Marisa Silver: The Mind of a Child (January 2019)

We think because we have been a child, or because we have children of our own, that we have access to what goes on inside their minds, how they perceive themselves, the world, and the adults who rule them. Yet, when considering our own childhoods, we are subject to memory, a fickle reporter at best. In this lecture, Silver discusses the challenges that arise when we put our work in the narrative hands of a child by looking at issues of narrative distance, perception and experience of time, language choice, and the child’s sense of his or her body.