Women at Sea: Travel Writing and the Margins of Caribbean Discourse emphasizes the importance of women’s travel narratives, once regarded as superficial in comparison with men’s travelogues, as essential documentary sources for understanding the society and transculturation of the Caribbean. The collection of essays in this anthology addresses two questions rarely posed in the growing academic research on travel writing, gender, and colonialism. First, how can an analysis of the exploration of women’s travel and travel writing be broadened to include those who traveled on the socioeconomic perimeter of colonial societies? Second, what form do these travelers and their chronicles resemble? The contributors answer these inquiries through their critical examination of female travelers who were uneducated, enslaved, or maniacal, and whose presence and/or published works have therefore remained on the periphery of Latin American travel literature.
The contributions are arranged in chronological order, beginning with European colonialism and ending with...
