Childhood Studies and Religion Unit
The Childhood Studies and Religion Unit welcomes proposals for individual papers and sessions that engage the intersection of religion and childhood or children, broadly construed. We are especially interested in proposals from non-Euro-American and non-Christian perspectives, and we welcome a range of methodologies from across the humanities and the social sciences.
For the 2025 AAR Annual Meeting, we hope to organize sessions around one or more of the following topics:
Children, Childhood, and Disability
How are disabled children represented across different times, places, and traditions? How do they appear (or disappear) in religious spaces? Is it possible to separate the study of children and disability from the long history of infantilizing people with disabilities?
Liberating Childhoods
How do we prioritize the rights of children in public policy and religion? What does a liberative childhood look like across the globe? How has childhood advocacy been represented historically, theoretically, and practically in religious studies? How do
Queer and Trans Studies in Religion & Childhood - Co-Sponsored
For a potential co-sponsored session with the Queer Theory Unit, we invite proposals at the intersection of queer and trans studies in religion and childhood. This may include queer, trans, and gender-non-conforming youth in historic and contemporary religious studies; revisiting “the figure of the child” and futurity in queer theories; trans youths, public and/or healthcare policy, and religion; the child, religion, and popular culture; anti-/blackness and the queer and/or trans child; trans minors and the United States v. Skrmetti case; other topics that take seriously the role of religion in queer and trans childhood.
Additional Opportunities
If you are interested in proposing a session that is not listed above, we welcome panel and roundtable proposals especially related to childhood and immigration. In your submission, please indicate the type of session you are proposing (panel or roundtable). Innovative and interactive sessions are especially welcome, and our co-chairs are happy to discuss what category might best fit any given proposal. In keeping with our commitment to presenting diverse perspectives and voices in each of our sessions, we also urge you to indicate what types of diversity your proposal or participants might represent.
This Unit’s overall aim is to investigate the complex and multifaceted relation between religion and childhood. The specific goals of the Unit are as follows: • Provide a forum for focused interdisciplinary and interreligious dialogue about the diverse relations of children and religion • Heighten academic interest in this topic in all fields represented in the AAR • Prepare scholars in religious studies to contribute to wider academic discussions about children and childhoods • Lend the voice of the academy to current questions of public policy and child advocacy The focus of the Unit is both timely and significant given the present concern for children across the globe and the rising interdisciplinary academic interest in childhood studies. The Unit functions as a forum at the AAR for advancing childhood studies as a line of scholarly inquiry; we also welcome collaborations with other AAR program units for which childhood studies represents a "new" intervention.