Observing the infant: an interdisciplinary workshop on infancy from 1900 to today

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Time: 10.00am - 5.30pm
Venue: Room 5002, John Galsworthy building, Penrhyn Road campus, Penrhyn Road, Kingston upon Thames, Surrey KT1 2EE
Price: free

We have never known more about babies than we do today. Indeed, in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries the turn to infancy seems ubiquitous. For psychoanalysis, philosophy, literature, psychology, neuroscience and many other disciplines the turn to infancy has been transformative. Yet, the complexity of our cultural attitudes towards infancy (from birth to 18 months) only seems to intensify with our discoveries.

Given the pervasiveness and complexity of our preoccupation with infancy, it is remarkable that the turn to infancy itself has not attracted more critical attention. Many vital questions remain, for the large part, under-explored. For example, in how far do these seemingly separate, but often contemporaneous inquiries into infancy draw from each other? Where do they intersect, where do they remain irreconcilable? Does a monolithic image of infancy emerge in the course of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries? What are the historically contingent preoccupations that necessitated this turn to infancy? In how far is our fascination with babies a vehicle for other fantasies, preoccupations, and anxieties? Do the ideas of infancy and childhood describe sufficiently different states to merit distinct critical approaches? Will a critical focus on childhood and/or infancy lead to a new ontologically and politically revolutionary "counter-knowledge" as suggested by Joanne Faulkner and Magdalena Zoklos in the recent Critical Childhood Studies and the Practice of Interdisciplinarity (2015)?

This informal meeting aims to provide a space in which researchers from across the arts, humanities, and sciences, as well as health care and early years practitioners, and artists can exchange perspectives, explore possible overlaps in inquiry, and map out future directions for the field.

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Contact: Chiara Alfano
Email: C.Alfano@kingston.ac.uk