Paper short abstract:

In this introduction to the panel, I will consider some of the recent issues and opportunities facing scholars researching domesticity and the material circumstances of home.

Paper long abstract:

In this paper I will consider some of the recent issues and opportunities facing scholars researching domesticity and the material circumstances of home. I will particularly focus on the relationship between a concern with the material objects of the home (including many that we “use” without noticing) and a renewed interest in affect and the senses. In the light of these interests I argue for a new understanding of taste that shifts it out of the dominant register of symbolic value and into a more experiential realm of feeling.