45Domesticity Under Siege
International Architectural Conference
Hosted by the BA(Hons) Interior Architecture course at the School of Architecture Technology and Engineering, University of Brighton
2-4th April 2025
Call for papers
Theories of the domestic stemming from the 19th century have focused on the home as a refuge and place of repose for the family, a nurturing environment for children and a safe place for visitors. Under this conception, domestic space is positioned as nurturing and private, a refuge and place of retreat which gave rise to theories of ‘home as haven’. While some social conditions might suggest this is the case, there are many occasions when forces act upon the home and threaten aspects of safety and comfort. Domesticity Under Siege exposes a different world, one in which the boundaries of nurturing domesticity collide with both outside and inside agents. Whether these agents are external military forces, psychological trauma or familial violence, they re-position meta-narratives of domesticity, not through identity politics or specialized subgroup experience, but relative to the actions of the world around an inhabited domain.
This conference, based on a recent publication about threatened spaces of the modern home, aims to investigate notions of Domesticity in contemporary discourses. The book also entitled Domesticity Under Siege was organised around four thematic sections, ‘Microbes, Animals, and Insects’, ‘Human Agents’, Wars and Disasters as Agents’ and ‘Hauntings, Eeriness and the Uncanny’.
For more information and submission guidelines click here
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