An International Conference to be held at Royal Holloway, University of London, Egham, UK, from 4 – 6 January, 2007.

Organised by the Interwar Rural History Research Group

The 1920s and 1930s were a key period in the emergence of new relationships between land and the nation. The agricultural depression – one of the first truly global economic events – provoked different reactions in different countries, but everywhere it influenced shifts in attitudes towards the rural sector, and in the place of the countryside within national economies. Alongside the economic travails of farming in many countries, this was also a period of interesting reconfigurations in the relationship between landscape and national identity, and reformulations of the meanings and significance attached to folk culture and rural society. This interdisciplinary conference will explore these themes, bringing together geographers, literary, art, and performance historians as well as political and socio-economic historians. Keynote speakers include Dr Jan Bieleman (University of Wageningen), Professor David Danbom (North Dakota State University), (Professor Kate Darian-Smith (University of Melbourne) and Professor Alun Howkins (University of Sussex).

The conference is sponsored by the British Agricultural History Society.

The provisional cost of the full conference is £146. For more details contact enquiries@irhrg.org.uk

Anyone who would like to contribute a paper should look at the Call for Papers on http://www.irhrg.org.uk