cfp.english.upenn.edu

Proposal for Panel: “Home and Away. Writing the Eighteenth-century House.”
Organiser and chair: Prof. Francesca Saggini (University of Tuscia – University of Glasgow)
fsaggini@unitus.it

Proposed panel for the British Society For Eighteenth-Century Studies 39th Annual Conference. Tuesday 5 January-Thursday 7 January 2010. St Hugh's College, Oxford, U.K.

From Tom Jones's Paradise Hall to Frances Burney's Camilla Cottage, both real and fictional eighteenth-century houses offer a deeply complex model of the world - both physical and metaphysical, literal and metaphorical - and may be taken as the shifting expression of a Zeitgeist. The proposed paned will be structured over two thematic sessions, the first of which labelled “Home”, and the second “Away.” Submissions of proposals relating to the topic of the literary, visual and cultural representations of the eighteenth-century house and the construction of the domestic space from divergent disciplinary and theoretical perspectives are sought. Topics of discussion may include, but are not limited to, furniture and household objects, the poetics of rooms, professional domesticity, the house as the landscape of existence, the negotiations of gendered spaces. In particular, the Organiser of the panel would be very interested to hear from colleagues interested in investigations of colonial and/or exotic house spaces for the “Away” section of the panel.
The deadline for submission of proposal is August,15th 2009. Enquiries or proposals for the Panel are welcome at fsaggini@unitus.it.