, Scott

PS
Here's a developing blog post about some of this - 


PPS
Here's one take on

'Post-Modernism & Historiography in the 20th Century'
...but not in the 21st century! :)


PPPS
#RealisticVirtualEarthForHistory
You'll find in the first link here the beginnings of the realistic virtual earth I have in mind (and walk - travel - down the road 4 miles to Middletown, CA, and amble around the streets there to check it out (since one can't yet go into virtual Harbin Hot Springs yet; Harbin is my actual-virtual ethnographic field site, and for theorizing internetity too ... )


*

Dear Scott, 


Thank you for these resources! 

To answer your question, I engage with both MacCannell and Urry. My argument inherently incorporates the concept of authenticity - the touristic search for thus, as well as how corporations have advertised authentic cultural encounters. At the same time, how is that concept filtered through actors like corporations, local government authorities, and inhabitants themselves? I take a postcolonial approach too, for instance the racial divisions of labor on the ship as well as colonial representations in Caribbean cruise advertisements, especially at the discursive level - ideas around cleanliness and sanitized cultural encounters. 

I look forward to reading your paper, as well as the sources you've appended. As for the article, my apologies. I forgot to attach it. Please find it herewith. 

Best,

Shayan
_____
Shayan Lallani
Ph.D. Candidate
Department of History
University of Ottawa


* *

notes:

Cunard Line's Queen Elizabeth, 1950s. 

Courtesy of the University of Liverpool, Cunard Archive. © 2017 Cunard.



Shayan Lallani, PhD Candidate

History, University of Ottawa

 

Friday, October 9, 4PM-6PM PDT

Zoom Link [click here]


Abstract: 

Cruises were a means for wealthy Americans to encounter Caribbean societies in mediated ways. The ship, though traversing foreign waters, remained a luxurious and thus familiar atmosphere, complete with many home comforts and rendered an elite experience through the French-influenced fare on offer. Yet, cruise ship tourists also explored Caribbean ports of call wherein contact with sociocultural Others was much more conspicuous. This paper uses cruise menus to explore how the ship was rendered a luxurious space, as well as cruise travel guides and accounts to study how cruise passengers were asked to view foreign societies before their voyages, and how they encountered those cultures once they debarked the ship. It explores how cruise tourists toured foreign lands in ways that were ultimately sanitized. The familiarization of Caribbean cultures was accomplished by augmenting references to exoticism with references to American or European cultures, and especially through colonial symbolism. Thus, an otherwise foreign experience was rendered safe and palatable for American cruise tourists. 



Speaker Bio: 

Shayan Lallani is a PhD candidate in History at the University of Ottawa. His research explores how mass-market cruise lines in the American market produced cultural encounters through dining experiences in the late twentieth century. His articles have appeared in Food, Culture & Society, and the Journal of Tourism History. 




* * 

Shayan Lallani

AttachmentsSun, Oct 11, 10:04 AM (1 day ago)
to me
Dear Scott, 

Thank you for these resources! 

To answer your question, I engage with both MacCannell and Urry. My argument inherently incorporates the concept of authenticity - the touristic search for thus, as well as how corporations have advertised authentic cultural encounters. At the same time, how is that concept filtered through actors like corporations, local government authorities, and inhabitants themselves? I take a postcolonial approach too, for instance the racial divisions of labor on the ship as well as colonial representations in Caribbean cruise advertisements, especially at the discursive level - ideas around cleanliness and sanitized cultural encounters. 

I look forward to reading your paper, as well as the sources you've appended. As for the article, my apologies. I forgot to attach it. Please find it herewith. 

Best,
Shayan
_____
Shayan Lallani
Ph.D. Candidate
Department of History
University of Ottawa



*

Monday, October 12, 2020


Scott MacLeod sgkmacleod@worlduniversityandschool.org

11:23 AM (1 hour ago)
to Shayan
Thanks, Shayan, 

Thanks for sharing your 'theoretical arguments' with me. As a Castellian (Manuel Castells - sociology of the internet) - and an anthropologist of actual-virtual Harbin Hot Springs since the 1960s (which has a restaurant and menus, but is not a cruise ship) - all regarding social science theory (of which Castells has been compared with both Max Weber and Karl Marx) - I think I seek some clarifications in your Routledge paper's argument:

Shayan argues "that while companies target a growing demand for culturally immersive dining experiences, they do not seek to offer complete immersion in any one culture but cosmopolitanism through a combination of multiple themed establishments on a mobile platform."

Do you mean something like the following?:
Shayan argues "that while companies target [marketing to paying customers with] a growing demand for culturally immersive [onboard pre-globalization identity-authentic eating experience eg. Jamaican, Barbados, etc. ... which from your TSWG talk could be/was some idea of French cuisine, at least in the past] dining experiences, they do not seek to offer complete immersion [eg onboard increasingly-authentic Jamaican restaurants, in MacCannell modernity sense, that one might find in Jamaica?] in any one culture but [hybrid cultural meanings regarding] cosmopolitanism [communication processes 'including or containing people from many different countries'] through a combination of multiple themed establishments [e.g. Jamaican, Barbadian - or newly Caribbean Cruise Line cuisine, as a pastiche of foods] on a mobile platform [cruise ships]."


If so, I come to a sentence from my paper, theoretically, regarding your paper: 

"Thurot and Thurot argue that MacCannell “told his readers about a society which had virtually disappeared.”7 Thurot and Thurot might argue that tourism doesn’t reflect the alienation of modernity, but rather reflects people who are trying to follow a particular lifestyle, important to their own culture.8"

(and not a new definition of internet 'authenticity' - eg seeing/engaging in bodymind paintings in the Louvre museum in person, vs. seeing them on the internet in a virtual Louvre in a myriad of new ways).

Best, 
Scott




* 







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