Writing the Journey: June 1999

"Imagining Patagonia"

---

Beatriz Badikian
Roosevelt University
Badgart@aol.com

For a long time now, Patagonia has captured the American and British imagination. Travel writers and ordinary folks are fascinated with that section of Argentina: a cold desert where nothing grows except sheep. A very successful line of clothing is named after it. As an Argentine, I am intrigued by this fascination and want to explore its roots as well as its consequences. I suspect that the fact that Patagonia is the last place before the end of the earth, so to speak, is part and parcel of its allure: remote yet accessible. I will look at the various ways travel writers like Bruce Chatwin, Paul Theroux, and others, have imagined and written about Patagonia. My approach will include a comparative analysis of the writings as well as a parallel reading between the "facts" and the "fiction" about Patagonia. I speculate that the idea of "Patagonia" looms large over the reality that it is. In other words, it becomes a metaphor for the end, the distant, the unattainable.

---

Beatriz Badikian
Roosevelt University
1867 N. Bissell, Chicago, Illinois 60614
1312.867.1805 (home)
Badgart@aol.com

---

RETURN TO CONFERENCE SPEAKERS, TITLES AND PROGRAM

Updated May 23, 1999