THE PRIVILEGED CASE OF TRAVEL WRITING: TRAVEL BOOKS AND TRAVEL BLOGS BETWEEN PERFORMATIVE AND POSSESSIVE KNOWLEDGE

Résumé En

As a genre that embeds an intrinsic "pretension to truth", travel writing is a privileged case study for exploring the epistemological force proper to its narrative form. In order to do that, however, it is necessary to find a term of comparison. This is why the analysis provided here compares two western-authored contemporary travel books (one in English and one in French) and two western-authored travel blogs (one in English and one in French) about China. Put differently, travel books and travel blogs are considered as two "intermedial transpositions" which realize the same generic features. Supporting Carolyne Miller's (1984) claim, according to which a definition of genre should tell us, not only what the common features of a given corpus of texts are, but also how these texts create and convey their meaning, it is contended that the medium plays a crucial role in the definition of any genre and, in the case of travel writing, in the kind of epistemology unfolded by its narrative. More specifically, the analysis shows that when it comes to know something more about China and its people, travel books tend to provide a performative epistemology, that is, an epistemology that is in motion and shapes its own horizon of legitimacy, while travel blogs are more likely to offer a "possessive" knowledge, in line with Theodor Adorno's view of the objectification of knowledge by the media.