The History of Childhood and the Emotional Turn

Abstract

Abstract The rapid emergence and consolidation of the history of emotions has already demonstrated the usefulness of the field of study in upending established historical narratives. While a heterodoxy of approaches still dominates the field, until recently, these approaches have been dominantly adult focused. This essay highlights recent work in the history of childhood and youth, questioning that focus and providing a multiplicity of ways to combine the history of childhood and the history of emotions, with a view to both the changing emotional prescriptions and proscriptions of childhood and to children's emotional experiences. I argue that the history of childhood might also influence the study of the history of emotions, adding greater range and depth of analysis as well as asking probing questions of the most important theoretical contributions to that field. To that end, the essay analyses the usefulness of new theoretical tools: ‘emotional formations’ and ‘emotional frontiers’.

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