This interdisciplinary conference, hosted by the University of Kent from 22-23 April, will explore the range of complex and contradictory engagements between masculinity and the developing metropolis since the beginning of the twentieth century. Throughout this period the metropolis maintained a paradoxical status; simultaneously a place of liberation and possibility, whilst also a place of alienation and oppression. In the wake of industrialisation artistic reactions to modern urbanity were spurred on by the rapid growth of cities and the transition from rural to metropolitan living.
Through a selection of papers and engaging discussions, the aim of the two-day conference is to answer the following questions: What do responses to the modern city in visual art, film, and literature tell us about masculinity as it both asserts itself and registers its own anxieties, and subsequent representations of the city? How has masculinity been visualised with the construction of this modern cityscape and ideas of the urban? And later in the 20th Century, how did artists registering with ideas of deindustrialization or feminist and queer art forms affect or approach theories of masculinity and the urban?
The conference will bring together scholars from varying fields in order to examine the way in which theories of masculinity and the metropolis have developed in tandem, charting their evolution from the beginning of the 20th Century to the present day.
For the full programme, and details of how to register please see the conference website .To contact the organisers please email: masculinemetropolis@gmail.com