Visual and Textual Worlds of Children

Last November I ran the call for papers from the American Antiquarian Society's conference on “Home, School, Play, Work: The Visual and Textual Worlds of Children,” taking place this 14-15 November in Worcester, Massachusetts, and continuing at a session on 13-14 Feb 2009 at the Cotsen Children's Library in Princeton, New Jersey.

The conference program has just been announced, and is available here. Here are just a few selections that caught my eye because of their topics, their authors, or both:

• Rebecca R. Noel, Plymouth State University, "The Child's Textualized Body in Antebellum Hygiene Schoolbooks"
• C. Dallett Hemphill, Ursinus College, "Representations of Siblings in Children's Stories and Family Portraits, 1780-1820"
• Desirée Henderson, University of Texas, Arlington, "Pen, Ink, and Paper: Writing Instruments and Female Literacy in The Wide, Wide World and Little Women"
• Seth Cotlar, Willamette University, "'When I was your age . . .': Nostalgic Representations of the Recent Past in American Children's Literature of the 1830s and 1840s"
• Peter Benes, Dublin Seminar for New England Folk Life, Boston University, "'A Dutchman skating on ice in the midst of summer': Magic Lantern Entertainments for Children before 1830"
• Elizabeth Kuebler-Wolf, University of St. Francis, "The Early Development of Southern Chivalry and the Visual History of Children in the Slavery Debate"
• Courtney A. Weikle-Mills, University of Pittsburgh, "'How art thou affected, poor child, in the reading of this book?': Cotton Mather's Children's Books and the Making of Closet Readers"

Registration closes on 30 October.