Kalamazoo ICMS 2021 - Whatever Happened to Baby Cain? Ambiguous Childhood in Medieval Literature
Growing up is a perennial feature of human societies. While anxieties surrounding childhood are universal, the manifestations of these concerns vary between cultures. This series of sessions proposes to shed light upon the nexus of ambiguity surrounding the medieval child, as depicted in contemporaneous literature. We invite abstracts for papers that will explore the representation of childhood in texts of any language, genre, and period within the Middle Ages. Topics may include, but are not limited to:
• Historical notions of education, child-rearing, and ʻgood
behaviourʼ.
• Non-human and/or monstrous children.
• Infantilised adults and inescapable childhood.