Category: publications

Call for Proposals: Race in Design History, An Anthology (deadline Mar. 15, 2023)

Race in Design History: An Anthology

edited by Kristina Wilson, Professor of Art History, Clark University and Michelle Joan Wilkinson, Curator of Architecture and Design, National Museum of African American History and Culture

How has race shaped the objects of our designed world? We invite contributors to submit to an edited volume that will focus on the ways design and design histories have engaged ideas about race, whether implicitly or explicitly. Race is a contested category with shifting meanings over time, and perceptions about race influence design history in multiple ways: how objects are designed; how designers imagine their ideal consumer; how designs are put into production and how those designs are marketed. Ultimately, race has an impact on the scope and structure of the residual design archive that historians are left sifting through. This edited volume welcomes contributions in the form of close readings of design objects as well as critical interrogations about design through the lenses of practice, pedagogy, curation, and historiography.

Recent work in design history has emphasized the importance of decolonizing the predominantly Western and Northern biases of the modernist canon. This anthology aims to contribute to that work, and embraces the goals of critical race studies of design, with an investigation of the role of race in all aspects of design history. It welcomes scholarship that looks at under-valued objects of design, scholarship that expands our understanding of what it means to have a career as a designer, and scholarship that illuminates design history in new contexts. We seek narratives of design history that interrogate our assumptions about what is knowable in the past.

We invite contributions on decorative objects, interiors, fashion, architecture, and graphic design, among others, 1800 to the present, global in scope. Proposals should be made for one or more of the following types of essays:

1) Scholarly essays of 3,500-4,000 words: these might be case studies that investigate a movement, a designer, a specific exhibition, or production materials and processes; should engage historical context and demonstrate methodological innovation.

2) Short essays of 1250-1500 words: close readings of objects, keywords, or terms that give the reader an immersive encounter; the style of writing in these essays could be more experimental, and these short pieces will complement the larger contextual discussions offered in the longer essays;

3) Questions of practice essays of 3,000 words: essays that address aspects of museum practice, teaching and pedagogical practice, designers’ practice.

Please send a 300-word proposal and a CV to:

KrWilson@clarku.edu and WilkinsonM@si.edu with “Race in Design History” in the subject line by the deadline of March 15, 2023. Contributors will be notified by mid-April, and drafts will be due September 15, 2023.

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CFP: “Questionnaire: The Animacy of Objects” in American Art Journal

Call for Submissions: “Questionnaire: The Animacy of Objects”
Deadline: August 15, 2023
American Art, the peer-reviewed journal co-published by the Smithsonian American Art Museum and the University of Chicago Press, seeks to publish papers demonstrating cultural perspectives that recognize objects as animate beings. Authors are invited to submit brief essays in reply to this question, posed by co-organizer heather ahtone (Choctaw/Chickasaw Nation): How does acknowledging and engaging with objects as animate beings—recognizing them as relatives and respecting that they carry a form of peoplehood—expose the knowledge they hold and carry, knowledge that is otherwise invisible and unrecognized?
Contributors are encouraged to interrogate how the Western discipline of art history, and particularly the focus of this journal—the role played by art and related visual culture in the ongoing transnational and transcultural formation of “America” as a contested geography, identity, and idea—would benefit from these perspectives. Toward this goal, essays are welcome from scholars who are working both within and beyond North American topics, as well as those coming from other disciplines and fields, including artists, art historians, linguists, cultural specialists, and others working on philosophical questions related to the animacy of objects. Diverse orthographies are welcome and will be accommodated whenever possible. Please click here for more information.
The journal’s standard guidelines on originality, quality, and submission format apply; click here for details. Please submit manuscripts of 1,500–2,000 words (including notes) with 1–4 images, to AmericanArtJournal@si.edu by August 15, 2023. Selected articles will be workshopped with authors, rigorously edited and fact-checked, and published in American Art in 2024. Inquiries are welcome.

CFP: Toward Equity in Publishing/American Art

Call for Applications: Toward Equity in Publishing
Deadline: May 1, 2023

Toward Equity in Publishing is a professional development program provided by the peer-reviewed journal American Art, which is co-published by the Smithsonian American Art Museum and University of Chicago Press. The program works toward ameliorating the inequitable conditions that precede and impede publication by providing developmental editing and workshops to demystify academic publishing. Eligibility is limited to untenured faculty, junior museum staff, independent scholars, and unpublished graduate students.

With the continued generosity of the Dedalus Foundation, who has just extended their support for an additional two years, all participants will now receive a $1,000 stipend to offset participation costs such as family care, missed wages, or research expenses.

For more information and application instructions, please visit americanart.si.edu/research/toward-equity-publishing.

Call for Nominations: 2023 Charles C. Eldredge Prize

The Smithsonian American Art Museum is now accepting nominations for the 2023 Charles C. Eldredge Prize. The prize is awarded annually by the museum for outstanding scholarship in the field of American art. A cash award of $3,000 is made to the author of a recent book-length publication that provides new insight into works of art, the artists who made them, or aspects of history and theory that enrich our understanding of America’s artistic heritage. The Eldredge Prize seeks to recognize originality and thoroughness of research, excellence of writing, clarity of method, and significance for professional or public audiences. It is especially meant to honor those authors who deepen or focus debates in the field, or who broaden the discipline by reaching beyond traditional boundaries.
Single-author books devoted to any aspect of the visual arts of the United States and published in the three previous calendar years (2020, 2021, 2022) are eligible. To nominate a book, send a one-page letter explaining the work’s significance to the field of American art history and discussing the quality of the author’s scholarship and methodology. Nominations by authors or publishers for their own books will not be considered. The deadline for nominations is January 15, 2023. Please send to: Eldredge@si.edu. Further information about the prize may be found at americanart.si.edu/research/awards/eldredge.

CFP: Full Bleed journal

www.full-bleed.org/submit

Full Bleed, an annual journal exploring the intersection of the visual and literary arts, seeks submissions for its sixth issue, forthcoming in Spring 2023.

We publish criticism, belle lettres, visual art, illustration, poetry, fiction, and graphic essays. We are always happy to feature collaborations between writers and artists; ekphrastic creations; and groundbreaking critical essays.

For Issue Six, we are especially interested in submissions on the theme of materials—their unique aesthetic qualities, social histories, means of production, environmental costs, and layered meanings. Send us work that contemplates the virtues, potential, or politics of ink, paper, oil paint, dye, textiles, charcoal, lead, soil, wood, etc.

This call is open to all with the exception of current students at the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA), which publishes Full Bleed.

All submissions should be sent between September 1, 2022 and January 15, 2023. Those interested in first sharing essay proposals may do so by November 15 (also through our Submittable page). Note that acceptance of proposals does not guarantee publication in the issue. Also, you need not have sent a proposal to submit completed work.

Final selections for the issue will be made by the journal’s editor and board members in close consultation with participants in Publishing Culture, an upper-level, spring-semester course at MICA. Each contributor will receive a modest honorarium and a complimentary copy of the issue.

For more details, please visit:
www.full-bleed.org/submit

We are excited to review your work and thank you in advance for sharing it with Full Bleed.

CFA: Toward Equity in Publishing

Call for Applications: Toward Equity in Publishing
Deadline: September 15, 2022

Toward Equity in Publishing is a professional development program provided by the peer-reviewed journal American Art, which is co-published by the Smithsonian American Art Museum and University of Chicago Press. The program, supported by the Dedalus Foundation, will work toward ameliorating the inequitable conditions that precede and impede publication by providing developmental editing and workshops to demystify academic publishing. Eligibility is limited to, untenured faculty, junior museum staff, independent scholars, and unpublished graduate students.

For more information and application instructions, please visit americanart.si.edu/research/toward-equity-publishing.

Seeking Advisors
American Art seeks senior scholars for the Toward Equity in Publishing advisory committee. Please send letter of interest and CV to AmericanArtJournal@si.edu.

CFP: “Behind the Scenes of Object-Based Art Histories” Book

Book chapter proposals are invited for a forthcoming collection entitled “Behind the Scenes of Object-Based Art Histories,” edited by Carl Schmitz and Tracee Ng.

“I guess what I’m asking is this: are these the only kind of questions that art historians should be asking: Whodunnit? Or whatisit? Is there nothing else we can say?”                                                                                                                                                                                                                             —Michael Ann Holly

From the proposition that the ontological basis of art history remains a fertile ground for discovery, this project seeks perspectives on the relationships between the objects and subjects of study within the discipline. In conceiving of art historiography as an expanse of multifarious genealogies, what are the conditions of possibility for an art history oriented toward the art object? Are other ontologically dichotomous or even non-dichotomous art histories possible? How can the single artist catalogue raisonné—perhaps the ultimate expression of subject and object specificity—be recontextualized as part of a speculative art history? With these questions in mind, we invite our colleagues to explore the possibilities of object-based art historical research through related investigations.

In addition to art historical case studies, art histories that organically reveal their sources of inspiration (anywhere from art historiography to the personal) are also encouraged, as are scholars from outside of the discipline of art history whose work nevertheless revolves around the art object.

Proposals should include a short CV and/or biographical statement along with a 300-word abstract. All proposals should be sent to the editors (btsbook@catalogueraisonne.org) by June 15, 2022. 

Once accepted, we will ask you to consider the following publication details:

Deadline for full article: December 31, 2022

Length: 5,000-8,000 words

Submission: btsbook@catalogueraisonne.org

The concept for this forthcoming volume was based upon a session organized by the Catalogue Raisonné Scholars Association, and presented at the College Art Association annual conference in 2021. The four participating panelists will be adapting their conference papers for inclusion in this project. Further information on the panel is available on the CRSA website.

CFP: Nineteenth-Century Art Worldwide (proposals due May 15, 2022)

Nineteenth-Century Art Worldwide (NCAW) is pleased to announce the continuation of our series American Art History Digitally supported by a grant from the Terra Foundation for American Art. The editors of NCAW are now accepting proposals for the final digital art history article in the series to be published in spring 2023. To be considered, projects have to focus on art and visual culture of the Americas in the long nineteenth century, from the United States War of Independence to World War I, and must expand on existing histories of art by addressing understudied topics or historically marginalized constituencies while adopting research methods that are inclusive and equitable.

PROPOSALS ARE DUE MAY 15, 2022.

Proposals also should take full advantage of the potential of digital publishing by using digital technologies in the article’s research or publication phase, or both. Strong proposals will demonstrate how the production of digital tool(s) and/or components will lead to a scholarly argument’s key insights (either the tool/component enhanced the depth of insight or made it possible) and/or will illustrate aspects of that argument in dynamic/interactive ways.

NCAW encourages authors to use open source software when possible. While by no means limited to the following, proposals might explore:

  • High resolution imaging or dynamic image presentation (e.g., panoramas, zoom images, visual essays, x-ray or infrared reflectography, moving images, 3D images of art objects, annotated musical scores, annotated digital facsimiles)
  • “Big data” mining and analysis (e.g., social network analysis or text mining using analytics programs like Gephi, Network Workbench)
  • Mapping and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) (e.g., depictions of sites, locations of objects, paths of travel, using online mapping tools like MapBox, Timemapper, Neatline)

NCAW is a pioneer in publishing digital art history. For examples of already-completed projects, see the Digital Art History and Digital Humanities page. Authors are not expected to have extensive technical expertise themselves but should be able to articulate how digital research methods and NCAW’s digital publication format connect with their research questions. Upon acceptance of a proposal authors will identify, in discussion with NCAW editors, the digital tools/software to be used. NCAW editors will assist with the development of a timeline and with guidelines for workflow, but authors will be responsible for managing their projects.

To propose a digital art history project, please submit:

  1. Abstract (500 words maximum) as a Microsoft Word document detailing the scholarly content of the article, including how information gleaned from the proposed digital tool will impact the article’s interpretive claims
  2. Abstract (500 words maximum) as a Microsoft Word document outlining the appearance/format of the digital tool(s) and explaining how the author plans to present the article and tool within the NCAW framework (technologies used, layout, etc.). Also provide link(s) from existing digital project(s) that resemble your proposed project functionally, aesthetically, or in the technologies used, followed by several sentences describing which elements of that project will differ from/emulate your proposed digital tool
  3. Budget (1 page maximum)
  4. CV

If interested contributors have an idea for a digital art history project but would like to discuss it with the editors first, we would be happy to talk with you about your ideas in advance of the deadline. Please contact Carey Gibbons, Digital Art History Editor, at dah_editor@19thc- artworldwide.org.

CFP: Digital Art History article in Nineteenth-Century Art Worldwide

CALL FOR PROPOSALS:
Terra-sponsored Digital Art History Article in Nineteenth-Century Art Worldwide
Deadline: April 15, 2022

Nineteenth-Century Art Worldwide (NCAW) is pleased to announce the continuation of our series American Art History Digitally supported by a grant from the Terra Foundation for American Art. The editors of NCAW are now accepting proposals for the final digital art history article in the series to be published in spring 2023. To be considered, projects have to focus on art and visual culture of the Americas in the long nineteenth century, from the United States War of Independence to World War I, and must expand on existing histories of art by addressing understudied topics or historically marginalized constituencies while adopting research methods that are inclusive and equitable.

Proposals also should take full advantage of the potential of digital publishing by using digital technologies in the article’s research or publication phase, or both. Strong proposals will demonstrate how the production of digital tool(s) and/or components will lead to a scholarly argument’s key insights (either the tool/component enhanced the depth of insight or made it possible) and/or will illustrate aspects of that argument in dynamic/interactive ways. NCAW encourages authors to use open source software when possible.

While by no means limited to the following, proposals might explore:
• High resolution imaging or dynamic image presentation (e.g., panoramas, zoom images, visual essays, x-ray or infrared reflectography, moving images, 3D images of art objects, annotated musical scores, annotated digital facsimiles)
• “Big data” mining and analysis (e.g., social network analysis or text mining using analytics programs like Gephi, Network Workbench)
• Mapping and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) (e.g., depictions of sites, locations of objects, paths of travel, using online mapping tools like MapBox, Timemapper, Neatline)

NCAW is a pioneer in publishing digital art history. For examples of already-completed projects, see the Digital Art History and Digital Humanities page. Authors are not expected to have extensive technical expertise themselves but should be able to articulate how digital research methods and NCAW’s digital publication format connect with their research questions. Upon acceptance of a proposal authors will identify, in discussion with NCAW editors, the digital tools/software to be used. NCAW editors will assist with the development of a timeline and with guidelines for workflow, but authors will be responsible for managing their projects.

To propose a digital art history project, please submit:
A. Abstract (500 words maximum) as a Microsoft Word document detailing the scholarly content of the article, including how information gleaned from the proposed digital tool will impact the article’s interpretive claims
B. Abstract (500 words maximum) as a Microsoft Word document outlining the appearance/format of the digital tool(s) and explaining how the author plans to present the article and tool within the NCAW framework (technologies used, layout, etc.). Also provide link(s) from existing digital project(s) that resemble your proposed project functionally, aesthetically, or in the technologies used, followed by several sentences describing which elements of that project will differ from/emulate your proposed digital tool
C. Budget (1 page maximum)
D. CV
If interested contributors have an idea for a digital art history project but would like to discuss it with the editors first, we would be happy to talk with you about your ideas in advance of the deadline. Please contact Carey Gibbons, Digital Art History Editor, at dah_editor@19thc-artworldwide.org.

New issue of liquid blackness

liquid blackness is pleased to announce the publication of a special issue of the open-access journal liquid blackness: journal of aesthetics and black studies (5:2), edited by Alessandra Raengo and Lauren McLeod Cramer on “blackness.”

This special issue is the second of three foundational issues on liquid blackness’s core concepts of “liquidity,” “blackness,” and “aesthetics.” Contributors reflect on how blackness indexes its own processes across sonic, chromatic, and performative registers. The authors approach the idea of “indexing” with jurisgenerative sensibility, showcasing modes of critical engagement that highlight the dynamic, self-reflective, archival knowingness of various object and practices, reaffirming the aesthetic realm as a privileged processing site. Attuned to the liquidity of the black arts, each author offers original insights into the relationship between black object-making and black art-making.

Contributors are Sampada Aranke, Lauren McLeod Cramer, Michael Boyce Gillespie, Kristin Juarez, Homay King, Walton Muyumba, Mark Anthony Neal, Alessandra Raengo, Jared Sexton, and Lisa Uddin.

Read the issue at https://read.dukeupress.edu/liquid-blackness/issue/5/2.

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