Oana Cojocaru

As a historian specialized in Medieval Byzantine society I am primarily interested in the historical childhood, adolescence, and disability. I am currently working as a postdoctoral researcher at the Tampere Institute for Advanced Studies. Previously I have worked as a postdoctoral fellow at the Research Institute in the Humanities of the University of Bucharest and at Umeå University where I have explored topics ranging from adolescent behaviour and sexuality to experiences of disability and childhood in medieval Byzantium. Presently I am studying how Byzantine people experienced, constructed, and maintained the sense of hope, approached as both an emotion and a social practice. 

Among my publications are a co-edited volume Childhood in History: Perceptions of Children in the Ancient and Medieval Worlds (Routledge 2018), which examines ideas about children and childhood in ancient and medieval societies, and a monograph Byzantine Childhood Representations and Experiences of Children in Middle Byzantine Society (Routledge 2021), which explores the intricacies of growing up in medieval Byzantium, children’s everyday experiences, and their agency.