CALL FOR PAPERS

NINETEENTH-CENTURY DOMESTICITY

An interdisciplinary graduate student conference

Columbia University

Friday, 5 May 2006

Nineteenth-century Britain is generally associated with "the rise"
of a
number of phenomena: the burgeoning of the middle classes, the
growth
of industrial capitalism, the rapid expansion of empire, the
increased
investment in nationalism (and cosmopolitanism), and the popular
rhetoric of "separate spheres" for male and female activity. But,
at
the same time, domesticity was experienced more widely and intensely
by
both genders than ever before: not only did the population of
England
and Wales double between the 1801 and 1851 censuses, but by 1861
nearly
one third of the population was under the age of 15.

We seek papers from graduate students in nineteenth-century studies
(history, literature, anthropology, political science, women's
studies,
art history, etc.) that consider domesticity and domestic experience
broadly construed-not only papers that address the nuclear family in
Britain, but those that consider domestic arrangements of other
kinds,
both in the UK and globally during the nineteenth century. We are
particularly interested in papers that draw connections between some
of
the rising phenomena described above.

Possible topics might include, but are not limited to, the
following:

-sympathy, sentimentality, and other domestic affections

-domestic anxieties and losses

-relations between parents and children: legal, emotional, social;
family travel and leisure

-inter-generational households

-marital and other domestic partnerships

-domestic interiors at home and abroad

-national and class constructions of the family

-family values

-colonial domesticity

-domestic advice literature

-parental life writing

-separation, divorce, and child custody

-the overlapping or collision of public and domestic spheres: the
private made public; government and charitable interventions

-illness, death, and mourning

-homes and homelessness

-domestic economy: household management and financial investments

-family health, nutrition, and medical practices

-childrearing practices: discipline and punishment

-professional domesticity: servants, nurses, governesses, tutors

-child education: moral, religious, physical, and intellectual

Two-page proposals (anonymously submitted) accompanied by cover
sheet
(containing name, affiliation, and contact information) via email,
to
neb2112_at_columbia.edu, due March 20.

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Received on Mon Feb 27 2006 - 12:19:20 EST