Daniel Thomas Cook, PhD
Distinguished Professor of Childhood Studies
Department of Childhood Studies
Rutgers University-Camden
329 Cooper Street – Room 116
Camden, NJ 08102
dtcook@camden.rutgers.edu
(856) 225-2816
Dr. Cook’s work focuses on moral configurations of childhood and the child vis-à-vis commercial and economic cultural fields. In particular, he explores the various ways in which tensions between “the child” and “the market” play themselves out in various sites of children’s consumer culture, such as advertising, food, rituals, clothing and media.
He is the author of The Moral Project of Childhood: Motherhood, Material Life and Early Children’s Consumer Culture (2020, NYU Press) and The Commodification of Childhood: The Children’s Clothing Industry and the Rise of the Child Consumer (2004, Duke University Press). The SAGE Encyclopedia of Children and Childhood Studies, a four-volume, 1.1 million word reference work was published in 2020 under Cook’s editorship. A field-defining and field-coalescing work, the Encyclopedia is composed of just under 600 entries on a wide range of topics written by seasoned and emerging scholars and practitioners. Along with Spyros Spyrou (European University, Cyprus) and Rachel Rosen (University College London), Cook co-edited Reimagining childhood Studies (2019, Bloomsbury Press), in which contributors rethink the parameters of key arenas of the field in an effort to chart new directions. Cook also is co-editor of Children and Armed Conflict (2011, Palgrave), along with John Wall and is sole editor of Symbolic Childhood (2002, Peter Lang) and The Lived Experiences of Public Consumption (2008, Palgrave). He is also the founding Chair of the Section on the Sociology of Consumers and Consumption of the American Sociological Association and serves on numerous editorial boards of journal and scientific committees of international scholarly organizations.
Ongoing research includes work on photography, memory and childhood, a study of how children’s market research professionals (e.g., marketers, market researchers, digital developers) and others in the “kids’ space” conceptualize their practices in relation to deployed notions of childhood and the current troubling of notions of childhood innocence.
Education:
Ph.D. in Sociology (1998) – University of Chicago
M.A. in Communication (1988) – University of Pennsylvannia
B.A. in Individual Plans of Study (1983) – University of Illinois
Research Interests:
Youth and Childhood; Consumption and Media; Qualitative Methods; Cultural Sociology; Urban Sociology
Courses Taught: at Rutgers-Camden:
Graduate: Proseminar in Childhood Studies, Interpretive Research Methods, Seminar in Play and Play Theory
Undergraduate: Introduction to Childhood Studies, Children in Consumer Culture, Senior Seminar in Childhood Studies
View full CV HERE
Publications
Books:
The Moral Project of Childhood: Motherhood, Material Life, and Early Children’s Consumer Culture, New York: New York University Press, 2020
The Commodification of Childhood: The Children’s Clothing Industry and the Rise of the Child Consumer. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2004.
Edited Works:
The SAGE Encyclopedia of Children and Childhood Studies. Sage; London, 2020
(with Spyros Spyrou and Rachel Rosen) Reimagining Childhood Studies. London:Bloomsbury, 2019
(with J. Michael Ryan). The Wiley-Blackwell Encyclopedia of Consumption and Consumer Studies. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2015.
(with John Wall) Children and Armed Conflict: Cross-Disciplinary Investigations. Houndmills: Macmillan-Palgrave, 2011.
Lived Experiences of Public Consumption. Houndmills: Macmillan-Palgrave, 2008.
Symbolic Childhood. New York: Peter Lang, 2002.
Articles and Book Chapters:
2019 “Children’s Market Researchers as Moral Brokers.” Journal of Cultural Economy. 12:1, 70-82, DOI: 10.1080/17530350.2018.1514316
2019 “Panaceas of Play: Stepping Past the Creative Child.” Pp. 123-136 in Spyros Spyrou, Rachel Rosen and Daniel Thomas Cook (eds.), Reimagining Childhood Studies. London: Bloomsbury.
2019 (with Spyros Spyrou and Rachel Rosen) “Introduction: Reimagining Childhood Studies: Connectivities … Relationalities … Linkages …” Pp. 1-20 in Spyros Spyrou, Rachel Rosen and Daniel Thomas Cook (eds.), Reimagining Childhood Studies. London: Bloomsbury.
2017 “Knowledge of Childhood: Materiality, Text, and the History of Science – an Interdisciplinary Roundtable Discussion” (Roundtable with Felix Reitmann, Mareike Schildmann, Caroline Arni, Davide Giurato, Nova Gohlsdorf and Wangui Muigai). British Journal for the History of Science. 50(1), 111-141. doi:10.1017/S000708741700005X
2016 Roundtable. “Considering Kids’ Media” (with Caroline Leader, Henry Jenkins and Natalie Coulter). Velvet Light Trap (#78, Fall). https://muse.jhu.edu/article/6287362016 “Disrupting Play: A Cautionary tale.” Editorial. Childhood: A Global Journal of Child Research. Vol. 23, No. 1. 3-6.
2014 “Moral Order and Moral Ordering in Public Advice about American Children’s Rooms, 1876-1909.” Stranae: recherches sur les livres et lest objects culturels de l’enfance.
2012 “Children and Consumer Culture.” In Oxford Bibliographies Online: Childhood Studies. Ed. Heather Montgomery. New York: Oxford University Press.
Chapters in Books
2014 “Whose Play? Children, Play and Consumption.” Sage Handbook on Play and Learning in Early Childhood. Liz Brooker, Mindy Blaise and Suzy Edwards (eds.). London: Chapter 23.
2013 La notion de ‘culture’ dans la culture de la consommation des enfants” (“The notion of ‘culture’ in children’s consumer culture”). Pp. 21-122 in L’Enfant et sees cultures: Approaches internationals, Sylvie October and Régine Sirota (eds). Paris: Ministere de la Culture et de la Communication.
2013 “Children and Consumption: History and Historiography.” The Routledge History of Childhood in the Western World, Paul Fass (ed.). London and New York: Routledge. 283-295.
Editorial:
Co-editor, Childhood: A Global Journal of Child Research, 2008-2020.
Guest Editor, Special Issue on “Producing Motherhoods In/Through Consumption,” Journal of Consumer Culture, 12(2) July 2013.
Founding Editorial Board Member, Oxford Bibliographies Online: Childhood Studies. Oxford University Press.
Keynote Presentations
2023 “Sights in Common: Ruminations Between Photography and Sociology.” The Robin M. William, Jr, Lecture (invited), Eastern Sociological Society, Baltimore, MD, February.
2022 “When is a Child? The Problems and Trajectories of Childhood Studies.” Hangzhou Normal University, China (via Zoom). May.
2019 “Play and its duplicities.” Keynote Presentation for the 2nd WERA-IRN conference, Stockholm University Stockholm, Sweden, September.
2017 “Play, agency and creativity and other complicities in childhood studies.” Keynote Presentation for the “Conceptualizing Childhood and Youth” conference, Brock University, St. Catherines, Ontario, Canada, October.
2017 “The ‘play-sumer’ and creative capitalism.” Keynote Panel Presentation for the “Consumers and Consumption Symposium @Yale.” Yale University, New Haven, CT, March.
2015 “The Annoying Persistence and Insistence of the Child Consumer.” Keynote Presentation for the “Theory and Method in Child and Youth Research,” 3rd International Conference of the International Children and Youth Research Network, University of Cyprus, Nicosia, Cyprus (June).
Media Appearances
Video interview about his book, “The Moral Project of Childhood” for the Society for the History of Children and Youth, 2022.
Quoted in “How to Talk to Your Kids About All That Stuff They Want” by Carey Wallace, December 14, 2015, Time magazine.
Quoted in “How Parents Could Be Sending The Wrong Message With Elf On The Shelf” by Rebecca Adams, December 17, 2014, Huffington Post.
Quoted in “Here’s how much you can expect to spend on gifts, and some expert advice on avoiding after-sale remorse” by Lois Collins, November 27, 2014, Deseret News.
Quoted in “Kids Like Being Kids, Study Finds, Perhaps Thanks to Parenting” by Emily Alpert, July 21, 2013. Los Angeles Times.
Interviews
Quoted in, “The Toddlers in the $600 High-Tops: Luxury brands target kids, and the parents arebuying, by Matthew Schneier, New York magazine, Feb 8, 2023 https://www.thecut.com/2023/02/childrens-luxury-fashion.html#_ga=2.220499928.1744552240.1677004336-633248056.1677004336
Interview, “Daniel Cook: “Les ‘Childhood Studies’ incitent à mettre les enfants au centre, et àleur donner un certain pouvoir,” by Frédéric Manzini in Philosophie magazine, January 28, 2022 https://www.philomag.com/articles/daniel-cook-il-est-temps-dapprendre-voir-les-enfants-comme-des-sujets-actifs-de-leur-vie
Quoted in “How Baby Björn designed the world’s most famous baby carrier,” by Elizabeth Segran, September 14, 2021, Fast Company. https://www.fastcompany.com/90674485/how-babybjorn-designed-the-worlds-most-famous-baby-carrier
Quoted in “Mog the cat is back – again: why the best-loved children’s book characters liveforever,” by Etan Smallman, September 21, 2020, inews.https://inews.co.uk/culture/mog-the-cat-returns-judith-kerr-childrens-book-characters-655333
Quoted in “Honey, I shrunk the shopping: the rise of mini products as children’s toys.” by Amelia Tait, July 5, 2020, The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2020/jul/05/honey-i-shrunk-the-shopping