NEWSLETTER
Society for the History of Children and Youth
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No. 9 |
Winter 2007 |
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News from the Field compiled by Nancy Zey News from Members~~New Member Spotlight~~Recent Articles by Members~~New Books from Members Priscilla Ferguson Clement, Professor of History and Women's Studies at Penn State Delaware County Campus, retired as of July 1, 2006. She continues to teach a little as an emerita professor and is also editing the first two books in a series of books entitled Growing Up: History of Children and Youth for Greenwood-Praeger Press. They will be published in 2007. Clement also continues her own research on the history of boys. Best wishes! Congratulations to Andrew Hartman who completed his Ph.D. in history at the George Washington University in August 2006. He has joined the history department at Illinois State University. His dissertation titled, "Education as Cold War Experience: The Battle for the American School," was picked up by Palgrave Macmillan to be published as "Education and the Cold War." David Wolcott has taken a new position as an Assessment Specialist with the Educational Testing Service in Princeton, NJ. He helps coordinate programs and assemble exams for Advanced Placement and SAT Subject Tests in US history, and he will continue to conduct research on juveniles in the American justice system. Dirk Schumann has taken a position as Professor of History in the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at International University Bremen (Jacobs University Bremen as of Spring 2007). Congratulations to Kathleen Jones (Virginia Tech) who has been awarded a fellowship for next year from the National Humanities Center, Research Triangle, NC, to finish her book on the history of youth suicide. Boris Gorshov completed his dissertation titled "Factory Children: Child Industrial Labor in Imperial Russia, 1780-1917" and received his PhD degree from Auburn University. A book manuscript from this dissertation and now is under consideration at Pittsburgh University Press. This will be his second book, the first being A Life Under Russian Serfdom: Memoirs of Savva Purlevskii, 1800-68 (Central European University Press, 2005). Cheryl Krasnick Warsh will be presenting a paper entitled, "From Vim to Popeye: Power foods for Kids in Canadian Popular Magazines, 1910s-1960" as part of a CHA Roundtable on Food in Canadian history, organized by Franca Iacovetta, Valerie Korinek and Marlene Epp, at the Congress at the University of Saskatchewan in May. Helen Brown has published 'Negotiating Space, Time, and Identity: The Hutton-Pellett Letters and a British Child's Wartime Evacuation to Canada,' Letters Across Borders: The Epistolary Practices of International Migrants. Eds. Bruce S. Elliott, David A. Gerber. and Suzanne M. Sinke. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006. Kudos to Julia Mickenberg, who has renewed her membership in SHCY after recovering from the fog of having two children and working toward tenure. She is Assistant Professor of American Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. Her book, Learning from the Left: Children's Literature, the Cold War, and Radical Politics in the United States, was published by Oxford University Press in the fall of 2005; the book won the Pacific Coast Branch Award from the American Historical Association. Along with Phil Nel (of Kansas State University), she is co-editing a collection of out-of-print, radical children's literature, which will be published in 2008 by New York University Press. Joshua Garrison completed his PhD in history of education at Indiana University in May 2006 with a dissertation entitled "Ontogeny Recapitulates Savagery: The Evolution of G. Stanley Hall's Adolescent." The following August he joined the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh as an assistant professor in educational foundations, teaching courses on the history of education, history of childhood, and a course on children and globalization. He is looking forward to meeting fellow SHCY members in Sweden this summer. Welcome, Joshua! Valeria Gatti is a Bachelor in Latin American History graduated from the Pontific Catholic University of Peru. She conducted some research on the Andean and occidental vision of childhood during XVII and XVIII centuries using an Andean chronic (Guaman Poma de Ayala's Nueva Coronica y Buen Gobierno) and focusing on the Andean perspective of children comparing it to the european one. Her research also includes topics such as "the way children play," the relation between toys and games, and links between playing and working in children. Welcome, Valeria! Michael Zuckerman (University of Pennsylvania) has a recent article out which looks at the American Revolution in terms of the metaphor of childhood and the realities of early American family life. It's entitled "Coming of Age in the Age of the American Revolution," and can be found in the European Journal of Developmental Psychology, vol. 3, no. 4 (2006), pp. 402-14. Boris Gorshkov (Auburn University) has an essay in a forthcoming publication: "Making and Teaching Russian Backwardness: Old Wines in New Bottles," which will appear in Newsnet of the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies in March 2007. Paula Fass (University of California, Berkeley) has a new book out. Children of a New World: Society, Culture, and Globalization (NYU Press, 2006) is a collection of essays which explore the impact of globalization on children's lives, both in the United States and on the world stage. Globalization, privatization, the rise of the "work-centered" family, and the triumph of the unregulated marketplace, she argues, are revolutionizing the lives of children today. Fass begins by considering the role of the school as a fundamental component of social formation, particularly in a nation of immigrants like the United States. She goes on to examine children as both creators of culture and objects of cultural concern in America, evident in the strange contemporary fear of and fascination with child abduction, child murder, and parental kidnapping. Finally, Fass moves beyond the limits of American society and brings historical issues into the present and toward the future, exploring how American historical experience can serve as a guide to contemporary globalization as well as how globalization is altering the experience of American children and redefining childhood. Adriana S. Benzaquen (Mount at Saint Vincent University) has a recent publication: Encounters with Wild Children: Temptation and Disappointment in the Study of Human Nature (McGill-Queen's University Press, 2006). Since the early seventeenth century, stories of encounters with strange children in unusual circumstances have been recorded, circulated, and reproduced in Europe and North America not simply as myths, legends, or good tabloid copy but as occurrences deserving serious scrutiny by philosophers and scientists. "Wild children" were seen as privileged objects of knowledge, believed to hold answers to fundamental questions about the boundaries of the human, the character and significance of civilization, and the relation between nature and culture, heredity and environment. This book explores the many different meanings these children were given and the varied responses they elicited. Benzaquén explains why wild children continue to haunt and fascinate Western scientists and shows how the knowledge they have generated in different disciplines, including anthropology, psychology, psychiatry, pedagogy, linguistics, and sociology, has contributed to the shaping and reshaping of the modern understanding of "the child" and affected the social and institutional practices directed at all children in schools, welfare, mental health, and the law. Through detailed readings of a wide variety of accounts, debates, and representations, Encounters with Wild Children. Lynne Curry (Eastern Illinois University) has a new book out: The DeShaney Case: Child Abuse, Family Rights, and the Dilemma of State Intervention ((University Press of Kansas, Landmark Law Cases and American Society). Does the Constitution protect children from violent parents? As Curry shows, that was the central question at issue when Melody DeShaney initially sued Wisconsin for failing to protect her battered son Joshua from her estranged husband, thus violating her son’s constitutional right to due process. The resulting case, DeShaney v. Winnebago County (1989), was a highly emotional one pitting the family against the state and challenging our views on domestic relations, child abuse, and the responsibilities—and limits—of state action regarding the private lives of citizens. Curry brings to light details that have been ignored or neglected and covers both the criminal and civil proceedings to retell a story that still shocks. Drawing on legal briefs and social work case files, she reviews the legal machinations of the state and includes personal stories of key actors: family members, social workers, police officers, child advocates, and opposing attorneys. She then clearly analyzes the majority and dissenting opinions from the Court, as well as reactions from the court of public opinion. Carolyn Cocca (SUNY, Old Westbury) has a new edited collection: Adolescent Sexuality: A Historical Handbook and Guide (Greenwood Press, 2006). It is part of the Children and Youth: History and Culture series edited by Miriam Forman-Brunell and covers major issues in adolescent sexuality in the United States from colonial times to the present. The collection covers major issues in adolescent sexuality in the United States from colonial times to the present and provides an account of ways in which adults--from policymakers to police and parents--have attempted to intervene in the sexual lives of adolescents, and how adolescent sexuality has been, and continues to be, a subject of social concern and control. Original essays cover juvenile sex in history, as well as trends such as statutory rape laws, teen pregnancy, media portrayals of adolescent sexuality, and sex education. The perspective is further broadened by a collection of primary documents such as a petition from the Women's Christian Temperance Union to raise the age of consent, court cases, Freud's theories on sexuality, images used in the early 20th century for sex education, and current statistics on adolescent sexuality. A number of primary documents and an extensive bibliography are included as well. Harvey Graff (Ohio State University) has a new anthology coming out later this year, which has many intersections with studies of children and youth: Literacy and Historical Development (Southern Illinois University Press, 2007). Mona Sue Weissmark (Northwestern University) announces a 14-minute documentary about a Chicago psychologist who managed to have a German family (Pastor Julius Seebass and his wife and children) awarded the Yad Vashem "Righteous Among the Nations" title for saving her father's life in April 1945. Among the issues touched upon in this short film are confronting perceptions of the German people formed in childhood. Weissmark is a psychology professor and author of Justice Matters:Legacies of the Holocaust and World War II (Oxford University Press). The documentary produced by Johanna Holzhaeur aired nationwide on WDR German television and recently been distributed to schools and churches throughout Germany. The documentary can be viewed at: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7650435739104968253&pr=goog-sl. After you have had a chance to watch the film, please share your thoughts. And if you think the film has merit, please share with friends and colleagues. Following is the link to the Oxford University Press blog where you can post comments . The History of Children and Youth Group (HCYG), affiliated with the Canadian Historical Association, announces the launch of its website, hosted jointly by the Department of Educational Studies and the History Department at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada: http://www.edst.educ.ubc.ca/HCYG/. We encourage H-Childhood subscribers to visit the site and to consider joining the HCYG. Please note our announcement under the "Events" tab of the first Neil Sutherland Prize for the best scholarly journal article or book chapter in the History of Children and Youth for 2006-2007. Submissions from any national context and historic period are most welcome. April Brayfield (Tulane University) would like to direct members’ attention to her students’ web projects: http://www.tulane.edu/~rouxbee/kids_projects.html. The Department of Childhood Studies, Rutgers University, Camden. Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey -Graduate School of Arts & Sciences, Camden Campus, announces the launching of ground-breaking Ph.D. and M.A. graduate programs focused on the study of children and childhood in social, cultural, historical and political contexts. A strong core of faculty with research interests across a comprehensive spectrum of scholarly disciplines enables the Department of Childhood Studies to prepare scholars capable of innovative interdisciplinary research and develop leaders in child related scholarship, social practice and policy. SHCY member Dan Cook (dtcook@uiuc.edu) is one of the founding faculty of this new department, which will begin operations in September 2007. To learn about this group of faculty whose research regularly earns national and international attention or to find out more about the program, please visit http://childhood-studies.camden.rutgers.edu. The Ohio State University announces a new graduate interdisciplinary specialization in Literacy Studies. The GIS (as it is known) does not yet have a website but its "parent," Literacy Studies Working Group/Literacy Studies @ OSU, does: http://icrph.osu.edu/literacystudies/. The British History of Youth and Community Work Study Conference will be held from 2- 4 March 2007 at Ushaw College, Durham (UK). For conference particulars, see: http://www.infed.org/events/history_conference_2007.htm From 19-21 September 2007, Ghent University will host the meeting of the European Educational Research Association. For more information on this conference, please see: http://www.eera.ac.uk/web/eng/all/annual/2007/index.html. Lloyd deMause, editor of The Journal of Psychohistory, would like to invite members to receive a free copy of the current issue of The Journal of Psychohistory which features an article on "Sexual Abuse of Children in Japan." Just email at <psychhst@tiac.net> with your postal address and we'll send you this current issue free. Seeking Laura Ingalls Wilder Letters and Photographs of Sites: During her lifetime as an author, Laura Ingalls Wilder responded to every fan letter she received, until the last 6 months of her life. She saved the fan letters she received and all are carefully preserved. Ironically, her responses were scattered to the four winds and while some of come safely to rest in museums, archives, and libraries across the country, others currently reside in scrapbooks, the backs of drawers, in musty files, and in old shoe boxes tied up with ribbon and carefully put away. As interest in Laura continues to grow, now is the time to bring those letters to light. Please help me make sure those letters aren't lost forever. In conjunction with the Laura Ingalls Wilder Museum in Walnut Grove, Minnesota I'm seeking photocopies of Laura letters. These would be scholarly study copies only and will be deposited in the newly built archive room at the Laura Ingalls Wilder Museum in Walnut Grove, Minnesota. We are also seeking photos of any of the Wilder museum sites pre-1985 or photos of any special local Wilder events, such as gingerbread parties that you might have attended. Thank-you for your help and please help to spread the word.
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