Heavy Childhoods Conference 2025

Welcome to the website for the Heavy Childhoods Conference at the University of Huddersfield 2025. From the 10th to the 11th of February 2025, we will welcome scholars from a range of disciplines to discuss ‘heaviness’ and ‘childhood’ together. ‘Heaviness’ is the central theme of the conference and can be interpreted many different ways: sonic, textural, thematic, historical, affective, and spatial. We welcome text-based (broadly defined) and real- world approaches from sociology, childhood studies, social work, pedagogy, postmodern geography, queer studies, literary studies, media studies, film studies, musicology, popular music studies, and explicitly interdisciplinary approaches. We look forward to seeing you in- person or online at this hybrid event. Stay tuned here for updates. We are currently planning publication outcomes related to this conference. Expressions of interest in hosting panels and/or chapter proposals for the edited collection, are open now. Contact at heavychildho

 Ingrained social constructs of the child and childhood as a time of innocence, imagination, and wonder limit our understanding of other aspects that constitute childhood's representations and experiences. Constructs such as the child-as-future, childhood as a linear progression from deficiency to proficiency, childhood as a walled-garden etc. work to gloss over the complexities of class, race, and geography as they intersect with childhood. Further, ‘the child’ is too often excluded from academic enquiry on epistemology, affect, emotions, and subjectivity outside of specific disciplines like childhood studies. In this inaugural interdisciplinary conference, we discuss the complexities of representation, crossings, and the cultural work “the child” does in a broad range of texts, contexts, and spaces. We invite interdisciplinary and post disciplinary approaches from academy, industry, and not-for-profit sectors.  “Heavy Childhoods Conference” February 2025 invites delegates to expl