First Histories of the Home Conference

Julius Shulman

The Histories of the Home SSN and The City Centre at Queen Mary, University of London present the first Histories of the Home Subject Specialist Network (SSN) Conference on 5 June 2009 at London Transport Museum.

This conference will showcase different approaches to the study of the home from material culture studies and art history through to contemporary ethnographic studies. The papers draw upon a wide range of sources including inventories, paintings and diaries and span the 17th century to the present day within a British context. The event aims to bring together academics, archivists, museum professionals and postgraduate students to inspire new ideas and foster interdisciplinary dialogue.

Speakers will include: Alison Clarke (University of the Applied Arts, Vienna) The home as process – contemporary ethnographic methodologies in making histories of the home
Victoria Kelley (University for the Creative Arts, Rochester) Cleanliness, shine and polish in working-class and middle-class material culture in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Jane Hamlett (Royal Holloway, University of London) From drawing room to dressing room: marital dynamics and middle-class domestic material culture in England, 1850-1910. Dianne Lawrence (Lancaster University) Borders of distinction and fashionable friezes – wallpaper and wall decoration in colonial homes in Tasmania, in the latter half of the 19th century.
Sara Pennell (Roehampton University) Home is where the hearth is? The uses and meanings of the hearth in Restoration London.
Kate Retford (Birkbeck, London) Fabricating the domestic interior? The conversation piece in Georgian England.
Tim Richardson (independent scholar, freelance garden historian) The importance of biography and connections in understanding the emergent English landscape garden, 1680-1720.
Barbara Simms (independent garden and landscape historian) The 20th-century house and garden: a review of research and an evaluation of its contribution to our knowledge of the role of gardens in domestic life.
Divya Tolia-Kelly (Durham University) South Asian post-colonial identity within Britain: memory-objects in the home.

Conference fees £45 (£35 concs. – full-time students and the unwaged)(includes light lunch and refreshments) For further information, please contact SSN Co-ordinator Krisztina Lackoi at klackoi@geffrye-museum.org.uk or +44 (0)207 739 9893.

DETAILS Venue: London Transport Museum Covent Garden Piazza London, WC2E 7BB Date: Friday 5th June 2009 Time: 10.00 – 5.00 Cost: £45 (£35 - full-time students and the unwaged)

LIMITED PLACES – BOOK NOW! Please return the completed form with payment by Friday 22 May 2009 to: Krisztina Lackoi, SSN Co-ordinator Geffrye Museum, Kingsland Road, London, E2 8EA