Itineraries of Landscape Responsibility in Paolo Rumiz’s Travel Writing on Italy

From the turn of the twenty-first century, Paolo Rumiz has become a significant voice within Italian travel writing. Despite his increased relevance within the field, critical studies on Rumiz have not extensively discussed his home travel accounts. Furthermore, within the Anglophone context, substantial scholarly works on Rumiz are few and far between. My research expands the critical work on the author, engaging with the ongoing scholarly debate on ethics and travel writing. Expanding the theoretical framework of reference within this debate, my thesis draws on theories of ethics of responsibility within environmental ethics to investigate Rumiz’s use of his travel accounts on Italy to build and promote landscape responsibility. My work offers a close textual analysis of four texts, namely: Appia (2016), Morimondo (2013), La leggenda dei monti naviganti (2007) and L’Italia in seconda classe (2009). The research shows that Rumiz dialogues with a tradition of travel writing that prioritises the exploration of marginal, abandoned or exploited places in Italy. Identifying Rumiz’s work as examples of literary reportage, I demonstrate that Rumiz takes a political stance against these circumstances through specific elements of place exploration, such as the itinerary choice and travel mode while showcasing existing practical solutions for landscape recovery and employing rhetorical strategies for landscape resignification. My findings show the contribution that travel writing can make to discussions on landscape politics and place rehabilitation. This research contributes to studies on travel writing and ethics, adding a novel perspective to the debate, and expands critical works on this less-known authorial voice from the contemporary Italian context within the Anglophone debate on the genre, contributing to the discussion on travels through Italy from the perspective of home travel writing.