The Landscape and Environment of Inter-war England - an interdisciplinary approach

这个网络，解决英国农村在两次世界大战期间，是基于一个时期和一种方法。1919年至1939年是一个时期，环境压力，农业衰退和农村人口性质的变化创造了对农村景观的广泛敏感性。许多同时代人持有的一个中心概念是，农村本身作为一个灰色的社会环境系统正受到威胁，例如，城市扩张、农村贫困、旅游业的增长、农业人口的持续下降以及传统社会和文化结构的崩溃。这种农村危机的看法首先植根于社会和经济衰退的说法，即农业作为一个可行的产业已经“终结”了。随着农业“终结”的概念，它所支持的农场、村庄和景观的有机社会结构本身也受到了威胁。然而，与此同时，人们对农村地区也持积极态度。对于许多人从城市的农村成为一个网站的休闲-有机会逃离城市和一轮的工作。对另一个群体来说，虽然不完全来自东南部的繁荣地区，但两次世界大战之间的时期给了他们一个机会，如果不是住在乡下，至少也是住在绿树成荫的“郊区”。这一产品的复杂反应，从各种作家，艺术家，画家，音乐家和电影制片人，以及农业社区，新的国家'旅行者'步行或骑自行车，或那些谁寻求农村田园诗在农村地区。在两次世界大战期间，英国乡村承担了广泛的文化意义，但这是一个有争议的，而不是一致的。该网络采用的方法将是跨学科的-汇集来自艺术和人文学科的学者在一系列的研讨会，将集中在关键主题;想象村庄，性别景观，新的乡下人和妇女生活在景观。每个研讨会将邀请来自不同学科的参与者围绕共同的问题提出各自独立学科领域的论文和讨论文件。这些包括危机和“威胁”的代表性的想法，包括视觉和文学;景观和环境的历史和地理结构;那些经历过这一时期的人的“经验”;以及农村和城市地区不同部门的反应。研究还将参考不同区域的危机经验。研讨会的目的是发展，在这一网络通过汇集新的研究人员（特别是研究生）与更成熟的学者，鼓励两个群体受益于长期合作的知识环境中工作。研讨会将产生一个新的综合的开始，其中的文化和社会会议的两次世界大战之间的英国农村可以从不同的角度来理解。这将为艺术和人文学科的新研究议程开辟道路，并对传统和当代的衰落和失败概念提出挑战。

This network, addressing the English Countryside in the inter-war years, is based both on a period and on a method. The years 1919-1939 were a period in which environment pressure, agricultural decline and changes in the nature of the rural population created a widespread sensitivity towards the rural landscape. A central notion held by many contemporaries was that the very countryside itself as a livid socio-environmental system was under threat from, for example, urban sprawl, rural poverty, the growth of tourism, continued declinein the numbers in agriculture and the collapse of traditional social and cultural structures. This perception of a rural crisis was rooted first in the accounts of social and economic decline-the idea that agriculture was 'finished' as a viable industry. With this concept of the 'end' of agriculture, the organic social structures of farm, village and landscape, which it had supported, themselves came under threat. Yet, at the same time, there was also a positive attitude to rural areas. For many people from the towns the countryside became a site of leisure- the chance to escape from the city and the round of work. To yet another group, mainlyalthough not entirely from the prosperous areas of the south-east, the interwar period gave a chance to live if not in the country then at least ina leafy 'suburban landscape'. This product complex reactions from a variety of writers, artists, painters, musicians and film makers, as well as the farming community, the new country 'trippers' on foot or on bike, or those who sought a rural idyll in the country districts. Int he interwar-period, the English countryside assumed a widespread cultural significance but one which was contested rather than consensual.The method adopted by the network will be interdisciplinary- to bring together scholars from across the Arts and Humanities in a series of seminars which will focus on key themes; imagining the village, genderinhg the landscape, new countrymen and women living in the landscape. Each seminar will invite participants from different disciplines to present papaers and discussion documents from within their discrete subject areas around common questions. These include ideas of the representation of crisis and 'threat', both visual and literacy; the historical and geographical constructions of landscape and environment; the 'experience' of those who lived through the period; and the responses of different sectors within the rural and urban areas. The research will also be informed by the different regional experiences of crisis. The seminars are designed to be developmental, in that by bringing together new researchers (especially postgraduates) with more established scholars, the network encourages both groups to benefit from working in a long-term co-operative intellectual environment.The seminars will produce the beginnings of a new synthesis in which the cultural and social meetings of the inter-war English countryside can be understood from a variety of perspectives. This will open the way for a new research agenda across the Arts and Humanities as well a providing a challenge to the conventional and contemporary notions of decline and failure.