Modernist Childhoods: The Figure of the Child in Women's Fiction, 1890-1950

ongoing

The project will examine representations of children and childhood in women’s fiction of the modernist period (c. 1890-1950). The concept of childhood became central to late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century British culture, when the child-figure was used to explore important questions about identity and gender. Scientific investigations of children led to views of childhood as a developmental stage, the role of which was to prepare the child to become a rational and autonomous adult – characteristics associated with ideas of masculinity. The project explores how female fiction writers of the period reshaped and rejected male-centred scientific definitions of childhood in order to reimagine the child, making it a vehicle for feminist ideas and a propeller of new modes of representation. The project will pursue an interdisciplinary approach, drawing on expertise in literary studies, childhood studies, and feminist studies, acquired and consolidated through KU Leuven’s research centres: MDRN (focusing on modernist culture), and LCH2 (Leuven Centre for Health Humanities, with a special focus on representations of age). This expertise will primarily be developed by training-through-research under the supervision of Elke D’hoker, an expert on women’s fiction and modernist literature. The main deliverables will be two journal articles, a monograph proposal, and an edited collection, arising from an international symposium organised at KU Leuven. The research will also lead to the delivery of four conference papers, and communication to non-academic audiences through European Researchers’ Nights, a public lecture, a newspaper article, and a workshop for high school students.