Call for Chapters
Following on my work on
witchcraft accusations against children, I've
teamed up with Simon Bacon to work on an anthology exploring the many
issues surrounding children/childhood and conceptualisations of
monstrosity and evil. We're particularly keen to open up a wide-ranging
debate from cinema to the criminal courts. If you've got an idea, send
it in!
Book Project. Title:
Little Horrors: Representations of the Monstrous Child
Gone is the Victorian innocence of childhood. We have entered the age of the monstrous child, the little horror.
Each historical period can be seen to have prioritised a different
facet of the child, the Victorian era idolised the innocence of the
pre-pubescent child, the twentieth century the disaffected teenager,
whilst the early twenty-first sems to be that of the monstrous child.
Whilst global organisations such as UNICEF and Save the Children promote
the sanctity of childhood as a fundamental human right, popular culture
and empirical, sociological data would intimate something else. Here
children are not configured as the wealth of the family and the
community, but are seen as an economic burden, a luxury or even a
parasite. Far from being the repository of all society holds dear about
itself, the child becomes something at once uncontrollable and
monstrous, not to be loved and cherished but feared and expelled.
Whether supernatural or just plain wicked, the child becomes a liminal
being caught outside of normalised categorization; not mature, not
socilaised, not under the rule of law and not conforming to adult
nostagia over what they should be.
Is there a relationship between the declining birth rate in the West
and the increasing representation of children as an alien other?
However, as witchcraft accusations against children in Africa and
representations in the Asian horror film genre show, this is not just a
Western phenomenon. So just what are the underlying reasons, if any?
This volume aims to assemble the evidence from history, psychology,
sociology, literature and media studies to map the extent and meaning of
this representational development.
Topics to include:
Witch children, witchcraft accusations against children, children using witchcraft accusations
Magical children: children with magical or superhuman powers, the wunderkind
Werewolves and other shapeshifters: children as animals
Fairies and changelings: the folklore of strange children
Undead children: vampires, zombies and others
Ghosts and demonic children: children possessed, children as demons
Child crime and culpability: moral evil and legal responsibility
Monstrous children through history: physical deformity and mental health issues
Children as embodiments of other aspects of supernatural horror
The monstrous as a new role model for children
Children as adults and adults as children
Society and children and public and private spaces Immigration, post-colonialism and foreign adoption
War children and child soldiers
A brief bio and abstract of circa 300 words should be sent to -
For literature and media studies: Simon Bacon (baconetti [at] googlemail [dot] com)
For history and social sciences: Leo Ruickbie (leo [at] ruickbie [dot] com)
Deadline for abstracts: 1st September 2013
There's no project page as yet, but you'll find these same details at
http://kcl.academia.edu/LeoRuickbie/Posts
