Call for Papers: Children, Childhood, and Irish Society, 1700-2007.

Éire-Ireland: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Irish Studies welcomes submissions for a Spring/Summer 2009 special issue that will consider the theme of "Children, Childhood, and Irish Society, 1700-2007."  Childhood figures insistently across a wide range of contemporary discussions and representations of Irish life, from constitutional referenda and tribunals of inquiry to blockbuster films, memoirs and award-winning novels, from the emergence of Gaelscoileanna to the citizenship debate. The guest editors seek essays that place these recent developments in a broader social, cultural, and historical context. We are especially interested in essays that offer interdisciplinary perspectives from history, literature, visual culture, social welfare and social policy. We also invite submissions informed by new sources of archival research. We encourage articles responding to the following areas:

Changing conceptions of childhood in Irish society in the period 1700 to the present.

The child and the state

The child and religion

Childhood and social class

Childhood and educational policy/practice

Childhood in the two Irelands: Anglo and native, North and the Republic

The marginalised and/or institutionalized child

Irish childhood and the Diaspora

Children and family: nuclear, single parent, adopted, foster

Idealised childhood and nostalgia

Childhood sexualities

Imaging children and childhood in film, documentary, and art.

Literary Childhoods: fiction, poetry, drama, and memoir

The deadline for the receipt of proposal (two pages) is November 1, 2007, and completed articles (6000-8000 words) will be due by April 15, 2008.  Send proposals to Professor Maria Luddy at [log in to unmask] and Professor James Smith at [log in to unmask]