In her well-known poem “Questions of Travel,” Elizabeth Bishop wonders about the value of physical travel as opposed to one undertaken only in the imagination. This is a question equally popular among writers and travelers. Is physical travelling, as Emerson put it, a "fool's paradise"? Is it chiefly motivated by a desire to escape the confinements of one's self, or does it allow for acquiring genuinely new experiences and knowledge? Does it constitute an opportunity for an encounter with the Other, or does it serve as a vehicle for imposing one's own categories on the people and places one sees?
Questions of Travel: Journey in North American Literature and Culture is the seventh conference organized by the United Students Society, an extracurricular reading group under the auspices of the Department of American Literature, University of Łódź. It seeks to investigate all aspects of travel (physical as well as metaphorical) in North American literature and culture.
We invite undergraduate and graduate students (including doctoral candidates) to submit abstracts on subjects related to US American and Canadian literature and culture that include, but are not limited to, the following:

- America in the eyes of travelers
- American travelers abroad
- Trip, journey, pilgrimage – different facets of travel
- Travels through time and/or space
- Inner travels
- Travel as a vehicle for personal growth

Please send an abstract of 150-200 words to the following address: travel.uss2018@gmail.com. The deadline for submissions is February 15, 2018.

There is no conference fee.