Critical Childhood Studies and the Practice of Interdisciplinarity

Disciplining the Child

Edited by Joanne Faulkner and Magdalena Zolkos - Contributions by Isobelle Barrett Meyering; Elizabeth Drumm; Danielle Egan; Gail Hawkes; Shurlee Swain; Emily Soper and kylie valentine

This book analyzes different figurations of childhood in contemporary culture and politics with a particular focus on interdisciplinary methodologies of critical childhood studies. It argues that while the figure of the child has been traditionally located at the peripheries of academic disciplines, perhaps most notably in history, sociology and literature, the proposed critical discussions of the ideological, symbolic and affective roles that children play in contemporary societies suggest that they are often the locus of larger societal crises, collective psychic tensions, and unspoken prohibitions and taboos. As such, this book brings into focus the prejudices against childhood embedded in our standard approaches to organizing knowledge, and asks: is there a natural disciplinary home for the study of childhood? Or is this field fundamentally interdisciplinary, peripheral or problematic to notions of disciplinary identity? In this respect, does childhood force innovation in thinking about disciplinarity? For instance, how does the analysis of childhood affect how we think about methodology? What role do understandings of childhood play in delimiting how we conceive of our society, our future, and ourselves? How does thinking about childhood affect how we think about culture, history, and politics?

This book brings together researchers working broadly in critical child studies, but from various disciplines in the humanities and social sciences (including philosophy, literary studies, sociology, cultural studies and history), in order to stage a conversation between these diverse perspectives on the disciplinary or (interdisciplinary) character of ‘the child’ as an object of research. Such conversation builds on the assumption that childhood, far from being marginal, is a topic that is hidden in plain sight. That is to say, while the child is always a presence in culture, history, literature and philosophy—and is often even a highly charged figure within those fields—its operation and effects are rarely theoretically scrutinized, but rather are more likely drawn upon, surreptitiously, for another purpose.

Lexington Books

Pages: 190 • Trim: 6¼ x 9½

978-1-4985-2575-6 • Hardback • December 2015 • $117.00 • (£90.00)

978-1-4985-2577-0 • Paperback • August 2019 • $46.99 • (£36.00)

978-1-4985-2576-3 • eBook • December 2015 • $44.50 • (£35.00)

Series: Children and Youth in Popular Culture

Subjects: Social Science / Children's Studies, Social Science / Popular Culture

Critical Childhood Studies and the Practice of Interdisciplinarity

Disciplining the Child

Hardback

Paperback

eBook

Summary

This book analyzes different figurations of childhood in contemporary culture and politics with a particular focus on interdisciplinary methodologies of critical childhood studies. It argues that while the figure of the child has been traditionally located at the peripheries of academic disciplines, perhaps most notably in history, sociology and literature, the proposed critical discussions of the ideological, symbolic and affective roles that children play in contemporary societies suggest that they are often the locus of larger societal crises, collective psychic tensions, and unspoken prohibitions and taboos. As such, this book brings into focus the prejudices against childhood embedded in our standard approaches to organizing knowledge, and asks: is there a natural disciplinary home for the study of childhood? Or is this field fundamentally interdisciplinary, peripheral or problematic to notions of disciplinary identity? In this respect, does childhood force innovation in thinking about disciplinarity? For instance, how does the analysis of childhood affect how we think about methodology? What role do understandings of childhood play in delimiting how we conceive of our society, our future, and ourselves? How does thinking about childhood affect how we think about culture, history, and politics?

This book brings together researchers working broadly in critical child studies, but from various disciplines in the humanities and social sciences (including philosophy, literary studies, sociology, cultural studies and history), in order to stage a conversation between these diverse perspectives on the disciplinary or (interdisciplinary) character of ‘the child’ as an object of research. Such conversation builds on the assumption that childhood, far from being marginal, is a topic that is hidden in plain sight. That is to say, while the child is always a presence in culture, history, literature and philosophy—and is often even a highly charged figure within those fields—its operation and effects are rarely theoretically scrutinized, but rather are more likely drawn upon, surreptitiously, for another purpose.

Details

Lexington Books

Pages: 190 • Trim: 6¼ x 9½

978-1-4985-2575-6 • Hardback • December 2015 • $117.00 • (£90.00)

978-1-4985-2577-0 • Paperback • August 2019 • $46.99 • (£36.00)

978-1-4985-2576-3 • eBook • December 2015 • $44.50 • (£35.00)

Series: Children and Youth in Popular Culture

Subjects: Social Science / Children's Studies, Social Science / Popular Culture

Author

Joanne Faulkner lectures in philosophy and women’s and gender studies at the University of New South Wales.
Magdalena Zolkos is senior research fellow at the Institute for Social Justice, Australian Catholic University.

Table of Contents

Introduction, Joanne Faulkner and Magdalena Zolkos
Part One: The Child in Memory
Chapter One: Locating the Child within the History of Childhood, Shurlee Swain
Chapter Two: Theorizing Childhood in Second-Wave Feminism: A Re-Reading of Germaine Greer’s The Female Eunuch (1970), Isobelle Barrett Meyering
Chapter Three: “Ancestral Guilt”: Childhood as Redemption and the Question of Nazi Descendancy in German Cultural Memory, Magdalena Zolkos
Part Two: The Child in Imagination
Chapter Four: The Nature of the Child and the Child of Nature: Historical and Contemporary Continuities, Gail Hawkes and Danielle Egan
Chapter Five: Humanity’s Little Scrap Dealers: The Child at Play in Modern Philosophy and Implications for Sexualization Discourse, Joanne Faulkner
Chapter Six: Childhood, Character, and the Nineteenth-Century Novel, Elizabeth Drumm
Part Three: The Institutionalized Child
Chapter Seven: Investment, Risk, and Other Ways of Thinking About Children, kylie valentine
Chapter Eight: Discursive Children: Stolen or Just Forgotten? Racial Politics and the Figure of “the Child” in an Australian Culture of Liberalism, Emily Soper
About the Contributors

Reviews

Critical Childhood Studies and the Practice of Interdisciplinarity is a welcome contribution to childhood studies scholarship, particularlybecause of its explicit embrace of the field’s diverse epistemological practicesand commitments. Its wide-reaching scope attests to the importance of childrenand childhood across multiple disciplines, and each chapter’s extensivebibliography represents a network of connected resources to facilitate andanchor ongoing critical engagement from readers. The book’s central promiseto explore the notion of disciplinarity itself surfaces across individual contributions,and the book may find especially relevant application within thechildhood studies classroom.
— The Lion and the Unicorn

With the increasing interest in child/childhood studies, the scholars in this edited collection brought together by Faulkner and Zolkos will no doubt make an invaluable contribution to the field. With its critical interdisciplinary edge to theory and method, the book challenges taken-for-granted understandings of the child/childhood, highlights the exclusionary practices that have marginalized children and their contributions to society and knowledge-making, and points out the various ways in which the child/childhood have been utilized to maintain broader relations of power in cultures and broader society.
— Kerry Alys Robinson, author, Imagining Abundance: Fundraising, Philanthropy and a Spiritual Call to Service

The growth of children’s studies and the clustering of disciplinary interests that underpin that growth are well served by this excellent and rigorously edited volume. As a scholar of film, politics and childhood, I found all the contributions relevant and insightful. Childhood and children collectively offer a profound challenge to academic knowledge, and these authors grasp it bravely.
— Stephanie Hemelryk Donald, Professor of Film, Lincoln University and Honorary Professor, UNSW