Call for Papers Archive
Guiliana Brunoâs Atlas of Emotion: Journeys in Art, Architecture and Film (2002), introduces the idea of âtraveling domesticâ in art and film. For Bruno, âtraveling domesticâ involves seeing and representing the home not as the static antithesis of travel but as a space that itself engenders voyage and invites exploration; to âtravel domesticâ is to approach the home as curious and risky rather than banal and safe. This type of travel holds special significance for considerations of gender both because it is staged within a stereotypically feminine sphere and because it unsettles the homeâs ability to function as a bulwark against turbulent public space.As a concept, âtraveling domesticâ can provide useful critical traction for considering modernismâs numerous modes of contesting ideals of private space or unsettling notions of domestic intimacy. To âtravel domestic,â might involve entering the surreal portals hidden behind the apartment doors of Salvador Dalà and Luis Buñuelâs Un Chien Andalou (1929), confronting the threat of domestic objects and architecture in the case of Maya Derenâs Meshes of the Afternoon (1943), or it might involve an aesthetic valuation of everydayness as in Charles and Ray Eamesâ House After Five Years of Living (1955). To take a more literary approach, âtraveling domesticâ might involve witnessing time pass in Virginia Woolfâs To the Lighthouse, picking through Jenny Petherbridgeâs collectables in Djuna Barnesâ Nightwood, or entering the large sumptuous interiors of East and West Egg mansions in F. Scott Fitzgeraldâs The Great Gatsby.
This panel asks how modernist representations of âtraveling domesticâ identify and configure private space as an epicenter of political and artistic change. How do these representations seek to undo, challenge, or rewrite relationships between public and private, interior and exterior, and the gendered identifications accompanying these? How does âtraveling domesticâ change over the course of the twentieth century and how is this reflective of modernismâs larger aesthetic and political transformations? Papers might also take up the idea of traveling domestic with respect to questions of genreâhow do modernist ideas of âtraveling domesticâ manipulate or rewrite generic conventions of melodrama (to give one example)?
Please submit abstracts of 200-300 words, a short scholarly bio, and AV requirements to algreen@msu.edu by April 15.
Conference Location: Boston, USA
Conference Starts: November 19, 2015
Conference Ends: November 21, 2015
CFP Submission Deadline: April 15, 2015
For more information, contact: Anna Green