Reimagining the Child: Proceedings of the 2016 Rutgers-Camden Graduate Student Conference in Childhood Studies

The graduate program in Childhood Studies at Rutgers University – Camden held its third conference in ten years during the Spring of 2016. Born of a desire both to “get back to the roots” of the field and, at the same time, to throw open its doors, the conference promoted engagement with the basic questions of the nature, meaning, and status of childhood which are the foundation of childhood studies. Also of serious importance was to celebrate the field’s strong culture of interdisciplinarity by bringing scholars from as any disparate perspectives as possible into the conversation. The resulting event featured presentations by over forty graduate students and other early-career scholars, representing several dozen institutions, nine countries, and a broad spectrum of disciplines and research approaches: psychology, education, public policy, history, anthropology, media studies, and many more. Many papers defied such categorizations entirely, fitting with childhood studies approach’s promise of providing a holistic view of young people’s experiences and place in global society unbounded by conventional notions of disciplinarity.The twelve chapters included in this volume give a taste of the full breadth of both the conference and the wider field of work they represent.