Bringing together leaders in the field of child studies, the Leslie Center for the Humanities in conjunction with the women and gender studies program hosted a conference Tuesday to discuss the growing discipline through a humanities-based lens. The day-long program, "Reimagining the Child and the Place of Child Studies in the Academy," intended to shift the focus of child studies to the humanities from predominantly scientific approaches and draw attention to related public policy, according to conference organizer and Leslie Center Director Colleen Boggs.
Morning sessions focused on scholarly work in child studies, including lectures by professors currently "defining the field," such as Amherst College English professor Karen Sanchez-Eppler, University of Utah English professor Kathryn Stockton and University of Massachusetts, Amherst women, gender and sexuality studies professor Laura Briggs. Afternoon sessions focused on modern-day applications of academic theories and highlighted the book "A History of Four Voices: Multigenerational Dialogues on the Meaning of Childhood and Free to Be ... You and Me," co-edited by Leslie Center fellow Laura Lovett and Barnard College professor Lori Rotskoff.
"Free to Be ... You and Me" was an initiative in the early 1970s intended to change children's attitudes about gender relations through a television program, book and music album. As the "Free to Be" book nears its 40th anniversary of publication, Lovett and Rotskoff examined the implications of the work through personal reflections by those involved in its popularization. Lovett and Rotskoff's book will be released in November.
Boggs said she recognized the scale of the impact of "Free to Be" when she attended a child's birthday party and mentioned the conference, which included a screening of clips from the TV show. Adults present at the party recalled songs from the program and album from their own childhoods, she said.
"It felt like I had turned into this magnet," she said. "Everyone came into this conversation and started talking about Free to Be' and the impact it had had on their lives. It really galvanized a conversation about children and child-rearing."
Boggs and Lovett said the conference is particularly timely as Dartmouth nears the 40th anniversary of becoming coeducational.
"When Dartmouth went coed, and it was the last Ivy to go coed, the issue of whether or not women had the right to a terrific education was very much in the framework of it," Lovett said. "[Free to Be'] really was a turning point in the way we could think about women's access to education and workplace equality."
The conference began with Sanchez-Eppler's lecture, "In the Archives of Childhood," which addressed the connection between archival research and child studies.
Sanchez-Eppler said that both child studies and archival research are elusive, but archiving in conjunction with the discipline of child studies can unearth the "child's voice and aspiration."
To demonstrate the obstacles facing archival work and the information that can be gleaned from the process, Sanchez-Eppler presented her analysis of a child's drawing that reads, "To my dear schoolteacher," drawn in 1856. The voice of the child author is most apparent in minutiae such as spelling errors and handwriting.
"The real discoveries of archival work lie in the most everyday findings of the past," she said.
Following the screening of "Free to Be," a panel of six activists, scholars and cultural workers responded to clips and engaged 20 audience members, including four children, in dialogue that tackled issues like incarceration, heteronormativity, racism, classism and health care.
Rotskoff said that rewatching the film led her to believe that society has in some ways regressed in gender relations. Whereas newborns in the clips are taken home from the hospital clothes in yellow, chosen for its gender neutrality, toys and children's products today are "outrageously gendered" through the pink-blue divide, she said.
A contemporary version of "Free to Be" would have to more closely address issues of racism and classism in addition to sexism, according to panelist and children's welfare advocate Dorothy Pitman Hughes, who said these three problems together prevent America "from being beautiful."
Hughes' daughter, who had a non-speaking role in "Free to Be," wondered if producers prevented her from asking questions because she is African-American, Hughes said.
Hanover resident Laurie Greenberg said she felt a particular connection when watching "Free to Be" because, when it was released, her daughter was two years old. She said she remembered many details and songs but was now struck by a sense of racism, which was less evident in the 1970s.
Greenberg said she worries that society may be "going back into the dark ages" with respect to political issues like health insurance coverage of birth control. The issues raised at the conference are particularly important to her as a grandmother, she said.
"[My daughter] has a real responsibility here with children to raise them in a different society, to bring them different opportunities where they can really be free to be who they want to be and feel safe about that," Greenberg said.
Sean Gupta '15, who attended two sessions of the conference as part of a women and gender studies course called "Tears, Love, Happiness: Feminine Territories, Feminist Readings," said he benefitted from the lectures despite their focus on children, a field of study not immediately relevant to most Dartmouth students.
"I think the greatest take-away is that America still has a lot of social issues to overcome, especially when it comes to sexual equality," he said. "But I think that the opposition to equality is becoming more and more of a minority."
