 I'm your interim assistant dean for research and education services. University Libraries Graduate Research Series is a collaboration between libraries and graduate students and to offer opportunities to graduate students to practice their presentation skills, discuss the research process, and explain how they use library resources. Each semester, students are invited to submit their research for consideration and a panel of representational libraries and GSS select one or two projects for presentations. The selected students are also given a cash reward. That's nice, I'm sure. Yeah, so this morning's presenter, Aiman El Marbury, is a teacher and translator in addition to being a certified teacher-trainer at Arizona State University. Aiman also received a T-sol certification from Arizona State University, been a U.S. Ambassador Reload Mentor, as I said, okay, and full right foreign language teaching assistant at Einstein University. I'm assuming at the University of North Georgia, excuse me, skip the line. Aiman earned his BA in Czech Language and Literature from Einstein University. Aiman earned his second BA in English Language and Translation from Missouri University for Science and Technology. Currently, Aiman is pursuing his master's degree in applied linguistics here at Ohio University where he teaches Arabic and is writing his thesis on travel logs by most notably Ibnna Fadlan. El Marbury's research, Othering and Ideology in Travel Writing, analyzes Risala by Ahmad Ibnna Fadlan and Travels in Arabia by Bayard Taylor. The research aims to examine how two main concepts, Othering and Ideology, are linguistically manifested in both texts. The research begins with close readings of both texts to identify major content themes such as death, sex, food, clothes, etc. Alongside this content analysis of said themes, instances of sex impressions, sight, smell, sound, touch, and taste will also be recorded. Both the content themes and the sense impressions are analyzed for instantiations of Othering and Ideology. His research helps American students and researchers to see how the American travel writers saw the Arabs and vice versa. This will help to change the stereotypical image of Arabs in the American mindset created by the media. Please join me in welcoming Aiman to the Graduate Research Series. Thank you so much for the introduction. Let me start my presentation by the agenda. First, I'm going to talk about reasons for conducting this research and also notes on Othering and Ideology, and then the methodology, Ideology and Othering in Risala, Ideology and Othering in Travels in Arabia, and then the results, and finally, the library resource, and then I will open the floor for Q&A. So, reasons for conducting this research. There is much research that has been done or conducted on Orientalism, but there is actually this research on Occidentalism, which is how the Arabs see the other world, not how the other world sees the Arabs. So, my idea is that we are in the Middle East, someone coming in, a travel writer coming in, and someone going out of the Middle East. It's a kind of like a view of a stranger in a strange land. And when I mean a stranger here, I mean the travel writers, and the stranger land are Eastern Europe and the Middle East. It's a kind of like culture communication throughout different times, so we examine how culture communicated through different times. And this is going to help us like, in our current time, with all what we read on newspaper, social media, not to be misguided by ideologies or ideas that we might receive throughout the text that we read. So, I'm going to talk first about the classical travel writing, and through 2015, mentioned that there are differences between classical travel writing and modern travel writing. He said that the classical one focuses on the journey itself, more than the destination, since they lacked like the modern means of transportation that we have now, so they actually focus on the difficulties that they face throughout the journey, even more than the destinations. And also he said like, unlike the modern ones, they rely on descriptive accounts, because he lacked pictures, he lacked like, we use the stuff that we have now, so he lacked more on how to describe things. So the language itself is really rich in description. So they use a lot of adjectives, a lot of like, senses of impressions, and to deliver what they see to such a person. So some notes on ideology, and this is kind of like the definition of ideologies that I followed throughout my research when I conducted the analysis. Ideology is related to ideas, beliefs, and also opinions, and the relationship between these two things is straight forward. So which means that ideas and beliefs affect our opinions about things. And also the notion of ideology or the definition that I follow here is how the writers hold certain assumptions about the world and believes about the world that affect how they think or affect their linguistic choices by like, following healthy statements. And also, Bandy 2004 said that the writer tends to distance themselves from the other, and this distance that happens is actually based on limited knowledge about the other. So when we don't know about the other, we like tend to distance ourselves from them. And Gillespie 2007 states that the tendency to distance between the in-group, which in this case a travel writer and his group or their group, and the out-group, they come from the desire to protect ourselves or to protect itself. So othering is actually a technique for protection for the in-group. Also othering is a pragmatic act that conveys an ideology. So ideology affects othering, affects how we see the other, which is a message that may be intentionally, and this is what I'm going to mention in my research, which means that the travel writers, Ahmere Ibn-Fadman, intentionally, like his language was intentionally to distance himself from the other, and the other one, we are tailored unintentionally to distance himself from the other. Ideology also can exist on a larger level, like what we can use, our ideas about the economy or like big crisis in the world, and also it can be in everyday situations, communication between people. So this is what I'm looking at, and I'm going to write that interactive with people in everyday situations. So the two books that all the details are actually taken from is Risela by Ahmere Ibn-Fadlan and Travels in Arabia by B.R. Taylor. And for this one I used a book by Ibn-Han 1960, this is the Arabic text, and Ibn-Han has some comments on Risela, and I consulted two translations. The first one is by Friar 2000 and Thin and Macintin 1979. And for Travels in Arabia, I used Thomas Stevenson as an editor, like the version in 2000 and 30. So these are the two research questions that I tried to answer. The first one is how Ibn-Fadlan and Taylor's ideologies linguistically manifested in the text. And also how do Ibn-Fadlan and Taylor's linguistic choices represent the other? So the methodology is a qualitative research and also the analysis as well. And the main concern, as mentioned before, is how the concept of the ideology linguistically manifested in the text. So I had some content themes such as death, sex, food, clothes, habits, and religious practices. And also I looked at the senses of impressions such as sight, smell, sounds, touch, and taste. Because the first thing, even like with us, I wanted to introduce you to a new place. The first thing that actually attracts our attention are the smells, the tastes of the food, and so on. And these content themes and senses of impressions were analyzed for adhani and ideology, and adhani marked by the usage of pronouns and nouns and also actions. Before I start talking about the analysis, I'm going to introduce both writers. Ahmed Ibn-Fadlan, he's an Arab travel writer and explorer, he traveled to many different places such as Egypt, India, and China. And he was sent in this mission by Zafasit Khilif Al-Muqtada to help the Volga-Volgaar king. So he passed through parts of Asia, Eastern Europe, Scandinavian countries, Balkans, and Russia before heading back to Baghdad where he started his journey. He explored the habits, food, customs, and death, sex, and also the concept of purity. So here is the map of the roots that Ahmed Ibn-Fadlan followed. He started here from Baghdad down there, and I'm sorry, this is like in Arabic, I couldn't find the one in English. He started in Baghdad here, and he went all the way up to around Moscow so we can see Kiev and we can see Moscow and Qadan, and this is the Volga-Volgaar river and then he went back to Baghdad. So these dots actually are the uncertain roads that he took, but the one that has a line, this is actually the community road that he took. So also I need to talk a little bit about Zafasit Khilif, which is the Islamic empire that Ahmed Ibn-Fadlan started his journey during this time. And in the year 749, the Zafasit troops conquered the city of Kofa in Iraq and actually defeated the last Umayyad Khilif, Marouan II. So the Umayyad Khilifate was the Khilifate before the Abbasid. He defeated him in the famous Battle of Zaf and actually the Abbasid's Khilifate witness, like the Kevin Swain between Baghdad and Damascus during the time since 750 to 1570. Also the borders of the Khilifate, these are the borders if you can see here, it's spread from Spain to the southern part of nomadic parts of inner Asia and also the Islamic civilization it changes from being a Biduid tribal society to become more internationalized and multicultural and has multicultural dimensions. And then in the year 1285, the Mongols conquered Baghdad and the capital was actually after this move to Cairo with the hope to rebuild the Khilifate after this. And then the Malouk's army of Egypt was able to defeat the Mongols in the famous Battle of El-A'im and they're trying to rebuild the Khilifate from Egypt. But actually what older historians agreed about that the first three centuries of Zafasit where Ahmad ibn Fadlan started his journey were actually the golden age of the Islamic Empire. Baghdad and Samarra were the cultural and commercial capital of the Islamic world at this time and Khutri and the translation actually flourished during this time. So when Ahmad ibn Fadlan struggled to help the whole double god king he wrote his Resale in the year 922. And then there is a study that Bahi conducted in 276 and he concluded that Ahmad ibn Fadlan was honest about his narrative and he came to the conclusion that his worthy choice actually demonstrated objective integrity. And he gives these two examples that we have here. When he directly Ahmad ibn Fadlan witnessed something he used a verse like so or her. Like this example that we have here I saw that the Rahim of Khwarezm where he paced middle leg counterfeit and grass. So when he witnessed something by eyes he used active verse. But when he didn't he used the passive voice. Like this example that we have here I used to be told that at the time of death they do certain thing to their chest the least of which is burning. So ibn Fadlan's style proved that we can say that Ahmad ibn Fadlan can be trusted and also can be accurate about his narrative. And we will talk about this in my conclusion because I proved that Ahmad ibn Fadlan can't be 100% accurate as Bahi mentioned. So he used two types of comparisons the first one is implicit comparisons. And the implicit comparisons here means that the leader needs to have background knowledge of the culture in order to understand the comparison. Like this example that we have they have neither olive oil nor sesame oil nor cooking oil of any kind they use instead these oils fish. And everything that they use in it reeks of fish oil. And the words that he used Ahmad ibn Fadlan used in his text reeks which is Zafran in Arabic it gives a feeling of disgusting and undesirable taste. He could just say like it smells like fish but he used reeks to give like really disgusting and undesirable taste to the eaters. Also he used another type of comparison which is explicit comparisons. And these comparisons are like really dieted. And like he uses them to just do dynamic pictures to the eaters. So he said like I saw that you have apples of a very vivid green color and sourer than wine finger. Imagine an apple sourer than wine finger how is this like a taste? So some facts about Ahmad ibn Fadlan Ahmad ibn Fadlan when he lived this mission he was a religious man. So he was actually a religious man sent to lead the mission. And he also was among the elite the caliph Retinium. So he was rich. He came from like a rich sissy cultural background. And actually this affected the way how he perceived and judged the individuals that he made throughout the chart. So his ideology appears in his linguistic choices. Like this example that we have here. They are more over like stray asses and they are not bound to God like religion. So when he saw people that they are not believing or they don't believe in religion he describes them with negative nouns like stray asses because he disagreed about what they believe in. And also he used to comment with religious places to express objections of what he sees. Like the examples that we have here was sitting with a man and his wife and the wife uncovered her private parts and scratched them. And Ahmad ibn Fadlan like comment on that he said I seek forgiveness of God. So he used religious places to show objection of what he sees. So his linguistic choices I can try to summarize it in three things. Descriptive language which is adjectives and also nouns and pronouns. And we are going to look how he used these three things to other people and distant himself from the other. So he used negative adjectives to label the other such as wicked, dirty, audacious, ugly, shabby and mean. Like this example that we have here he described a man that he met and the next day we encounter the man ugly, countenance, shabby appearance, mean looks and despicable demeanor just as we overtake him by behavior. So you can see like the negative adjective to describe the other person. And also he used negative adjectives to label the others here. In this example that we have he had plucked out the whole of his beard and his moustaches and he looked like a mionic. So this is the Arabic text actually that's a very interesting translation because the Arabic text he used the word servants. And at this time all the servants were mionics because they were mainly assigned to serve women. So the translator here Macintan actually give a really good translation that delivers the meanings that Ibn Fadlan meant. So when Ibn Fadlan at this time sent servants he knows that the people would understand that he meant like a mionic. Also, Ahmad Ibn Fadlan used pronouns to listen himself from the other and Van Dieck in 1984 he called these are he called them demonstrated pronouns of distance. And he meant by this that that when the writers try to establish a contrast between the in group which are the others group or the out group. So he distant himself from the other group by emphasizing the differences between us who are more civilized and them who are less civilized. Like the example that we have we have here. I saw him find a louse in his clothing he crushed it between his finger nails and licked it. And then he said when he saw me good. So you can see like the usage of pronouns to distance and to show like the differences between his group who are civilized and the other group. And also the socio-cultural background and as I mentioned before he comes from like the elite like the caliph Retinio. So he used to like look people down because of like he wasn't used to what he's seen there. And actually in the hand about this and how it was like coming from a higher socio-cultural background and this would actually make him like dislike what he sees throughout his journey. So he said like when I used to come out of the public path and this is another point is that here's an example to show that I had a beer. Why this is important because it's going to mean the next coat. So he said like when I used to come out of the public path and enter my house I would look at my beer and find it have been frozen into a solid. This explains why he dislike people who shave their beers in the next coat. So he said they shave their beers and the E applies. So for him shaving the beer and eating was almost the same disgusting like most of them he didn't like. And then the last thing is the concept of purity, not the last thing but the only for the last. The concept of purity and also he evaluates people practices especially when it comes to hygiene according to his standard as we can see here in this description he uses some negative adjectives to describe the people and finally he said that they are like asses who have done this thing. And then also and this is one fact about him he like knowledge of any foreign language. So he hired interpreters throughout the journey to translate for him different languages. And this might be the reason that he actually observes the phonological sounds and associates them with the adjective like these two examples that we have here he said that their speech is like a clamor of a starling and about another group he said that their speech of all of things is most like the croc in the crocs. In our current time like more other when it comes to language is more about accents but even if at one it was about the phonological sounds of the languages. And then we move to B. R. Taylor which is the other books that I examined. R. Taylor is an American diplomat and journalist and writer. He travels to Europe Asia, especially China, Japan Africa, Egypt and Central Africa and then when he wrote this book travels in Arabia he travels to Yemen, Khadramout, Mecca, Medina, Oman and other places in the Middle East. He explores a billion life time, religious practices, traditions and cultures. But let's talk a little bit about the American society during this time when he started his journey. More on 2006 states that the US during the 1840s to the early 1860s witnessed significant growth in society, health and education. And also the travel writing at this time reached its peak actually of popularity in the 18th century. More than any other literary genre. And the reason for that it was actually the development of transportation and also communication, especially the telegraph which actually helped with the travel writers to travel to different places and to genre itself to progressions. But it was silent. He mentioned something about the Orientalist School went to the Middle East. Especially during the 19th and 20th century. He said that the area on Orientalist shaped the image of the Middle East in the European mindset and I mean like he means also the American mindset. Because he describes the Middle East as a kind of like mysterious place and also he focused on like the Arabian lights and how like women are sensual objects for male pleasure and so on. And he said that Edward in the 20th century used the same narrative of Orientalism that actually was before in the 19th century. So he thought it was the same thing. And more on to southern and sixth states that the Orientalist, especially Edward Blaine may contribute in sharing Taylor ideology which is a travel writer that I examine his book. So I'm looking also at Taylor linguistic choices when it comes to descriptive language nouns and pronouns. The difference between Ibn Fadban and Taylor, Taylor was a journalist so he used to write his travel writing for publications in newspaper. So he used to kind of like use thick descriptions, like rich descriptions to create visual images to the readers. And he did like the scene as any travel writer does which is positive self representation and negative representation of the others. And we have an example here of like describing coffee. He used to describe things that he sees to what he experienced before in his home country or the visits that he has done or previous travels. Like this one, he said that the coffee to this crop is always inferior to that of the first. He combining the two types of coffee that he tried with the one that he tried before. And also his adjectives we can see that Taylor's group he used positive self-representation, described them with intelligence or handsome which is positive adjectives. And the other describes him as being like annoyingly curious and also barbarous, savage. Also he used the noun to a kind of like negative represent other people. So he described a group of people here as they turn it around us, upon us like wild cats. Describe them like wild cats. And also he used the pronouns as Ibn Fadlandid before to distance himself and his group. He described a man here as a dog or like he's an obit sneak about much like a dog who has just received a petting from a fifth. On his answer he delivered it in a most submissive. So we can see like the differences the usage of pronouns to a kind of like negatively represent the other person. Also he used over-generalization. He talked about a city that he was about to enter and people told him that it's dangerous to enter and he was just reporting or telling what the locals told him about the city, but still it's still othering about an over-generalization about the people of the city. He said that a man must either go army, enter the city to the teeth or as a bigger with a claw in order to be safe when entering the city. And also he used the kind of like Christian-Muslim distinction so when he referred to the Middle East he referred to them as the Muslim world and when he referred to Europe and the United States he referred to them as the Christian world. As examples that we have here it remained comparatively unknown to the Christian world and the indifference to the United States and Europe. And also one of the differences between Ibn Fadlan and Taylor is that Ibn Fadlan used to comment on things but Taylor since he was aiming to publish this from newspaper he didn't actually comment on what he sees. But he described it with rich description and he gave it to the readers to actually make their own judgments. Like the examples that we have here I'm going to give you like maybe just read it and tell me how do you feel about this? Would you like to try this food or not? No. So he didn't actually say it he didn't comment any negative thing about the food but his description actually implies a kind of like negative feeling to the reader and delivered his message. So and this is the style of Taylor which is different than Ibn Fadlan. Ibn Fadlan was more explicit. Taylor was more implicit. So here are the findings we have two different writing styles the first one Ibn Fadlan is more straightforward and it was actually aimed his book as a governmental report. It was a main for like a travel writing book and so it's straightforward there is no like much description unlike Taylor who like his writing aimed to be published in newspapers so it's rich in details. Their ideologies resulted in seeing different things than what they have like used to and we see these things negatively. Ibn Fadlan their ideology affected also their representation of other people and their cultures. So we can see that and as I mentioned at the beginning that Ibn Fadlan since his ideology affected his linguistic choices there might be some eyes in his map. So he can't be 100% trusted. They actually share some common characteristics as well they come from richer more powerful cultures than the places that he visited and the religious ideology they also share this however Ibn Fadlan was more explicit with his comments and Taylor was more implicit about his ideology. They differ in as I mentioned like Ibn Fadlan comments also Ibn Fadlan was more explicit in describing the other so linguistic choices was like more aggressive, vulgar pejorative than Taylor. Taylor aimed to publish them in newspaper so he was carefully choosing his words and also Taylor doesn't comment in any events and leaves the judgment to defenders. And the traveler character as well differs Ibn Fadlan like the knowledge of any languages so he needs to have someone as a mediator between him and other people. Taylor spoke Arabic fluently and also clothes like Ibn Fadlan wore the same clothes as he used to have in his hometown but Taylor used to dress like an Arab and hide his identity as a foreigner. Ibn Fadlan didn't actually hide his identity as a foreigner and then when Taylor came back to the United States he started giving lectures dressing in an Arab cloth about his travels in the Middle East. So the limitation of this study is that travel writers often exaggerate and Ibn Fadlan and Taylor are no exception because they always try to catch the readers and generally exaggeration sometimes and I also examined only one word for each writer and at age of their time so other than ideology the techniques may be changed later on when they did more travels. So like studying other works for these two writers will help to understand is it actually common in older travel writing that the other people and their ideology affected or it was only in these two books. Maybe in other books they use different other techniques than what I found so this is going to be like kind of like future research and then we come to the library resources. So the first time I came here when I started actually working on this research I met a linguistic subject librarian Jeffrey Chen. I booked actually an appointment with him and I discussed my project and since I'm working with really old texts it was hard to find resources in order to write my bibliography and also write my literature. He was a great help for me because he guided me like how to find articles. We had kind of more than one meeting actually and he introduced me also to the library tools such as Karek Yu and Ohio Wing. This was like when I started last year my research at the beginning at the initial stage to find research for my research and then also I used article plus which is kind of like amazing an interdisciplinary tool because my research combines different my research combines linguistics, literature and the translation so it's like more than one thing it's an interdisciplinary like I would say field of research. So he only would need to write to find books, give reviews, articles from Ohio University libraries and which actually was really beneficial when I did the statistic analysis and also when I find more studies on even Fadlan and Taylor and especially even Fadlan who's kind of like challenging to find a study on his work. Also I used Ohio link because it's really convenient when I find like when I get the work from other over than 100 libraries from Ohio so it's really fascinating and then get the book here from like the pickup location at Alden. It's an amazing option for graduate students that help them to kind of like give the resources that they need to combat their research. And that's it. Thank you so much and if you have any questions, thank you. Anyone just curious, did you do any sort of like counting of common terms? Yeah, that's something that I considered at the beginning of counting the common terms and pronouns as well but I found out that it's not going to actually affect the research itself because the usage of pronoun itself doesn't mean that it's other ink. So it need to be in context. So that's why this was the initial part of my research. I was doing a mixed method research. I started with like looking at the most common but I found it's not going to really affect the results at the end because the usage of words need to be in context which is the pragmatic act itself. Okay. I was just thinking like if you counted like the terms like dung and camel and the derogatory terms that you saw in your descriptions, how frequent they might have occurred. You could have done something like basically take a whole scan of the whole book, find a e-version of the book and then do searches for the terms and do content analysis that way. Yeah, I love that this is using in Vivo and Conq as well. I did it but it didn't like lead to like really a kind of like significant change. It wasn't meaningful to you. It wasn't like but maybe with other books so if we are going to combine different books and see the common terms throughout different books, that might be something for the future. Thank you. Thank you so much. We don't have any online questions yet. Why Taylor? I think you've been thought on online but why Bayard? Why? Because Taylor is the best American traveler actually and that who did travels to the Middle East. So it was a kind of like trying to find someone who were really into travel I think and because Taylor was a kind of like really interested in the Middle East and culture and he spoke Arabic fluently almost as a native speaker which held him to get access to different parts of the Middle East. So he was a kind of like what they said like an equivalent to Ibn Fadlan when it comes to like traveling, travel writing itself. His rank as a travel writer is high. When it comes to like someone who travels to the Middle East I would say and then specific in your choosing American there or I think the British of all like a lot of Yeah, I meant to choose the American to have someone like related to like the American society right now. So American traveled to the Middle East which will help to kind of like see how the Americans saw the Middle East during this time. So this was the main target. And also it seems like they used animals as comparisons a lot. Yeah. They used animals which is a kind of like negatively represent the other because like it's a common like behavior that people use animals when they want to like insult someone maybe. So but also the description was like with animals because it's a very interesting point that Ibn Fadlan used a kind of like a lot of descriptions of animals that he has seen during his travels which some of them are kind of like if you read the description you might, oh what animal is that? It looks like really like a fairy like tail animal that you have never seen in life based on Ibn Fadlan's description. Is there a conscious travel writing tradition that you're picking up there because I know of course a lot of Herodotus also very interested in burial practices things like that and is that just would you characterize it as just anyone who's traveling usually notices these things or is there any I'm consciously writing about this because people expect to me to write about it because they've read other books that write about it. Yeah. This was a case with Taylor actually because Taylor like reads the words and this is one of the studies Moran from 7 and 6 that is Taylor was influenced by the interlaces who traveled before. So before he's starting his travels it was actually has a mindset and image of the Middle East before going there. So this is one of the things but Ibn Fadlan didn't do that because it wasn't actually expected to travel and it was a kind of like a governmental report that he has to deliver after coming back. So he wrote a kind of like his diaries of everyday like life during his journey. So Ibn Fadlan doesn't really know about he sort of he doesn't have an expectation of what he's going to see. No. No he didn't. He was just like try to kind of like report what he sees like throughout the journey. I mean all these questions could be answering me actually reading it but was he like looking for like natural sources or potential lines? Like if he's going to the Volgares they're trying to maybe some diplomatic stuff involving the Byzantium or something but then going up that far north. Is it like are we hunting for pelts there or Yeah so this is a kind of like a political situation. It was a kind of like the Abbasid empire at this time wanted to expand their empire. And when he gets a call from the Volgavel building for Hill to build them to build a fort and a mosque at this time it was a chance for them to actually expand their empire and gain like more areas in a new part of the world. So this was the aim of the Islamic empire at this time. But did you talk about like I misunderstand the first part of the question. I'm sorry like did he like looked at the natural resources when he went to the Volgavel. Right so the other instances like Lewis and Clark go west and they're looking for I well I would just like the things that the government interested in probably alliances money. Yes that's true thank you. He actually talked about this is that the the Volgavel gar like kingdom at this time it was a rich kingdom. So joining the Islamic good of the political like situation at this time and even if it lands like he knows that history said it's gonna affect the political decision. So when he wrote he mentioned this part that it's a rich kingdom. Also the you covered an ideology the political it's a quarter writing for court and then we have a well they're both diplomats as you said but one's diplomatic in a in a monarchy writing for the court and the other one is I don't think he was he going overseas as a portfolio he's going as a as a reporter kind of and so one's a democratic a person writing for probably paid by the word for newspapers versus the court system so there's the I guess just just yammering on about the but the specific political regimes they're writing for that seems to very much come out. Yeah yeah it's a kind of like and also I talked about this during the thesis which is the power dynamic of like when you come from a rich powerful empire to come to less powerful places and you try to a kind of like overtake in these places and this was the idea when actually of like civilizing the uncivilized nation during the 19th century when what's his name Taylor started his travel also this was the idea of the mindset and which was lead actually later on to colonizing as a part of the world from like different countries. I know that there's a long writing tradition of going to Jerusalem like Melville or it's about that and all that so I assume that well some of the does he go through the any of the Taylor does he doesn't go through the biblical sites at all or because he's going I think Taylor's going he's going south like he's on the edge of the peninsula right? Yeah so he's not going up to one would I would have guessed that the newspaper reading audience probably wanted writing about what they were reading about the Bible but he's not he's not doing that trip he's doing something else. Yeah he's because like he mentioned that travel writing itself at this time about describing different parts of the world was really like genres that people want to read so that's why it was like writing about different nations different culture it was something that actually people are looking for through the newspapers so this is what he was doing yeah nobody? So I have a question so what what comes next right so you talked about the purpose of the studies to help discuss and uncover how we make generalizations about other people based on these kinds of writings how do you follow up with this study? Yeah I would say like the language that people use maybe on social media right now the choice of words this is something that we need to like consider because there might be certain ideologies of what we read every day but we never think about it but when we look at something like travel writing which is should be like for entertainment but and then you still have like ideologies and othering different people so it's gonna make us like be aware of like what we read more that was like a kind of like introducing like the idea of like we think about what we read more than what we do yeah And then you talked about following up by doing more reading by both these authors I guess I was wondering about like doing readings of different kinds of travel writing like fictional travel writing which I considered to be more introspective and the journey is maybe more about the person but I'm curious I don't know this is kind of an unfair question because this isn't what you did but do you think that the ideologies or the perspectives or the othering would change in a fictional concept? Yeah maybe maybe it's well I'm not sure of this answer but I think yeah maybe it's well yeah maybe this is something that to discover in the future yeah I don't know if it would improve or get worse I suppose it depends on who the person is by the way It would be an interesting comparison if it turns out that it doesn't matter whether anyone actually went there or not Right well you could still do fiction based on an experience right like you could actually go to some place and write a travel story but fictionalize it I suppose right Now with Montesquieu's personal letters he actually dealt with this but it's a political settler thing So is your plan then to next do more readings on both of these? Yeah this might be in the future research like looking at more writing of from Ibn-Fatlan and Tehran and then comparing their styles because it might be that later on their actually ideology changed and they see like things differently so it would be interesting to see like how throughout their life it changed because I think when they started their journey they went at like the same age but Ibn-Fatlan was almost 40s, Tehran was like late 20s I would say so they are kind of like similar in their age a little bit maybe later on when they get older their view of things changed I think it's fascinating I can't remember the name of the author that Ibn-Fatlan was sincere I just think that's fascinating I have no questions from online so if everyone asks all your questions I think Thank you very much Thank you so much Oh wait, no one just came in So from Lorraine Wakna she's asking are you thinking at all of connecting it to a conversation of racism and systemic racism and how that writing reflects the form of racism Yeah That's true it might be like connected to this I have never thought about this but it's something to consider in the future Yeah That's something possible