CfP 2|2026 English

Childhood in interdisciplinary contexts

Editorky: Andrea Mikulášová, Elisabeth Oberlechner

There is not one version or definition of childhood, as every child is different and experiences its growing up differently. Also, we reconstruct our past from a new angle every time we look back at it. For this issue of Philologia, we are interested in how this topic is the focus of research in various disciplines in academia. The idea is not only to highlight the multifacetedness of this theme, but to foster the dialogue within the different fields of expertise by making intersections visible – regarding shared approaches to the topic in theory and analysis. As a result, the contributions to this issue will present and represent the latest research and a depiction of current questions and discourses on „childhood“.

Possible suggestions for disciplines and topics:

Educational sciences: intermedial approach to childhood (through language, sound and image); the didactical approach to children’s and youth literature at schools and universities; the critical analysis of ideology, gender and social norms in fairy tales

Cultural studies and literature: literary depictions of childhood and children; writing and talking about children in social and cultural change; topographies of autobiographical childhood concepts; intergenerational perspectives: adult-child relationships: conflicts and potential solutions; threshold experiences in childhood and youth – travel, adventure, initiation, identity; childhood spaces (significant childhood locations or formative institutions in childhood such as home, school, boarding school); being small and growing up; the myth of childhood: the potential of literature and art as approaches to childhood memories; panoramas of childhood in the labyrinth of literary mnemographies

History: representations and descriptions of childhood in different eras; child rearing through the ages; the idealization of childhood in the Romantic period

Linguistics: aspects of language development and language promotion in childhood; mono- or multilingual language acquisition, the effects of early childhood trauma; linguistic representation of various aspects of childhood through ages

Social sciences: childhood in different social contexts, impact of war and refugee experiences on children

Gender studies: Childhood and gender norms, gender stereotypes in children's and young adult literature; queer and non-binary childhood in heteronormative structures