The conference addresses the question of how children, as historical actors, recount and bear witness to their experiences. These often include physical and psychological violence, as well as experiences resulting from separation, war, and displacement.
The field of testimonial research has been gaining importance in historical research for several years, although children and young adults are often overlooked in these contexts.This is particularly true for the pre-modern period, as the available sources are considered insufficient. We, on the other hand, argue that they should be considered untapped. For this reason, the declared aim of this conference is to develop cultural-historical archives that could close the postulated source deficit. This also applies in particular to archives on visual culture, which have grown steadily in recent years and are still awaiting systematic development.
The aim of the conference is to synthesize perspectives from historical and art-historical research and to (finally) take children seriously in their role as witnesses. We welcome methodologically reflective contributions that deal specifically with children as contemporary witnesses or with children's testimonies in the early modern period. Entanglement-historical perspectives, including interdisciplinary ones, can be considered, as can disciplinary discussions on the important question of material, visual, oral, and textual archives, with contributions from the perspective of memory history and memory theory being particularly welcome. Proposals from a psychological-historical perspective are also very welcome.
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