News

Dean Gutman spent the beginning of this summer in England, where she was, among other academic activities, an invited speaker at the University of Oxford’s Centre for the History of Childhood.

The center, together with the National Trust Partnership, hosted a two-day colloquium exploring children’s interactions with history and heritage in the past, young people’s engagement with heritage today, the inclusion of children’s voices and lives within historic spaces and exhibitions, and historic collections related to children’s lives and experiences.

Dr. Gutman presented her paper “Just as Jim Crow”: Public Schools and the Heritage of Black Children in Harlem, 1930-1970.
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Barnabas Balint, PhD candidate at Oxford writes, “Particularly insightful was Marta Gutman’s paper on public schools and the heritage of black children in Harlem, 1930-1970. Reflecting on years where schools became a battleground for civil rights, as well as the ways specific areas assumed cultural meanings, Gutman’s paper complicated the idea of power in places where it was contested. Thinking about the spaces children inhabited and the ways they interacted with them thus reveals much about children’s position within shifting power-dynamics.”

Watch Dean Gutman’s presentation here:

 

Read Barnabas Balint’s full blog post and further impressions from the colloquium here:

https://www.torch.ox.ac.uk/article/reflections-on-the-children

The Centre for the History of Childhood aims to promote the study of children, youth and childhood in the past through supporting research within and beyond Oxford, fostering a community of researchers and sharing new research through public engagement activity.

Recordings of the full colloquium are available at https://www.torch.ox.ac.uk/children-0