Encomium Progymnasmata
Anthony Bourdain is one of my favorite TV presenters. Bourdain was a chef and travel documentarian who would travel the globe to introduce people to cultures that are not as commonly known as others. My personal liking of him came from Bourdain’s will to try anything and everything. He did not care about the country, the food, the activity, he would try it. No Reservations and Parts Unknown are in my opinion two of the most important shows in the last 20 years. Americans are known for not getting out of the country and most of the time we do not even have passports. This is quite odd to the rest of the world and especially Europe where they travel with ease from country to country and voyaging is a part of their culture. Bourdain attempted to show Americans how unique and interesting other countries are through his TV adventures.
Bourdain would go to popular tourist destinations and not so popular destinations. You can look up where he has traveled, and it is just about everywhere. You can see him going throughout the United States to New York City and Los Angeles, then you can see him eat in Samarkand, Uzbekistan. In the Egypt episode that we watched for class, you can hear him say throughout the episode that he wasn’t going to see the pyramids. This would strike most people as quite odd, yet Bourdain simply did not care. The goal of the program is to show the common viewer parts of the country that are not as frequently visited or known about. Going to the pyramids would ruin the point of the show as you could find 1000s of videos of others doing the same thing, but you won’t find another like Bourdain. Bourdain is in the same category as an Andrew Zimmern, another fantastic food documentarian who would show viewers the most interesting dishes that different cultures have to offer. Overall, Anthony Bourdain is a hero for tourists and was one of the first and maybe the first to truly cover the entire globe in trying to bring other cultures to the common American.
One reply on “Encomium”
I like how you use encomium to talk about Bourdain but I think you could have also talked about how Bourdain himself praises the guides that show him around Cairo as well. He really talks up the guides who take him camping in the desert and marvels at the culture around that experience so that’s something you could add to your encomium analysis.