In the Dutch Center for Travel Writing Studies, LUCAS researchers from different disciplines work together on travel writing. By travel writing we mean the documents in which travel is reported, whether it concerns letters, literature, non-fiction, blogs, documentaries or other texts. Research into (historical) travel literature and other forms of travel writing provides insight into the historical interaction with other cultures and the dissemination of ideas, art forms and material objects. This insight is important for current issues surrounding cultural / national identity, cultural contact and globalization, migration, exile and diaspora, which various researchers within LUCAS are involved with.

One of the aims of the center would be to bring together researchers involved in travel writing in a social structure: a website with each other's research profiles, announcements of activities, symposiums, lectures, and the like. A second goal is to jointly generate research output and to provide a medium for it by means of a series or volumes with Leiden University Press, in which Dutch research can be made visible to the international public. In the third place, the center will stimulate the valorisation of research into travel writing. It actively seeks contact with external (scientific and social) partners, initially by collaborating with various local initiatives: Leiden Global, KITLV / Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies, the Werkgroep Indo-Dutch Literature, museums, with publishers (Atlas Contact, Fosfor), travel writers, the Letterenfonds, Maatschappij der Nederlandse Letterkunde, (local) bookstores, libraries, travel agencies, et cetera.

• colonialism
• globalisation
• historicising art and literature
• interculturality
• mobility, globalisation, and interculturality
• postcolonialism
• travel writing