The project aims at analysing the changes in gender conceptions and gender hierarchies in Britain during the period of transition and upheaval ca. 1910-1940 termed (aesthetic) modernism or (historical) modernity. The central thesis is that the most decisive impulses for change in the cultural field came from the margins of society, i.e. from the non-authoritative positions of outsiders, eccentrics, and, above all, women artists and writers. Conventional moral and spatial boundaries were transgressed, dominant conceptions of society were put into question and modified. The main objects of analysis are narrative texts, whose specific literary qualities seem to be particularly suitable for negotiating the progressive potential of marginality and of transgression. Additional focus will be on travelogues and poetry. The manifold correlations between literary and non-literary discourses will be traced and considered in their cultural context. The project focuses on three related areas: (1) the contemporary debate on norms and values, viewed against the background of degenerationist thinking, (2) the representation of these norms and values through semantically charged conceptions of space, (3) the media for the publication of such subversive texts. [self-description] The site offers information on the project, its members, further reading, and links to related sites.