Modernism in the Home Conference, University of Birmingham, UK

The conference is set to be held on Monday 1st and Tuesday 2nd July 2019 at the University of Birmingham in collaboration with the Centre for Modernist Cultures. Studies of modernism and the home are wide-ranging; this international conference will reflect the broad scope of research, fostering interdisciplinary dialogue between literary, arts and cultural sectors. The conference invites scholars to interrogate the historical, theoretical and thematic intersections occurring in the domestic sphere in the early twentieth century. Panellists are invited to reconsider and discuss the aesthetic, social, political, technological, artistic, scientific, cultural and textual relationship between modernism and the home, in a global context.

We are delighted to announce that our keynote speakers will be Professor Morag Shiach (Queen Mary University) and Professor Barbara Penner (The Bartlett School of Architecture). Professor Shiach’s work focuses on the changing nature of domestic interiors in the early twentieth century, challenging traditional associations of modernity with public space. Professor Penner’s current research focuses on ‘cardiac kitchens’ in the post-war period, and more broadly looks at themes of domestic technologies, domestic labour and domestic bodies.