Things that Move:

The Material Worlds of Tourism and Travel

19 - 23 July 2007, Leeds, United Kingdom

Things that Move is the fifth in our series of annual conferences.
Previous events have focused on the relationships between Tourism and
Photography, Tourism and Literature and Tourism and Performance. This
event aims to explore the multi-faceted relationships between tourism
and material culture - the built environment, consumer and household
goods, art, souvenirs, ephemera and landscapes. The themes of this
conference emerge within the field of critical tourism studies and
related approaches in the social sciences and humanities. We are
interested in the political economy, the aesthetics and fabrication of
tourism materiality, in the contact zones in which this materiality is
given meaning and exchanged, and in the power of this materiality to
encapsulate experience and to enable 'participation' in social life.

Conference Themes

Themes that the conference will address include:
Distance, Enchantment and the Power of 'Exotic' Objects
Tourism Souvenirs, Acting Objects and Commodity Fetishism
Tourism Liturgy, 'Relics', and Pilgrimage Shrines in Late Modernity
The Tourist Object as Metaphor and Memory
Built Environments, Spatial Design and Architecture for Tourism
Art, Display and Museographic Elevation in the Postcolonial Era
Curating for Tourism - Collecting the Worlds of the Tourist
Asserting Meaning to, Translating and Contesting Objects in Tourism
Settings and Performances
Overcoming the Material Through the Virtual - Future Realms of Tourist
Experience

Keynote Speakers

Mark Jones, the Director of the Victoria & Albert Museum, London, is one
of our keynote speakers. Mark, a former Director of the National Museums
of Scotland heads up one of the world's greatest museums of art and
design. The Museum currently features a diverse range of exhibitions
including: the evolving image of Kylie Minogue (Kylie-The Exhibition);
the shadows of slave trading in contemporary art & design (Uncomfortable
Truths); James Athenian Stuart's 'rediscovery' of antiquity in the 18th
century; and 'Surreal Things' exploring the relations between surrealism
and design.

Our second keynote speaker, Mitchell Schwarzer, is Chair of Visual
Studies and Architecture at California College of the Arts, USA and will
give a keynote paper on Architectural Vacation Packages: 6 Name-Brand
Architects from $1199. Prof. Schwartzer has widely published on
architecture in transnational and tourism contexts. Publications
include: German Architectural Theory (1995), Zoomscape: Architecture in
Motion and Media (2004), and the upcoming Home Egonomics: America's
Obsession with Real Estate.

For any enquiry or further information about the conference,
accommodation or registration, please contact the conference
administrator, Ms Daniela Carl, at ctccleedsmet.ac.uk or in writing to:

Centre for Tourism and Cultural Change
Leeds Metropolitan University
Faculty of Arts and Society
The Old School Board, Calverley Street
Leeds LS1 3ED, United Kingdom
Tel. ++44 (0) 113 283 8541
Fax.++44 (0) 113 283 8544

www.tourism-culture.com