McKinley, Kathryn LJones, Corbin Christopher2021-09-012021-09-012020-01-2012152http://hdl.handle.net/11603/22782In the medieval travel narrative genre, autography and protoethnography relate to the conception of the self. Medieval writers from Western European and Islamic cultures all use description and definition of the exotic as a means by which they establish themselves and their own cultures as rhetorical conceptions. Travel writing connects the concepts of self and other by serving as both a representation of contact zones and as a contact zone in itself. By analyzing notable travel narratives, including the Book of Marvels and Travels, a 14th century text written about a pilgrimage to the East and ibn Battuta'sRihla narrative describing his journeys around the Islamic world of the same century, it is possible to understand how premodern travel writing contributes to the rhetoric of the self as narrative construction, and how the self contributes to the rhetoric of the foreigner as Other.application:pdfText