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Children and Young People Speaking Up and Speaking Out
Online Conference
17 - 19 June 2021
The Biennial Conference of the Children's History Society
History Research Centre & Manchester Centre for Youth Studies
Manchester Metropolitan University
The last few years have seen some of the most powerful youth protest movements in decades, not least Greta Thunberg’s work in calling for climate action and inspiring a global campaign among millions of school children.
This three day international conference brings together historians from antiquity to contemporary history, to ask how children and young people in the past have shaped protest movements, spoken up and spoken out.
This large, international conference has now happened, in a mix of live and pre-recorded virtual sessions. We welcomed over 100 individual speakers who pre-recorded their research talks and held live discussions throughout the conference, and a number of masterclass and engagement sessions, and our three keynote addresses, all of which were delivered live. You can watch the various recordings on the playlists of our MCYS YouTube Channel here:
This is the first entirely online conference in the Children's History Society Biennial Conference series, co-hosted between the Children's History Society, Manchester Centre for Youth Studies, and the History Research Centre, Manchester Metropolitan University. Presentations are pre-recorded and will be available to registered delegates at least two weeks in advance of the conference, where the panels will allow for live discussion and questions with the speakers.
Keynote Addresses, Masterclasses, and other non-panel sessions will be live.
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Links for prerecorded papers have been sent through Eventbrite, please contact us if you've not received them.
We enthusiastically and proudly welcome our three Keynote Speakers to this conference.
Please register on the individual Eventbrite links for each Keynote Address to access the dedicated Zoom link for each. These will be open to the public.
Michael Rosen is one of the best-known figures in the children’s book world, he is renowned for his work as a poet, performer, broadcaster and scriptwriter. As an author and by selecting other writers’ works for anthologies he has been involved with over 140 books. He lectures and teaches in universities on children’s literature, reading and writing. Michael was the Children's Laureate for 2007-2009 and the winner of the Eleanor Farjeon Award. He is currently Professor of Children’s Literature at Goldsmith’s University.
Kimberley Reynolds is the Professor of Children’s Literature in the School of English Literature, Language and Linguistics at Newcastle University in the UK. She is a Past President of the International Research Society for Children’s Literature, Senior Editor of International Research in Children’s Literature and in 2013 she received the International Brothers Grimm Award for contributions to children’s literature. She has twice received the Children’s Literature Association Award for Children’s Books; in 2009 for Radical Children’s Literature: Future Vision and Aesthetic Transformations and in 2018 for Left Out: The Forgotten Tradition of Radical Publishing for Children in Britain, 1910-1949.
Jane Rosen trained as a Librarian and has worked in specialist historical and cultural libraries. She currently works for the Imperial War Museum, London, where she has served as historical advisor for the exhibition ‘Once Upon a Wartime: Classic War Stories for Children’. Her current research interest is in radical and working class children’s literature including the publications of the Socialist Sunday School Movement and the Proletarian Schools and College at the beginning of the twentieth century, and of the Communist Party of Great Britain’s youth movement in the 1920s and 1930s. She is also working on a bibliography of working class and radical children’s literature in the twentieth century.
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Professor Judith Evans Grubbs is Betty Gage Holland Professor of Roman History at Emory College of Arts and Sciences, U.S. She is a world-leading scholar of the family, women, childhood and slavery, widowhood and orphanage in the Roman and late Roman world and has published some of the most ground-breaking and seminal works around these subjects, over the past few decades. Prof Evans Grubbs will be addressing our conference with her recent work towards the study of orphans, orphanages and foundlings in literature from Byzantium to 18th and 19th century England and North America.
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Alex Wheatle MBE is the award-winning author of fifteen books, as well as playwright and poet. He has worked closely with young people in a range of contexts, and is his work includes: Brixton Rock (Black Amber, 1999); East of Acre Lane (Fourth Estate, 2001); The Seven Sisters (Fourth Estate, 2002); Checkers (with Mark Parham; X-Press, 2003); Island Songs (Allison & Busby, 2005); The Dirty South (Serpent's Tail, 2008); Brenton Brown (Arcadia Books, 2011); Liccle Bit (Atom Books, 2015); Crongton Knights (Atom Books, 2016); Straight Outta Crongton (Atom Books, 2017).
Alex was recently an integral part of the team involved in Steve McQueen's BBC Small Axe productions, and saw his own life journey as the focus on one of the films. Alex joined Manchester Metropolitan University as a Lecturer in Creative Writing in January 2018, teaching on the Writing for Children and Young Adults route of our MFA and MA in Creative Writing. He is also a member of the Manchester Centre for Youth Studies. He will address our conference with his thoughts on working with young people with, and for, his writing.
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Postgraduates and Early Career Researchers Networking Event
Change the Record: Exploring alternative Histories and Heritage with children & young people.
Saturday 19 June 2021
2pm - 3.30pm
We're very excited to be part of the Children's History Society's biennial conference this year at Manchester Metropolitan University.
We'll be talking about our fantastic Peterloo and Radical Read learning resources, as part of an interactive workshop exploring ways Radical or Contested Histories can be presented in the classroom and other youth settings.
We'll be joined by our friends the People's History Museum, Politics Project and Reclaim, who'll all share their experiences of developing learning resources and approaches to teaching radical or contested history in schools and youth settings.
There'll be opportunities to take part in discussions on how hidden or uncomfortable histories can be better shared, celebrated and understood.
It's going to be a fabulous event, so please join us, especially if you're a teacher, youth worker or interested in children's history, and find out how you can encourage children and young people to speak up and speak out.
The conference is generously supported by the Children’s History Society, Manchester Centre for Youth Studies, and the History Research Centre at Manchester Met. Audio/Visual materials are developed by Classicist Dr Maria Haley, and technical support is provided by Manchester Metropolitan University.
Committee:
