Rational Recreation?: Histories of Travel, Tourism and Leisure

1st February 2011, University of Manchester

Keynote Speaker: Professor Dave Russell, Leeds Metropolitan University

Proposals are invited for a one-day postgraduate conference, which will take place at the University of Manchester on 1st February 2011.  This event will bring together postgraduates and early-career researchers working on travel, tourism and leisure histories from a wide range of methodological perspectives.  The conference seeks to highlight the volume of historical research currently being undertaken in these emerging areas, which are too often split between more established sub-fields such as transport history and sport history.  The conference will focus on the cultural practices of travel, tourism and leisure.  This broad theme embraces a spectrum of topics from rational recreation, through to the culturally liminal and carnivalesque.  We are keen to establish a dialogue on key historiographical debates, theories and methods.  We would particularly like to encourage interdisciplinary, cross-cultural and international approaches to the theme.

Suggestions for proposals include:

  • Case Studies:  Comparative or individual case studies discussing sport, leisure activities, tourist sites, travel/tourism/leisure and technological, social or cultural change, holidaymaking, rational recreation, film, local customs, subcultures, popular cultures, travel/tourism/leisure and class.
  • Theories and Frameworks:  Interrogating or developing theoretical frameworks including theorising touristor leisure spaces, landscape and environment, defining leisure, travel and tourism, consumption, regional identity, national identity, sub/cultural identity, the body in travel/tourism/leisure histories.
  • Individuals and Crowds:  Examining the role of the individual or the crowd in travel/tourism/leisurehistories including travellers, tourists, the tour guide, professional and amateur athletes, musicians, hikers, cyclists, holiday crowds, football crowds, concerts, excursions, spectatorship, fan cultures.
  • Visualising Travel/Tourism/Leisure:  Marketing, art and advertising, travel writing, guidebooks, newspapers and periodicals, auto/biography, material culture.

We welcome abstracts of up to 300-words (for 20 minute papers) from postgraduates and early-career researchers on any topic relating to the conference theme.  We are committed to ensuring that attendance at the conference is affordable for postgraduates and hope to be able to offer reduced registration fees and travel bursaries.  Please send abstracts to Chloe Jeffries and Rebecca Conway at historiesoftravel@gmail.com by Friday 3rd December 2010.

Please see PDF version: RationalRecreationCfP