Sources for Childhood and Youth Studies – with the Centre for the History of the Book, Bodleian Library
Register via Eventbrite for the first session at 11.30-12.30, Horton Room at the Weston Library or the second session at 12.30-1.30, Horton Room at the Weston Library.
We are delighted to announce our first pedagogy session, with a focus on sources for integrating childhood and youth studies into teaching for undergraduate or postgraduate students. This session is run in conjunction with the Centre for the Study of the Book at the Bodleian Library, and is open to teaching staff of all career stages who hold a University or Bodleian Reader card.
Childhood and youth are often seen as presenting ‘a problem of sources’, with few sources showing traces of children’s or youth activities, or articulating their perspectives (Maynes, 2008). Yet the Bodleian Library holds some of the largest collections of materials relating to childhood and youth. As well as dedicated collections like the Opie Collection, the educational materials in the John Johnson Collection, and the Ballam Collection of Games and Pastimes, childhood and youth materials can be found across family papers, organisational archives, and in the legal deposit collection. These can be difficult to locate due to age not being treated as a category of classification in archives (Sanchez-Eppler, 2013). This session, organised at the Centre for the History of the Book, will showcase a diverse array of childhood and youth sources from the Bodleian collections, in order to consider how they might inform our teaching of undergraduates or taught postgraduates.
How could the resources in this session be used when teaching undergraduate and taught postgraduate students?
What skills do undergraduate or taught postgraduate students need to locate and interpret these sources?
What resources are available for assessed work, such as dissertations or theses?
What can childhood and youth sources teach students about the politics of the archive, and research methods?
How might these sources illuminate topics in undergraduate or postgraduate modules?
Bodleian staff will be on hand to answer any questions about other items in the collections, or advice on conducting searches. Attendees must have a University or Bodleian Reader card to enter the Weston Library. The session will take place in the Horton Room. Enter via the Parks Road entrance, placing bags and coats in the locker (£1 deposit required), then make your way to the Horton Room on Level 1, just opposite the reading room entrance.
Further reading
Sánchez-Eppler, Karen. "In the archives of childhood." The Children’s Table: Childhood Studies and the Humanities (2013): 213-37.
Maynes, Mary Jo. "Age as a category of historical analysis: history, agency, and narratives of childhood." The Journal of the History of Childhood and Youth 1.1 (2008): 114-124.
Mills, Sarah. "Cultural–historical geographies of the archive: fragments, objects and ghosts." Geography Compass 7.10 (2013): 701-713.
Stoler, Ann Laura. Along the Archival Grain: Epistemic Anxieties and Colonial Common Sense. Course Book ed. Princeton, NJ, 2010.
Childhoood and Youth Studies Network (CYS), TORCH Networks
