INVENTING INNOCENCE with Michelle Smith

Children were not always imagined as innocent.

This lecture explores how artists and writers created the idea of the Romantic child in the 18th century. It will compare how adults of the period pictured children, especially in literature written for children, with the experiences of actual boys and girls, many of whom did not enjoy the same period of ‘innocence’ as the children of wealthy families.

Dr Michelle Smith is an Australian Research Council Postdoctoral Fellow in the School of Culture and Communication at the University of Melbourne. She is the author of the book Empire in British Girls’ Literature and Culture: Imperial Girls, 1880-1915 and is currently researching colonial Australian girlhood.