CALL FOR PAPERS
for IBG 1998 Annual Conference, Kingston University
the Historical Geography Research Group
Intends to run a half day session on the EMERGING LANDSCAPES OF LEISURE
Leisure suddenly seems to be everywhere. But when and where did
leisure emerge as a discrete category of social economic and cultural
life? Whilst geographers have long been interested in the patterns and
practices of leisure, recreation and tourism, we have paid considerably
less attention to the complex reasons which lie behind the emergence of
such uses of time and space. It seems appropriate that we re-examine
our conceptual and empirical frameworks in order to ask how the
increasing importance of leisure (and its growing impact on lives and
landscapes) is related to the development of a modern(ist) world.
In this session we wish to examine the emergence of developing notions
of leisure in the Western world from the eighteenth to the early
twentieth century. We would particularly welcome papers which look
beyond simple notions of tourism and recreation to regard leisure as a
social construct as well as any 'pleasurable human activity', and which
explore the dominant and residual places and landscapes of leisure.
These landscapes might be public or private; geographically specific or
spatially generic; deliberately designed or the result of accidental
tourism; imaged, imagined and experienced spaces and practices;
metaphorical and material landscapes of leisure. Ultimately we ask the
question: "What spaces were leisured spaces?" and try to set course for
(although we may not arrive at) what Rojek has called these "places on
the map of the world... which perpetually evade our reach"
Abstracts of up to 200 words should be sent by the _end of April_ to
either of the conveners
Jon Stobart
Chris Thomas
at
Division of Geography
Staffordshire University
Leek Road
Stoke-on-Trent
Staffs ST4 2DF
tel 01782 294018
fax 01782 747167
e mail [log in to unmask]
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