Tag: call for papers

CFP: SEQUITUR @ Boston University

Fall 2026
https://www.bu.edu/sequitur

CFP: “Ephemera”
Deadline: September 28, 2026

The editors of SEQUITUR, the graduate student journal published by the Department of History of Art & Architecture at Boston University, invite current and recent MA, MFA, and PhD students to submit content on the theme of “Ephemera” for our Fall 2026 issue.

This issue invites submissions that consider material ephemera and its temporal connotations. “Ephemera” refers to the short-lived: fragments, traces, and remnants of material culture, survived in physical form or in memory alone. We encourage submissions that deal not only with physical objects, but with artworks, ideas, and texts that memorialize or reference things past.

Ephemera takes many forms, including letters, notes, doodles, waste, newspapers, trinkets, receipts, clothing, digital articles, or other transitory objects. It invites a consideration of fragmentary materials—pieces of ceramics, scraps of fabric or paper, archaeological remnants, among other parts of a whole. Ephemera also refers to short-lived events—pageants, parades, spectacles, and performances, whether unrecorded or reenacted—or it may be commemorative in its intertextuality, allusion, or indexicality.

In 1589, the Medici staged a mock sea battle—a naumachia—at the Palazzo Pitti as one of several events to celebrate the marriage of Christine of Lorraine to Ferdinando de Medici. The event is recorded in text but elaborated in an etching by Orazio Scarabelli, the only visual evidence from that grandiose celebration. While the event was a spectacle, it is preserved through a print, easily distributable and quotidian in comparison to the event. And yet, it is the print that indexes the performance.

Ephemera also relates to the temporal dimensions of memory that an object holds onto. As Andreas Huyssen argues, the past persists in the present like a palimpsest, meaning our access to the past is inevitably mediated by the present, even as traces of the past continue to shape how the present is experienced. Such temporal layering complicates any attempt to encounter an object solely through the historical moment of its production or from the perspective of the present. Ephemera are thus self-referential: their material or immaterial presence points toward what has passed, while the traces they accumulate make visible the distance between then and now. Remembering, in this sense, does not necessarily preserve the past intact. Whether oral, visual, material, digital, or embodied, it can reconstruct, fragment, or reactivate the past, at times pushing against the coherence and authority of official historical narratives.

This issue seeks to collect scholarship spanning antiquity to the present that investigates the traces, scraps, fragments, and mementos of daily life—extant or refuse, partial or whole, indexical or commemorative.

Potential subjects may include but are not limited to:

material culture, temporary materials, traditional or non-traditional archival materials, mementos, remnants, ruins, photographs, newspapers, notes, letters, cards, postcards, trinkets, tickets, receipts, stickers, organic matter, fabric, scraps, junk, compostable material, disposable/plastic/single use objects, waste, garbage, unpublished materials, advertisements, flyers, digital ephemera (texts, social media, emails), digital memory, database, preservation, conservation, fragmentary, partial, reconstruction, reenactment, tribute, memory, memorializing, remembering, mnemonic traces, commemorative, personal memory, collective memory, generational memory, legacy, heritage, referentiality, the picturesque, temporality, anachronism, palimpsest, forgetting, amnesia, post-memory

SEQUITUR welcomes submissions from graduate students in the disciplines of art history, architecture, archaeology, fine arts, material culture, visual culture, literary studies, queer and gender studies, disability studies, memory studies, and environmental studies, among others. We encourage submissions that take advantage of the digital format of the journal.

Founded in 2014, SEQUITUR is an online biannual scholarly journal dedicated to addressing events, issues, and ideas in art and architectural history. SEQUITUR, edited by graduate students at Boston University, engages with and expands current conversations in the field by promoting the perspectives of graduate students from around the world. It seeks to contribute to existing scholarship by focusing on valuable but often overlooked parts of art and architectural history.

Previous issues of SEQUITUR can be found here.
We invite full submissions in the following categories. Please submit your material in full for consideration in the publication:

Feature essays (1,500 words)
Content should present original material that falls within the stipulated word limit (1,500 words). Please adhere to the formatting guidelines available here.
Visual and creative essays (250 words, up to 10 works)
We invite M.Arch. or M.F.A. students to showcase a selection of original work in or reproduced in a digital format. We welcome various kinds of creative projects that take advantage of the online format of the journal, such as works that include sound or video.

Submissions should consist of a 250-word artist statement and up to 10 works in JPEG, HTML, or MP4 format. All image submissions must be numbered and captioned and should be of good quality and high resolution.

We invite proposals for the following categories. Please write an abstract of no more than 200 words outlining your intended project:

Exhibition reviews (500 words)
We are especially interested in exhibitions currently on display or very recently closed. We typically prioritize reviews of exhibitions in the Massachusetts and New England area.
Book or exhibition catalog reviews (500 words)
We are especially interested in reviews of recently published (1-3 years old) books and catalogs.
Interviews (750 words)
Please include documentation of the interviewee’s affirmation that they will participate in an interview with you.
Plan to provide either a full written transcript or a recording of the interview (video or audio).
Research spotlights (750 words)
Short summaries of ongoing research written in a more casual format than a feature essay or formal paper.
For research spotlights, we typically, but not universally, prioritize doctoral candidates who plan to use this platform to share ongoing dissertation research or work of a comparable scale.

To submit:

Email all material to sequitur@bu.edu
Include in the email:
Your proposal or submission
A recent CV
A brief 50-word bio
Your contact information in the body of the email: name, institution, program, year in program, and email
“SEQUITUR Fall 2026” and the type of submission/proposal as the subject line

Additional reminders:

All submissions and proposals are due September 28, 2026.
Please remember to adhere to the formatting guidelines available here.
Text must be in the form of a Word document, and images should be sent as .jpeg files.
While we welcome as many images as possible, at least ONE must be very high resolution and large format. All other creative media should be sent as weblinks, HTML, or MP4 files if submitting video or other multimedia work.
Please note that authors are responsible for obtaining all image copyright releases before publication.

Authors will be notified of the acceptance of their submission or proposal the week of October 16, 2026, for publication in January 2027.
If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact the SEQUITUR editors at sequitur@bu.edu.

__
The SEQUITUR Editorial Team
Ada, Emma, Hamin, Hannah, Isaline, and Jenna

SEQUITUR. we follow art

CFP: Nineteenth-Century Studies Association Conference, Philadelphia, March 11-13, 2027

Framing the Human in the Nineteenth Century

48th Annual Conference

Nineteenth-Century Studies Association

Philadelphia, PA

March 11-13, 2027

Conference website: https://ncsaweb.net/2027-conference-information/

Call for Proposals
Submission Deadline: October 31, 2026
Notification of Acceptance: January 2027
Please submit proposals via this Google Form
Questions? Email the conference organizers at ncsa2027conference@gmail.com

The Nineteenth-Century Studies Association (NCSA) invites proposals for 15-minute papers (300-word proposal) or complete panels of 3-4 papers (600-word proposal) that examine the shifting meanings and status of “the human” in the long nineteenth century—a period shaped by transformative scientific, social, and philosophical developments that continue to inform present-day thought. During this time, evolutionary theory and social Darwinism challenged the boundaries between humans and animals and raised new questions about human difference across race, class, and ethnicity. Theological and philosophical discourses reevaluated humanity’s relationship to the divine, while pseudosciences such as phrenology, physiognomy, and anthropometry sought to codify human variation through tools of measurement often aligned with colonial and racial hierarchies. Advances in the natural sciences speculated on human origins and extraterrestrial life, situating “the human” within a larger cosmic framework. Industrialization redefined labor and bodily limits, generating anxieties about overpopulation, and paradoxically, race suicide and population extinction. Amid these pressures, labor and voting rights movements gained momentum, as marginalized groups fought for full inclusion. We welcome proposals from a variety of disciplines that engage with these and other transformations that redefined what it meant to be human—and to belong to humanity—across the long nineteenth century.

Topics may include, but are not limited to:

  • The influence of evolutionary theory on concepts of the human and the human/animal divide, including artistic and literary responses
  • Scientific efforts to define human origins and difference through anthropology, racial theory, and other emerging disciplines
  • Population anxieties related to degeneration, overpopulation, and demographic change
  • Emancipated and enslaved bodies
  • The effects of industrialization and technological advancement on understandings of the human body, labor, and automation
  • The rise of the human sciences—psychology, physiology, and medicine—and new approaches to the mind and self
  • Migration and the movement of people, and their impact on ideas of race, nation, and identity
  • Secularization and shifting relationships between the human and the divine
  • Changing human relationships to the environment and the nonhuman world
  • Human rights, labor, and suffrage movements and the redefinition of personhood
  • Transformations in education and access to knowledge
  • The role of cultural institutions (museums, libraries, exhibitions) in shaping public and humanist discourse

CFP: ACRAH/CAA2027

ACRAH will be at CAA2027. The topic of next year’s session will be The Materials of Race. We are welcoming submissions and look forward to you joining us in person at CAA in New York in February.

The deadline to submit for CAA is August 31, 2026.

Abstract:

Race is a powerful ideology, one advanced in images and objects that are the outcomes of artists’ manipulation of chosen materials. What is the significance of materials in critical race art history? Scholars working in this area might consider the perception of materials which play a part in historical and contemporary racialization of places, experiences, objects, and living beings. In what ways are characteristics and descriptions of texture, density, strength, malleability, reflectivity, and weight associated with racial quality and/or personality (or both)? If a material like paper is considered “a carrier of memory and process” (Frederick, Donnelly, and Kenney 2026), how do materials contribute to racialization as an historical and ongoing preoccupation? As other social historians do, critical race art historians might analyze the circulation and value of materials in local networks and global markets to map the connections to agential action and the exercise of power. Because the most recent material turn has been driven by a revived appreciation for craft and simultaneously threatened by the lightning fast adoption of generative AI-created art and design, interrogations of liberal claims that digitization lowers barriers to access (while distancing us from material engagements) are also relevant. This panel seeks varied perspectives from scholars, curators, artists, and/or archivists to contribute to this panel discussion.

The full CFP for CAA2027 can be found here.

CFP: La Créole journal

The Louisiana Creole Research Association (LA Creole, http://www.lacreole.org) invites submissions for its 2026 journal, La Créole, on subjects relevant to its mission of advancing family research, providing education, and celebrating Creole history and culture.

There is evidence that both French and Spanish colonial Louisiana identified all its people (white, black, and mixed), both free and enslaved, who were born in the new world of old world stock, as Créole. That included the offspring of Europeans (predominantly French and Spanish), Africans, and a mixture of both that could also include Native Americans. Therefore, the descendants of all these people can claim Creole heritage. LA Creole identifies the gens de couleur, or “people of color,” as the mixed-race descendants of those early colonial inhabitants of Louisiana who became a unique ethnic group.

The journal seeks scholarly articles of 2,500-3,500 words. Articles must be accompanied by illustrations, submitted as .jpgs. Shorter articles related to cultural themes such as recipes and traditions can be 750 words in length and must also be illustrated. We also invite submission of historic photographs with descriptions of the subjects and family history, which will be published as single page articles. An abstract is needed before the editorial staff approves your article. The abstract is a summary of your proposed article and should be 250 words or less.

Scholarly articles should be based on primary and secondary sources and formatted according to the Chicago Manual of Style. Footnotes are required, but a bibliography is not needed. The staff of La Créole can assist writers with questions about footnotes, format, and digital images.

The first step in the publication process is the submission of an abstract of the proposed article. Abstracts are due by May 1st 2026. Please include a brief author bio.

IMPORTANT DATES:
Submission of abstracts: May 1, 2026

Notification of acceptance of publication: May 15, 2026

Submission of completed articles: July 1, 2026

Final edit with digital images: September 1, 2026

Date of publication: October 15th 2026

Please submit abstracts to the co-editors, Melissa Daggett and Alan Rosenberg: mmdaggett@yahoo.com, revoile@verizon.net

http://www.lacreole.org

CFP: “Photography Beyond the Vault” Photography Network Symposium 2025

PHOTOGRAPHY BEYOND THE VAULT
PN VIRTUAL SYMPOSIUM, DECEMBER 4–6, 2025

https://www.photographynetwork.net/symposium-2025-call-for-papers

Photography Network’s fifth annual symposium will consider the subject of photography collections and the institutions that shape them. When Rosalind Krauss published her 1982 essay “Photography’s Discursive Spaces,” questioning the categorical shifts of historic photographs from archives to art museums, the effects of the 1970s “Photo Boom” were still unfolding. Today, a half century after the founding of influential galleries, museums, and academic programs focused on photography, the medium is fully ensconced in the global art market and public collections through countless prints, negatives, books, magazines, and many other materials. At the same time, this history centers on the United States and western Europe, and within these geopolitical regions, scholars and critics have long noted how particular sets of photographs are privileged for preservation and study over others. Collecting photographs became a way to value and prioritize certain stories over others. 

Drawing inspiration from the Nepal Picture Library, a digital archive of over 120,000 photographs that strives to create a broad and inclusive visual archive of Nepali social and cultural history, this symposium seeks to present a current appraisal of changes to photography collections around the globe. Our keynote speaker will be NayanTara Gurung Kakshapati, Co-Founder and Director of photo.circle, a platform for photography in Nepal including the Nepal Picture Library, and the organizer of Photo Kathmandu—an international photography festival that serves as an alternative platform for conversations between visual storytellers and local audiences. 

For our 2025 virtual symposium, we invite proposals that critically examine how the institutional frameworks of photographic history and practice—often shaped by Western models of scholarship, archiving, and pedagogy—are unevenly applied across global contexts, and that explore how alternative or locally grounded approaches can challenge, expand, or reconfigure dominant narratives in the field. How can photography collections of the future improve and how can we better serve these collections?
Proposals might consider: 
Alternative collecting, preservation, or display practices
Issues of access to and ownership of photographs
Legacies of colonialism and histories of resistance in photography collections
Absence, loss, and destruction of photographs 
Digitization, databases, and AI as tools 
Artists in the archives and archives as art
Photography’s “discursive spaces” today

Submission Information: 

Photography Network invites proposals across disciplines and a broad range of subjects that reflect the geographic and thematic diversity of the field. Practitioners and scholars at any stage of their careers are welcome to submit their research. We also welcome international scholars but note that the symposium will be in English.

The symposium organizers encourage a variety of presentational styles. In addition to proposals for individual, 15-minute papers, we also seek alternative-format presentations (e.g., workshops and roundtables). Applicants may submit up to 2 proposals, provided that one is in an alternative format. Sessions will be organized around accepted submissions, rather than prescribed themes.

To be considered for a panel or alternative-format presentation, please prepare: 
(1) a 250-word abstract with a clear indication of format, and
(2) a two-page resume or CV.
All files should be named “[LAST NAME]–CV” or “[LAST NAME]–ABSTRACT.”
Email completed materials by August 15 to photographynetworksymposium@gmail.com. Notifications of accepted proposals will be emailed by August 31. The symposium will be held online December 4–6. 2025. 
Note: Accepted presenters must be Photography Network members in good standing at the time of the symposium. We have a sliding scale membership: $20 (Student/Unaffiliated), $40 (Affiliated), or $100 (Senior). We also have free need-based memberships. Please visit Photography Network’s membership page for more information on how to join and email any questions to photographynetworkboard@gmail.com.

Call for Papers: Submit to the Metropolitan Museum Journal

The Editorial Board of the peer-reviewed Metropolitan Museum Journal invites submissions of original research on works of art in the Museum’s collection.  

The Journal  publishes  Articles  and  Research Notes. Works of art from The Metropolitan Museum of Art collection should be central to the discussion.  Articles  contribute extensive and thoroughly argued scholarship—art historical, technical, and scientific—whereas  Research Notes  are narrower in scope, focusing on a specific aspect of new research or presenting a significant finding from technical analysis, for example. The maximum length for articles is 8,000 words (including endnotes) and 10–12 images, and for research notes 4,000 words (including endnotes) and 4–6 images. 

The process of peer review is double-anonymous. Manuscripts are reviewed by the Journal Editorial Board, composed of members of the curatorial, conserva­tion, and scientific departments, as well as scholars from the broader academic community.

Articles and Research Notes in the Journal appear in print and online, and are accessible in JStor on the University of Chicago Press website.

The deadline for submissions for Volume 61 (2025) is September 15, 2025.

Submission guidelines: www.journals.uchicago.edu/journals/met/instruct

Please send materials to: journalsubmissions@metmuseum.org

Questions? Write to Elizabeth.Block@metmuseum.org

Inspiration from the Collection: www.metmuseum.org/art/collection

View the Journal: http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/loi/met

PUB: Oxford Art Journal Essay Prize

Submissions are now open for the 2024 Oxford Art Journal Essay Prize. The submissions deadline is December 1, 2024.

The annual Oxford Art Journal Essay Prize for Early Career Researchers launched in 2018, to coincide with the journal’s fortieth year of publication, and seeks to further enhance Oxford Art Journal’s international reputation for publishing innovative scholarship. The Essay Prize for Early Career Researchers aims to encourage submissions from British and international doctoral students, as well as early career researchers who are within five years of gaining their PhD. The essay will be on any topic relevant to art history and should be between 6,000 and 10,000 words (normally including footnotes) in length. The editors will review all submissions to select the Prize winner and will work with the successful candidate to advise on revision of the manuscript for publication. The journal and Oxford University Press will advise the Prize winner on securing image permissions and may be able to make a contribution to image costs.

The winner will receive:
Publication of the winning essay in Oxford Art Journal
£500 worth of Oxford University Press books
A year’s free subscription to Oxford Art Journal

Other entries of sufficient quality may be invited to publish their submission in Oxford Art Journal.

Please see the following page for more information about submission and the prize: https://academic.oup.com/oaj/pages/essay_prize

CFP: 2024 Photography Network Symposium “In Relation: Photography’s Communities”

October 25–27, 2024
Tucson, Arizona + virtual (hybrid)
Proposal due date: May 15, 2024

Photography Network will convene its fourth annual symposium in the Sonoran Desert Borderlands city of Tucson, Arizona in partnership with the Center for Creative Photography at the University of Arizona. Grounded in the themes that arise in three CCP-organized exhibitions of Latinx photography that will be on view this fall (Louis Carlos Bernal: Retrospectiva, curated by Elizabeth Ferrer; Chicana Photographers LA, curated by Sybil Venegas; and Laura Aguilar: Nudes in Nature, curated by Sybil Venegas and Christopher Velasco), “In Relation” will consider how communities are made visible, defined, and constituted through photography. In her book Latinx Photography in the United States: A Visual History (2021), Elizabeth Ferrer writes: “As the photographer/subject relationship shifted from outsider/insider to insider/insider [in the late twentieth century], the photograph became less an ethnographic document than an autonomous and self-validating form of individual and community expression.” This shift highlights questions of agency, circulation, diaspora, and storytelling that are relevant to the practice and institutional interpretation of photography. Taking this idea as a point of departure, we invite proposals that broadly respond to the following questions and themes:

● How have artists, especially those from Latinx communities, used photography to probe issues of visibility, belonging, and representation? How do their artistic practices constitute forms of activism?
● Who has the right to tell stories for whom?
● How does the circulation of photographs create—or restrict—communities of subjects and viewers?
● How have borders—in the US and beyond—shaped histories of photography, and how has photography from borderlands challenged state-imposed divisions?
● What alternate models might exist for interpreting photographs and photographic practices that transcend simplistic binaries such as “insider” versus “outsider”?
● What do authentically relational, community-centered curatorial practices look like? How are methodologies such as community advisory councils rethinking the notion of curatorial voice and storytelling?

Submission Information

Photography Network invites proposals across disciplines and a broad range of subjects that reflect the geographic and thematic diversity of the field. Practitioners and scholars at any stage of their careers are welcome to submit their research. We also welcome international scholars but note that the conference will be in English.

The symposium organizers encourage a variety of presentational styles. In addition to proposals for individual, 20-minute papers relating to the themes outlined above, we also seek submissions for a workshop on the topic of community-centered exhibition development and for a roundtable featuring presentations from artist activists .
Please prepare for submission:
(1) a 250-word abstract with a clear indication of format, and
(2) a two-page resume or CV.

All files should be named “[LAST NAME]–CV” or “[LAST NAME]–ABSTRACT.”

Email completed materials by May 15 to the Photography Network Symposium organizing committee: Josie Johnson, Emilia Mickevicius, and Anne Cross at photographynetworksymposium@gmail.com. Notifications of accepted proposals will be emailed by mid-June. The schedule and registration information will be available by July 1 and the symposium will be held October 25–27, 2024.

Note: All are welcome to apply. Accepted presenters must be Photography Network members in good standing at the time of the symposium. We have a sliding scale membership: $20 (student/unaffiliated), $40 (affiliated), or $100 (sustaining). We also have free need-based memberships. Please visit the Photography Network’s membership page (www.photographynetwork.net/memberregistration) for more information on how to join.

CFP: The Archaeology of Identity in “Peripheries” of the Roman World, Boston University Emerging Scholars Symposium, Spring 2024

The Program in Archaeology and Department of Classical Studies at Boston University invite proposals for research presentations and a panel discussion on the topic of the archaeology of identity in “peripheries” of the Roman world. Presentations will be part of a three-hour symposium showcasing the work of emerging scholars, i.e., doctoral candidates, postdoctoral fellows, and nontenure-track assistant professors. All applicants should come from racial and ethnic groups historically underrepresented in the academy, which include people who are of Black/African American, Native American/Alaska Native, Latinx, Southeast Asian, and/or Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander descent.

This panel will bring together emerging scholars and senior scholar discussants to discuss how archaeological methods can illuminate personal identity among “peripheral” communities of the Roman world. We position the concept of “periphery” in both the geographic sense (e.g., Roman Britain, Africa, and the Roman east) and the cultural sense, including communities systematically disadvantaged by Roman society (e.g., women, slaves, racialized populations). Emerging scholars will present their research as a conference-style talk of 15-20 minutes, followed by a keynote presentation from a senior scholar and a panel discussion led by that scholar and members of Boston University’s Archaeology Program and Department of Classical Studies.

The panel will be scheduled according to the availability of participants in late March or early April 2024. This will be an in-person event, though with permission of participants the session will also be simulcast for a hybrid audience. Travel costs, hotel and meals in Boston, and a modest honorarium for all emerging scholars is offered by Boston University.
What to Submit:

  • An abstract of 200-300 words describing your proposed research presentation.
  • A cover letter that summarizes your professional interests and goals; indicates progress toward completion of the dissertation (for doctoral students); and discusses one’s contribution to making the academy a more inclusive environment.
  • Current CV

Materials should be sent as a PDF to Maria Sousa, Archaeology Program Administrator (mhsousa@bu.edu) by December 11, 2023. Participants will be notified of acceptance by December 22, 2023.

Questions may be addressed to John Marston, Professor of Anthropology and Director of the Archaeology Program (marston@bu.edu) or James Uden, Professor and Chair of Classical Studies (uden@bu.edu).

CFP: Blackness, Race, and Racism in Nineteenth-Century Studies

Special Issue of Nineteenth Century Studies: 

Blackness, Race, and Racism in Nineteenth-Century Studies

deadline for submission: August 15, 2024

full name(s)/name of organization:

Wendy Castenell and A. Maggie Hazard co-editors/Nineteenth-Century Studies

contact email(s): wcastenell@wlu.edu; ahazar1@saic.edu

This special issue will explore how Blackness was constructed and problematized by a hegemonic global structure across national boundaries during the long nineteenth century. The issue will pay particular attention to emerging concepts of Black identities during this period.  Critically, majority narratives have driven these constructions, propagating mediated histories that subjugate Black people, yet the full impact of these narratives has not been thoroughly explored and needs additional interrogation. Essays might consider topics related to images, texts, other forms of media, and more. Possible topics could include expressions of Black autonomy in white supremacist cultures; colonialism/decolonization; trauma studies; slavery/emancipation; Black soldiers; Black artists/photographers/writers; the development and expression of stereotypes; the practice of lynching; the transatlantic migration and the Black diaspora; and other relevant subjects. Nineteenth Century Studies publishes studies of nineteenth-century world cultures in all humanistic fields, including literature, art history, history, musicology, and the history of science and the social sciences. It is an interdisciplinary journal issued annually by the Nineteenth Century Studies Association. One exciting aspect of Nineteenth Century Studies is that the journal encourages authors to enhance their contributions with pertinent artwork.

Please submit manuscripts for scholarly essays of 6,000-10,000 words, pedagogical essays of 2,000-4,000 words, or book reviews of 600-1000 words formatted in Chicago Manual Style to guest editors Wendy Castenell and A. Maggie Hazard at wcastenell@wlu.edu and ahazar1@saic.edu. Additionally, we welcome suggestions of books for review relevant to the theme of this special issue. Please send your suggestions to the editors. Early expressions of interest and proposals of topics are also welcome. The initial deadline for submission of full manuscripts will be August 15, 2024, but earlier submissions are encouraged.