CALL FOR PAPERS
International Conference funded by AHRC Network Grant ‘Institutions and Infant Care. Foundling Homes and Residential Homes for Babies in Twentieth Century Europe’.
London Foundling Museum, 15-16 May 2025
Keynote speakers:
Prof. Clair Wills, University of Cambridge, UK
Dr Nelleke Bakker, University of Groningen, the Netherlands
Foundling hospitals, first established in the Middle Ages, continued to exist well into the twentieth century in many parts of Europe, and at the beginning of the twentieth century, the separation of some babies from their families was written into the set-up of a growing number of other institutions and services. While in some places, residential institutions for infants were increasingly called into question after the Second World War, in others, institutional care for infants was continued and even expanded in the mid to late twentieth century. Although the institutions are now closed, many of the buildings remain, and some, as in London and Florence, are museums. This conference aims to encourage interdisciplinary dialogue about the representation, memory and meaning of residential infant care institutions in the twenty-first century. We are interested in why the memory of such institutions is extremely controversial in some contexts, but less so in others. We also wish to explore what is, or should be, the role of public history in the memory and history of these institutions.
We welcome proposals for 20-minute papers from academic researchers, museum and heritage professionals as well as policymakers and creative practitioners. We are also open to proposals that do not follow the format of the traditional academic paper. We take a broad definition of institutional care for infants: our interest is not limited to foundling homes/hospitals but includes mother and baby homes, orphanages that cared for infants, residential nurseries, refugee camps and other temporary relief institutions caring for young children, recognising that terminology and definitions may vary between countries and political systems.
Papers might address – although are not limited to – some of the following issues
- Representing the voices, experiences and memories of infants in care
- Architectural, archaeological and material legacies
- Experiences, perspectives, voices and memories
- Activists and activism
- Comparative histories of institutions
- Memory, between private, personal and collective
- Cultural representation, incl. literary, film, artistic and documentary
- Museums, public history and education
Please send an abstract of 250 words with a short CV, by 10 January 2024 to institutionsandinfantcare@gmail.com
Organisers: Dr Katharina Rowold (University of Essex) and Dr Niamh Cullen (Queen’s University Belfast)