Paris in the French, Czech and American tourist guidebooks (1918-1939)

• Thesis title in Czech: Paříž ve francouzských, českých a amerických turistických průvodcích (1918-1939)
• Thesis title in English: Paris in the French, Czech and American tourist guidebooks (1918-1939)
• Key words: turismus, turistický průvodce, Paříž, meziválečné období
• English key words: tourism, guidebook, Paris, interwar period
• Academic year of topic announcement: 2014/2015
• Thesis type: diploma thesis
• Thesis language: angličtina
• Department: Institute of General History (21-USD)
• Supervisor: Mgr. Jaroslav Ira, Ph.D.
• Author: hidden - assigned and confirmed by the Study Dept.
• Date of registration: 01.06.2015
• Date of assignment: 01.06.2015
• Administrator's approval: not processed yet
• Confirmed by Study dept. on: 11.06.2015
• Date and time of defence: 16.06.2016 09:00
• Date of electronic submission: 15.05.2016
• Date of proceeded defence: 16.06.2016
• Submitted/finalized: committed by student and finalized
• Opponents: PhDr. Vlasta Kubišová

Guidelines

This Master´s Thesis project deals with the representation of Paris in the interwar period. As the main source for the research. For this purpose the tourist guidebooks, which were published between the years 1918 and 1939 in French, English and Czech language have been chosen as main primary source. The author will try to discover distinct patterns in each group of the guidebooks and consequently compare them.

The research is based firstly on a hypothesis that each language area offered a different representation of the city because of various cultural roots of the potential readers as well as their experiences with the French metropolis. The analysis of guidebooks will prove whether the attitude of Czech(slovak)s, Americans and French in respect to Paris varied significantly and whether by analyzing the guidebooks, it is possible to find out how the city was presented to them.

The second hypothesis is, that the tourist guidebooks provide a particular image of the city and at the same time instruct those travellers, who have never been to Paris, how to perceive the city, using a fiction of an intimate relationship between the book and the reader: the tourist guidebooks are composed as reader's "best friend", who gives good advices and who is trustful. The tourist guide tells the reader where to go and what to do there, which means the most important information for a person who does not know the surroundings. Consequently, what is written in a tourist guide creates the image of the city.

References

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Primary sources:
Clarke M., Paris, Hale, Cushman & Flint, Boston 1936.
Hourticq L., Paris, Hachette, Paris 1924.
Novák J., Průvodce po Paříži, Praha 1925.
Štyrský J., Toyen, Průvodce Paříží a okolím, Praha 1927.
Story S., Present Day Paris and the Battlefields, D. Appleton and Company, New York 1920.
Paris et ses environs, Hachette, Paris 1920.
Paris, Sèvres, Versailles, Saint-Germain, Saint-Denis, Chantilly, Vincennes, Fontainebleau, Hachette, Paris 1924.
Paris and Its Environs, Robert M. McBride & Company, New York 1929.