IMC 2005: Sessions
Session 1312: Perspectives on Childhood
Wednesday 13 July 2005, 16.30-18.00
| Sponsor: | Center for the Interdisciplinary Study of Religion, Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia |
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| Organiser: | Philip L. Reynolds, Candler School of Theology, Emory University |
| Moderator/Chair: | Jane Flynn, Notre Dame Sixth Form College, Leeds |
| Paper 1312-a | The Dynamics of Infant Abandonment in the Later Roman Empire (Language: English) Index terms: Byzantine Studies, Law, Social History, Theology |
| Paper 1312-b | The Infants of Eden and their Cognitive Development in Scholastic Theology (Language: English) Index terms: Education, Philosophy, Science, Theology |
| Paper 1312-c | Boys (Including Jesus) Will Be Boys: The Late Medieval Anthropology of Childishness (Language: English) Index terms: Folk Studies, Language and Literature - Middle English, Science, Theology |
| Abstract | These quite diverse papers on the conceptualisation of childhood are contributions to a Pew-funded project at Emory University on "The Child in Law, Religion, and Society". Evans-Grubbs uses legal, documentary, and patristic evidence to analyse social and legal attitudes to infant abandonment in the Roman Empire from the second through fifth centuries AD. Reynolds explains why 13th-century theologians argued that Adam's infants in Eden would not have been born already perfect, but rather (like fallen infants) would have undergone gradual physical and mental development. Dzon analyses the implications of portraying Jesus as an unruly child in Middle-English infancy legends. |