Theories of the domestic stemming from the 19th century have focused on the home as a refuge and place of repose for the family, a nurturing environment for children and a safe place for visitors. Under this conception, domestic space is positioned as nurturing and private, a refuge and place of retreat which gave rise to theories of ‘home as haven’. While some social conditions might suggest this is the case, there are many occasions when forces act upon the home and threaten aspects of safety and comfort. Domesticity Under Siege exposes a different world, one in which the boundaries of nurturing domesticity collide with both outside and inside agents. Whether these agents are external military forces, psychological trauma or familial violence, they re-position meta-narratives of domesticity, not through identity politics or specialized subgroup experience, but relative to the actions of the world around an inhabited domain.
This conference, based on a recent publication about threatened spaces of the modern home, aims to investigate notions of Domesticity in contemporary discourses. The book also entitled Domesticity Under Siege was organised around four thematic sections, ‘Microbes, Animals, and Insects’, ‘Human Agents’, Wars and Disasters as Agents’ and ‘Hauntings, Eeriness and the Uncanny’. These sections provided a range of approaches to the home which challenge notions of ‘haven’ and reflect major causes that have played an important role in undermining the modern home. The conference proposes to further expand on these themes and explore other aspects where home as shelter, haven, container, or envelope is subject to threat. Domesticity Under Siege also probes the possibility if the threat to a normative sense of domesticity could also bring agency?
We welcome interdisciplinary contributions for each of the following themes:
- Home invasion, by human agents and by microbes, animals and insects
- Domesticity and the threat of wars and disaster
- Domesticity and the Uncanny
- Domesticity and the effects of climate change
- Domestic subjectivity
- Domesticity and gender
- Domestic labour
- Insurgent domestic agency
- Home and the threat of technology
Submission Details
We invite individual and group proposals for 15-minute papers, as well as for themed sessions, debates and round tables.
We welcome cross-disciplinary contributions that explore contemporary developments and project future trends into the theme of ‘domesticity under siege’ as well as those that offer retrospective theoretical and critical interrogations.
We welcome proposals of papers with the intention or possibility to be supported by or delivered through performance, artefacts, or film-based presentation.
For individual proposals please send a 350-word abstract with a title and a 50-word biographical note.
For themed sessions please send the individual abstracts together with the session proposal/ introduction and title.
Please indicate clearly if proposing a full session panel.
Full papers will be required prior to the conference for panel chairs, and to begin the editorial process for possible publication.
Please note, due to multiple requests the deadline for submission of abstracts of papers and session proposals has been extended:
New extended deadline: 22 November 2024
Email proposals to: Dus-brighton25@brighton.ac.uk
For any conference or paper related questions please contact: T.Meade@brighton.ac.uk
We look forward to receiving your proposal! The Domesticity Under Siege convenors:
Dr. Georgina Downey, Visiting Research Fellow in Art History, University of Adelaide
Terry Meade, Principal Lecturer in Interior Architecture, University of Brighton
Judit Pusztaszeri, Senior Lecturer in Interior Architecture, University of Brighton