Home Comforts Conference 5-6 Oct 2017 Programme

Home Comforts: The physical and emotional meanings of home in Europe,1650-1900

Manchester Metropolitan University, 5-6 October 2017

Home is widely recognised as a place of emotional attachment, often expressed and articulated through material objects which lie at the heart of attempts to uncover what made a house into a home. One important aspect of this is the notion of comfort, both in a physical and emotional sense; yet comfort is a relative term, its fulfilment dependent upon a wide range of economic, social, cultural, environmental and psychological factors – from wealth to the weather, and from family to fashion. This conference aims to explore the wide range of ways in which ideas and ideals of comfort were expressed in and through the home; how these changed over time and space, and whether it is possible to identify a European conceptualisation of home and comfort.

Provisional programme

Thursday 5^th October

10.00-11.00 Registration and coffee

11.10-12.00 Keynote 1: ‘Title TBC’, Hannah Barker, University of Manchester

12.00-13.15 Panel 1: Family, sociability and the emotions of comfort

Emotional labour and the household in 17^th and 18^th century England – Dominic Birch, King’s College, London
Samuel Pepys, comfort and social accounting – Jamie Graves, University of Sheffield
Middle-class fathers, sons and domestic comfort in Victorian England – Laura Ugolini, University of Wolverhampton

13.15-14.10 Lunch

14.10-15.50 Panel 2: Modern, convenient and efficient houses

Masters and servants in the 18^th century: parallel worlds? – Aurélien Davrius, Paris-Malaquais
Powdering rooms and water closets: marketing home comforts in Georgian Dublin – Conor Lucey, University College Dublin
Modern comforts and medieval décor: the Gothic revival home in the UK and France – Alizée Cordes, Université Clermont-Auvergne
The clientele of Dauvergne’s agency: search for amenities ad yearning for modernity in the Indre in the late 19^th century – Olivier Prisset, Université Francois-Rabelais, Tours

15.50-16.15 Tea/coffee

16.15-17.30 Panel 3: Making a home from Home

Comfort, domesticity and social display on the Netherlandish Grand Tour, 1585-1750 – Gerrit Verhoeven, Universiteit Antwerpen
Comfort in the college: wallpaper and the student room as a domestic haven in 19th-century Cambridge, Serena Dyer, Museum of Domestic Design and Architecture
Morale, morality, fashion and subversion: the home comforts of the late Victorian Barracks – Rowena Willard-Wright, English Heritage

17.30-18.00 The comfort of (animal) things – Julie-Marie Strange, University of Manchester

18.00-19.00 Reception

20.00 Conference dinner (venue to be confirmed)

Friday 6^th October

9.00-9.50 Keynote 1: Northern comfort and discomfort: distribution of spaces and display of objects in Swedish country houses, c.1740–1800, Johanna Ilmakunnas, University of Turku

9.50-10.40 Panel 4: Singular comforts: bachelor homes

“What a dislocation of comfort is comprised in that word moving”: comfort disrupted in the domestic and emotional life of an 18^th-century Bachelor – Helen Metcalfe, University of Manchester
Comfort compromised? The domestic lies of Finnish bachelors at the turn of the 20^th century – Laika Nevalainen, European University Institute

10.40-11.00 Tea/Coffee

11.00-12.40 Panel 5: Technologies of comfort: heat, plumbing and light

The invention of thermal comfort in 18^th century France – Olivier Jandot, Université d’Artois
Technique, form and comfort: John Soane, a pioneer – Diego Bocchini, M. Beatrice Bettazzi and Giovanni Mochi, Università degli Studi di Bologna
Comfort or prestige? The bath cabinets in 17^th and 18^th century Parisian architecture – Ronan Bouttier, Paris-Sorbonne University
Where fairies seem to superintend … the breakthrough of comfort in 19^th-century Antwerp homes – Britt Denis, Universiteit Antwerpen

12.40-13.40 Lunch

13.40-15.20 Panel 6: Ideal homes? Furnishing for comfort

Furnishing middling sort London homes in the 17^th and 18^th centuries – Eleanor John, Geffrye Museum
The ideal home, 1737: the toy or baby house as a place of retreat – Patricia Ferguson, British Museum and National Trust Advisor
“Sophas in abundance”: from inconvenience to comfort at Chiswick House – Esmé Whittaker, English Heritage
Pleasing the new wife: creating female comfort in a Hungarian country house – Kristof Fatsar, Writtle University College

15.20-15.40 Last words on comfort

Venue

The conference will take place at Chetham’s Library in Manchester – the oldest public reference library in the UK, established in 1653. It holds over 100,000 volumes, more than half them published before 1851, and is open to readers free of charge. We hope that you’ll have the opportunity to visit the library during the course of the conference.

Our conference will take place in the baronial hall, which is part of the original Manor House acquired with the bequest made by Humphrey Chetham for use as a free library and charity school.

A map showing the location of Chetham’s Library can be found here.

Registration

Please note that all speakers need to register for the conference. We are restricted in the number of people that the room will hold, so please register early!

You can register here. The registration fee is £75 with a reduced fee of £35 for PhD students. This covers all lunches and refreshments during the conference, and the reception; accommodation and the conference dinner (which will be held in a nearby restaurant) are not included in the registration fee.

Accommodation

There are plenty of hotels in central Manchester. Those listed below are within 10 minutes walk of the conference venue

Crowne Plaza Manchester City Centre (from £106 per night)

70 Shudehill, Manchester M4 4AF, Tel. 0161 828 8600

Renaissance Manchester City Centre (from £101 per night)

Address: Blackfriars St, Manchester M3 2EQ, Tel. 0161 831 6000

Holiday Inn Express Manchester Arena (from £68 per night)

Address: Goadsby St, Manchester M4 5JY, Tel. 0161 836 9600

The Works Aparthotel (from £59 per night)

33 Withy Grove, Manchester M4 2BJ, Tel. 0161 834 4802

Premier Inn Manchester City Centre Arena Printworks (from £52 per night)

North Tower, Victoria Bridge St, Manchester M3 5AS, Tel. 0871 527 8744