Abstract
In the years following the publication of Ariès’ book, one of the strongest criticisms which was also a significant impetus for other works in the history of childhood, was of the historian’s purported claim that the ‘idea’ of childhood did not exist in medieval Europe. A slew of counterarguments from historians was provoked by this statement, whereby childhood was rescued and resurrected from non-existence to undeniable presence in the Medieval ages.
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Notes
- 1.
For a Gramscian perspective of the ‘intellectuals’ in colonial India, not just in Bengal. see Totri 1990.
- 2.
Literally translated as the respectable woman or ‘lady’.
- 3.
The original quote in German is :“Die sozialisationsptidagogische utopie geht von der Vorstellung aus, dass das Kind ein leeres Wesen isl Wrrd diese unbeschriebene Wachstafel richtig beschri:ftet, so llisst sich mit der neuen Generation eine bessere Zukunft gestalten. Die Erziebung wird hier zu einem Instrument der Dorchsetzung sozia1er Ordnungsvorstellungen und steht im Dienste eines gesellschaftlicben, also revolutioniiren Fortschritts. Demgegeniiber geht die entwicldungsptidagogische Utopie meist von gesellschafts- und kulturkritischen Zeitdiagnosen aus und sieht im Kind eine Basis, die bessere Zeiten verspricht, wenn sich die GeseUschaft rigoros an diesem Kindlichen orientiert. Die noch unverdorbene Natur des Kin.des soil den Weg der Erziehung vorgeben. Das Kind wird zur Utopie, well es geradezu ein StUck llimmel.ufErden zeigt”(Tremp 2005, p.71).
- 4.
The value placed by the white middle classes on ethnic diversity to enrich themselves.
- 5.
Goodman’s book The Culture of Childhood: Child’s-Eye Views of Society and Culture (1973) argues for a perspective of the children’s perception about the worW around them, or the ‘child’seye view’. Some of her arguments, based on cross-cultural research, particularly about children’s early awareness of race in African societies, or religion. or caste in India are compelling. However, her arguments for a culture of childhood is based greatly on psychological quantitative data to argue that there is no universal model of childhood, by which she is presumably, criticizing the tendency of scholars in the United States to use a particular model of American childhood as a yardstick.
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© 2014 Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden
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Sen, H. (2014). Sentiment, Middle Classes and a Culture of Childhood in Bengal. In: ‘Time-Out’ in the Land of Apu. Springer VS, Wiesbaden. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-02223-5_3
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