ABSTRACT This article explores the study of pre-cinematic toys and media within the context of a multidisciplinary childhood studies department, arguing that childhood studies and media archaeology share a number of critical preoccupations, analytical approaches, and possibilities for hands-on engagement with historical and contemporary media. From the perspective of childhood, historical media such as optical toys are linked to alternate intellectual genealogies than those that might be expected within the film and media studies classroom. Material engagement with optical toys in this distinct disciplinary space brings new critical and methodological issues surrounding objects such as nineteenth-century optical toys to the surface. The article traces several core concepts that have driven media archaeological inquiry – such as regression and play – and considers how these terms have been deployed, while the closely related concept of childhood has been excluded. Close consideration of children as historical creators and users of optical media offers new possibilities for hands-on classroom practice, from the expansion of archival possibilities and constellations of evidence to the incorporation of critical perspectives from the history of object-based education. While media archaeological inquiry encompasses technologies, devices, and apparatus of all sorts, optical toys and related playthings – of all objects – offer particularly fruitful case studies for experimental analysis. Drawing these two disparate fields together reveals important connections between children as historical creators and users of optical toys and the kinds of questions and conclusions contemporary researchers may draw in classrooms today.

中文翻译：

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光学游戏和扩展档案：映射童年和媒体考古

摘要 本文探讨了在多学科儿童研究系的背景下对电影前玩具和媒体的研究，认为儿童研究和媒体考古学有许多重要的关注点、分析方法以及与历史和当代媒体。从童年的角度来看，光学玩具等历史媒体与替代的智力谱系相关联，而不是在电影和媒体研究课堂中所预期的。在这个独特的学科空间中与光学玩具的材料接触带来了新的关键和方法论问题，这些问题围绕着诸如 19 世纪光学玩具之类的物体浮出水面。这篇文章追溯了推动媒体考古调查的几个核心概念——例如回归和游戏——并考虑了这些术语是如何被运用的，而与童年密切相关的概念则被排除在外。仔细考虑儿童作为历史创造者和光学媒体的使用者，为实践课堂实践提供了新的可能性，从扩大档案可能性和证据群到结合基于对象的教育历史的批判性观点。虽然媒体考古调查涵盖了各种技术、设备和仪器，但光学玩具和相关玩具——所有物体——为实验分析提供了特别富有成效的案例研究。