Perceptions of the Other in Travelogues 1500-1875 - A Computerized Analysis

游记是历史研究的一个非常重要的来源。它们提供了关于地区、文化和宗教的信息，但也使人们能够洞察作者的文化自我概念。然而，旅行者的背景、旅行的目的以及预期的受众都有很大的不同。这使得来源很难接触，因此到目前为止，单一的文本主导了科学兴趣。这个项目通过引入新的数字技术来解决这个问题。来自历史、计算机科学和图书历史的奥地利和德国研究人员合作，分析了从1500年到1875年期间的数千本游记的数字化集合。我们特别关注关于东方的游记如何表达差异性，以及它是如何随着时间的推移而变化的。这不是一个纯粹的历史问题。由于全球大众旅游、消费文化国际化、跨国移民和全球化等进程，我们每个人都不断面临着差异性。通过批判性地探讨游记中他者的历史层面，有可能提高更多的认识，这将有助于产生关于现在和未来的历史背景知识和方向。

Travelogues are a highly important source for historical research. They provide information about regions, cultures and religions but also enable insights into the authors’ cultural self-conceptions. However, the backgrounds of travelers, the aim of their journeys as well as the intended audiences vary considerably. This makes the source rather difficult to engage with and therefore single texts dominated the scientific interest so far. This project approaches this problem by introducing novel digital techniques. Austrian and German researchers from History, Computer Science and Book History collaborate together to analyze a digitized collection of several thousand travelogues, covering the period from 1500 until 1875. We specifically focus on how otherness was expressed in travelogues about the Orient and how it changed over time. This is not a purely historical issue. Every one of us is constantly confronted with otherness due to processes such as global mass tourism, the internationalization of consumer culture, transnational migration and globalization. By critically engaging with the historic dimension of otherness within travelogues, it is possible to raise more awareness and it will help to generate historic contextual knowledge and orientation for the present and future.