Ninth Annual International Graduate Student Workshop | Armenian Childhood(s): Histories and Theories of Childhood and Youth in Armenian Studies

For complete workshop program, please visit: https://ii.umich.edu/asp/news-events/all-events/workshops/april-2018--armenian-childhood-s---histories-a.html

In recent years, the study of childhood and youth has gained increasing attention that has resulted in innovative interdisciplinary scholarship. The field of Childhood Studies of the last decade has concentrated on modern childhood(s) and youth, and has questioned the meanings that adults and governmental bodies attribute to children. For example, universal characteristics, such as “innocence,” “incompetence,” and “vulnerability,” defining children and youth have been examined and challenged by scholars from a variety of fields, who insist that “childhood”, like ethnicity, gender, and class, is a constructed social category. Pushing methodological boundaries to explore political, historical, cultural, economic, and social formations, structures and contexts across time and place, scholars have begun to consider children and youth as agents in their political and social environment rather than passive members of society.

This workshop will initiate an inter-disciplinary conversation about Armenian childhood, children, and youth. The goal is to consider new perspectives, methodologies, and cross-disciplinary frameworks that will put Armenian Studies in conversation with Childhood Studies. We aim to bring together theoretical and methodological approaches along with empirical studies across disciplines that use childhood as a category of analysis and/or concentrate on children’s agencies and experiences in Armenian history, politics, society, economy, and culture. We see both childhood and youth as fluid categories and concepts that are subject to flexible interpretations and definitions.

Photo caption: Miss Harnack with a group of (Armenian) orphans
Credit: Der Christliche Orient (Vol.15, 1914)