Photo: Dave Smith (Hughes Overland travellers at Cappadocia)
The Nottingham Travel Cultures Network invites you to the second seminar of their 2015-16 programme, which addresses the theme of Counter Cultures of Travel from the Grand Tour to the Hippy Trail. This programme builds on the success of our series exploring the meaning of hospitality in the modern world. This second seminar is delivered by distinguished travel writer, Rory Maclean and is entitled: Magic Bus: How the Hippie Trail Changed the World.
Rory MacLean is one of Britain's most expressive and adventurous travel writers. His ten books include the UK best-sellers Stalin's Nose, Under the Dragon and most recently Berlin: Imagine a City, 'the most extraordinary work of history I've ever read' according to the Washington Post which named it a Book of the Year. In his illustrated talk on his book Magic Bus, the definitive story of the Asia Overland 'hippie' trail, he will explore how that journey shaped the counter-culture and subsequently mainstream culture and contemporary politics. Further details on the speaker are available here: www.rorymaclean.com
Abstract: In the 1960s and 1970s hundreds of thousands of Western kids, in flares and open-toe sandals, crossed Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan to India in search of adventure, free love, cheap dope – and enlightenment. Inspired by Kerouac, Ginsberg and the Beatles, these intrepid pioneers rejected capitalism and even Christianity to reach for something older, more complete and serene. Aboard ancient Austins, retired Royal Mail vans, rainbow-coloured double-deckers and war-surplus Bedford lorries, theirs was the weirdest procession of unroadworthy vehicles ever to roll and rock across the face of the earth … and the greatest journey of the age, unleashing forces which changed forever the way we travel – and view -- the world.
The Travel Cultures Network continues to build on collaborations which began in 2009 with the Travel Writing Reading Group (Jean-Xavier Ridon, CLAS) and led in 2012 to the cross-disciplinary AHRC Networking grant “Re-enacting the Silk Road” (Prof Mike Heffernan, Geography and Ridon). The Travel Cultures Network (TCN) has subsequently expanded to incorporate representation from the Business School (Scott McCabe) and the School of History (Andrew Cobbing). The TCN offers a space for exchange and reflection on questions concerning cultures and practices of travel and encourages opportunities for interdisciplinary research collaboration between academics, professionals from the creative and tourist industries, travel writing and journalism, photography and the visual arts.