Evil Children: Children and Evil
An Inclusive Interdisciplinary Conference
Monday 15th July 2019 – Tuesday 16th July 2019
Verona, Italy
Monday 15th July 2019
08:30 – 09:00 Registration
09:00 – 09:15 Welcome and Opening Words: Jen Baker, Event Leader
09:15 – 09:45 Opening Activity: Terminologies, Frameworks, Responsibilities
Chair: Jen Baker
09.45 – 10.30 Session 1 Round-table
Tales from the Nursery: Re-reading the Jamesian “Turn of the Screw” Evelyne Ender and James Curley-Egan
10.30 – 11.00 Tea/Coffee
11:00 – 12:30 Session 2 – The Binary: Multidisciplinary Perspectives
Chair: Leo Hall
From the Sacred, Secular, to the Demonic: How Much Innocence is Left for Children in the 20th Century?
Shushu Li
Childhood Re-edits: Challenging Norms and Forming Lay Professional Competence on YouTube using Images of ‘Good’ and ‘Evil’ Children
Anne-Li Lindgren
Reconceptualising Protective Factors in Response to Risk with Dangerous Children Leaves Little Scope for Evil
Gavin Heron
12:30 – 14:00 Lunch
14:00 – 15:30 Session 3 – Cinema’s Child
Chair: Claire McDiarmid
The Good, the Bad and the Neither Nor. The Child Portrayed as a Complex Human Being in Swedish Cinema.
Malena Janson
Otherness and Ambivalence: The Evil Child in Cinema and Contemporary TV-Series’
Michael Brodski
15:30 – 16:00 Tea/Coffee
16:00 – 17:00 Session 4 – Narratives of Abuse
Chair: Gabrielle Everall
“The Man of Whom We are Afraid”
Tara R. D. Fietz
“That could have been me!”
Deirdre McConnell
17:00 – 17:30 Cross Panel Issues, End of Opening Day Consolidation
17:30 Wine and Drinks Reception
Tuesday 16th July 2019
09:00 – 10:30 Session 5 – Children Who Kill
Chair: Gavin Heron
The Evil Child in Spanish Cinema
Abraham Hernandez Cubo
“Evil Freaks of Human Nature”: The Legacy of the James Bulger Case
Claire McDiarmid
The Queer Monster: Evil Children, Queer Futures
Frances Maranger
10:30 – 11:00 Tea/Coffee
11:00 – 12:30 Session 6 – War Games
Chair: Michael Brodski
When is Murder not Murder? Homicide, the Boy-Hero, and Rite de Passage in Treasure Island and Tarzan
Leo Hall
Playing at War: Institutional(ly) Evil (and) Children in Ana María Matute’s Primera Memoria
Nora Lynn Gardner
The Child Soldier in Nigerian Literature
Elizabeth E. J. Gilbert
12:30 – 14:00 Lunch
14:00 – 15:30 Session 7 – A Nation’s Others
Chair: Shushu Li
Of Chai-paus and Chandni-bars: Destiny’s Children in Films from India
Asmita Boral
The Midwich Cuckoos as a Metaphor for the Treatment of Indigenous Australian Children as Evil
Gabrielle Everall
Legalizing Abuse: Culture, Evil and Childhood in Sub-Saharan Africa through Kim Ngyuyen’s Rebelle (2012)
Shriya Kuchibhotla
15:30 – 16:00 Tea/Coffee
16:00 – 17:00 Session 8 – M(Other) and Child
Chair: Joseph Kuster
Coming to Terms with the Sociopathic Child: Existentialism, Evil, and Boredom in Lionel Shriver’s We Need to Talk About Kevin
Hannah Spruce
Dolled Up: New Maternity in New Materialism
Annie Williams
17:00 – 17:15 Discussion and Day 2 Consolidation
17:15 – 17:30 Project Development, Closing Thoughts and Goodbyes