Call for Papers: Literary London
Though primarily a literary conference, organizers are interested in interdisciplinary work that addresses issues of architecture, urban space, &c. From the conference website:
Literary London 2011: Representations of London in Literature, An Interdisciplinary Conference
The Institute of English Studies, University of London, 20-22 July 2011
Proposals due by 31 March 2011
Organised by the University of Northampton, Kingston University, London, and the Institute of English Studies, University of London
The 10th Annual Literary London conference will be hosted by the Institute of English Studies, University of London. The Institute is located in Bloomsbury, at the centre of literary London, and just a few minutes’ walk from such attractions as the British Library, the British Museum, and the clubs, pubs, and restaurants of Soho. It is at the heart of London: one of the world’s major cities with a long and rich literary tradition reflecting both its diversity and its significance as a cultural and commercial centre. Literary London 2011 aims to:
- Read literary and dramatic texts in their historical and social context and in relation to theoretical approaches to the study of the metropolis.
- Investigate the changing cultural and historical geography of London.
- Consider the social, political, and spiritual fears, hopes, and perceptions that have inspired representations of London.
- Trace different traditions of representing London and examine how the pluralism of London society is reflected in London literature.
- Celebrate the contribution London and Londoners have made to English literature and drama.
Proposals are invited for 20-minute papers which consider any period or genre of literature about, set in, inspired by, or alluding to central and suburban London and its environs, from the city’s roots in pre-Roman times to its imagined futures. While the main focus of the conference will be on literary texts, we actively encourage interdisciplinary contributions relating film, architecture, geography, theories of urban space, etc., to literary representations of London. Papers from postgraduate students are particularly welcome for consideration. While papers on all areas of literary London are welcomed, the conference theme in 2011 is ‘Green London’. Topics that might be addressed are: (more…)
New Title: Meredith Martin’s ‘Dairy Queens’
From Harvard University Press:
Meredith Martin, Dairy Queens: The Politics of Pastoral Architecture from Catherine de’ Medici to Marie-Antoinette (Cambridge: Harvard Historical Studies, 2011), 336 pages, ISBN 9780674048997, $45.
In a lively narrative that spans more than two centuries, Meredith Martin tells the story of a royal and aristocratic building type that has been largely forgotten today: the pleasure dairy of early modern France. These garden structures—most famously the faux-rustic, white marble dairy built for Marie-Antoinette’s Hameau at Versailles—have long been dismissed as the trifling follies of a reckless elite. Martin challenges such assumptions and reveals the pivotal role that pleasure dairies played in cultural and political life, especially with respect to polarizing debates about nobility, femininity, and domesticity. Together with other forms of pastoral architecture such as model farms and hermitages, pleasure dairies were crucial arenas for elite women to exercise and experiment with identity and power.
Opening with Catherine de’ Medici’s lavish dairy at Fontainebleau (c. 1560), Martin’s book explores how French queens and noblewomen used pleasure dairies
to naturalize their status, display their cultivated tastes, and proclaim their virtue as nurturing mothers and capable estate managers. Pleasure dairies also provided women with a site to promote good health, by spending time in salubrious gardens and consuming fresh milk. Illustrated with a dazzling array of images and photographs, Dairy Queens sheds new light on architecture, self, and society in the ancien régime.
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