The Child: What Kind of Human? (MLA 2018)
Proposed Special Session for the 2018 MLA Annual Convention in New York City, January 4-7
The Child: What Kind of Human?
Theories of child development and attendant norms of maturity are wielded to evaluate the humanity of beings whose humanness is not self-evident. The child becomes an intellectual and physical unit of measurement against which a host of others are judged: enslaved people, pets, primates, plants, robots, extra-terrestrials, avatars, animated characters, the incarcerated, inhabitants of the global South, the differently abled, and the elderly to name just a few.