Category: Call for Papers

CFP: Exhibition Journal

Proposals due June 3, 2026 for the Spring 2027 Issue

If you are selected to contribute to the issue, you will be notified in late June and a draft of your assigned submission (approximately 1,500 words) will be due in late August 2026.

Theme—Between the Lines: Language in Exhibitions

There are few issues facing exhibition-makers as evergreen as what makes a good wall label. There are also few issues as divisive. After well over a century of visitor research into the effectiveness of labels and countless books, articles, guidelines, tips, and tricks for writing more effective labels, standards still vary widely across institutions—and even across exhibitions staged by the same institution. Add to this the failures of language itself, from its gendered, racist, cultural, and classist assumptions to its (in)accessibility for large numbers of people, and one might be forgiven for asking why labels are still such a ubiquitous communication strategy. Exhibition last broached this topic specifically in its Spring 2016 issue, “The Power of Words: Written, Spoken, Designed.” With all that has happened in the intervening decade, from a pronounced rightward drift in Western politics that has made language as hotly contested as ever to the rise of ChatGPT and other large language models capable of writing for us, we want to check in to see how practitioners are shaping the present and future of exhibition communication through labels and beyond.

Proposals for this issue might address:

  • Delivery Methods: How is language being used within your exhibitions? Is it delivered primarily through graphics, audio, or some other means? How does the delivery method shape the choices you make in terms of tone, length, formality, etc.?
  • Voice: Who has a say in the words that go into your exhibitions? How is content generated and by whom? How does your institution center or draw on expertise and lived experience beyond the voices of in-house collections experts?
  • Politics and Censorship: What happens when language is contested or censored by those within or outside an institution? How do museums maintain the integrity and nuance of their content in an age of polarization and misinformation?
  • Accessibility: What accessibility considerations go into not only how you design text but how you write it? How do you design graphics for greater accessibility? What does multilingual interpretation look like today? What is the role of multimodal interpretation in ensuring that the written word is a choice and not a default for visitor engagement? 
  • Authorship: Who is writing your exhibition content? Has your institution committed to human-generated content or are you experimenting with AI? Do you feature content authored by community members, artists, and others outside your institution? How do you manage these relationships and is your approach to editing such content different?
  • Tone and Vocabulary: Who are you speaking to and how? What guides the choices your institution makes in how it engages with its audience(s) through written and spoken language? What resources do you draw on and how do you train staff to communicate?
  • Choreography: How do collections, graphics, design, and interactive elements work together? How do you choreograph an exhibition to enhance the impact of collections and their interpretation? What design features—seating, pacing, placement—increase engagement with objects and interpretation?

Proposals can focus on a specific exhibition, provide an overview of exhibitions and practices, or offer an insightful review of current literature and other resources to help elucidate core practices. The exhibitions and/or elements discussed can be created by or for museums of all disciplines, historical sites, galleries, institutions that collect and display living collections, or others. Proposals might come from designers, exhibit developers, interpretive planners, curators, writers, educators, or others who create and contribute to exhibitions at all stages of their careers. In all cases, accepted authors will be expected to write articles that illuminate larger issues. Exhibition descriptions should be critical and analytical, and theoretical research and evaluation findings (even if informal) must be used to support arguments for the strengths and weaknesses of a project.

A Note About AI

Authors are expected to write their own articles, without the use of AI (large language models, ChatGPT, etc.). This includes using AI to edit your submission (beyond Word’s spelling or grammar check features). If authors plan to use AI to assist with data collection or other research functions to facilitate the creation of their articles, this use must be disclosed and properly cited (more detailed information will be provided if your proposal is selected).

Exhibition does not use AI in any of its editorial processes. All submissions will be reviewed by a panel of your peers with many decades of combined experience who are all committed to creating meaningful content for our field. We believe this human-centered approach results in articles that honor your individual voice while protecting your intellectual property. We welcome first-time authors and ESL authors and will provide additional editorial support as needed.

How to write and submit a proposal

There are two parts to a proposal (which must be submitted as a Word document):

Part 1: Description (400 words max)

The description must:

  • Include a proposed title for the article (proposed titles should be brief, interesting, and illuminating).
  • Clearly and succinctly convey what the article’s thesis will be.
  • Indicate the approaches, strategies, or knowledge that readers will take away from the article.
  • Convey how the article would raise questions or illuminate larger issues that are widely applicable (especially if the proposal focuses on a single project).

Please note that accepted articles will be expected to provide critical, candid discussions about issues and challenges, successes and failures, and to provide some level of evaluation and/or theoretical grounding.

Part 2: Brief Bio

Please provide a brief bio (no more than one paragraph) for each author that describes their background and qualifications for writing the article (please do not include resumes or CVs).

Please send all proposals as Word documents via email to Jeanne Normand Goswami, Editor, Exhibition at: jeanne.goswami@gmail.com. Submissions from colleagues and students around the world are welcomed and encouraged.

Deadlines: Proposals are due June 3, 2026. Our editorial advisors will vet proposals in a blind review process, and you will be notified of acceptance or non-acceptance in late June. Articles of 2,000 to 3,000 words maximum, along with high-resolution images, will be due in late August.

Other ways to contribute

Would you like to contribute to Exhibition but don’t have a project that fits the call? We are looking for volunteers to contribute to the journal as book reviewers and exhibition critique writers.

What we’ll need:

If you are interested in being considered for these opportunities, please let us know:

  • Your name, title/role, institution (if applicable), geographic location (so we can match you with exhibitions in your area), and any areas of particular interest or focus (e.g., are you a public history professional, art historian, scientist, or designer? Do you have experience with content development or museum education?).
  • Whether you are interested in writing book reviews, exhibition critiques, or both (NOTE: Book reviewers will receive a complimentary copy of the chosen book).
  • If you have a specific idea in mind for either a book review or exhibition critique, please provide a brief (150-word max) description that includes why you think it would make a good addition to this issue (NOTE: you do not need to have a specific idea to be considered).

Please send requested information via email to:

Jeanne Normand Goswami, Editor, Exhibition at: jeanne.goswami@gmail.com. Submissions from colleagues and students around the world are welcomed and encouraged.

Deadlines: All information is due June 3, 2026. Book review and exhibition critique submissions will be considered by our editorial team alongside article proposals in June 2026. If you are selected to contribute to the issue, you will be notified in late June and a draft of your assigned submission (approximately 1,500 words) will be due in late August 2026.

Call for papers: Justin Winsor Library History Essay Award

The Library History Round Table (LHRT) of the American Library Association (ALA) invites submissions for the Justin Winsor Library History Essay Award, named in honor of ALA’s first president, the distinguished nineteenth-century librarian, historian, and bibliographer. This award is given annually and recognizes the best essay written in English on library history. The winner will receive a certificate, a $500 cash award, and an invitation to have their essay considered for publication in Libraries: Culture, History, and Society.

Criteria

Manuscripts submitted should not be previously published, previously submitted for publication, or under consideration for publication or another award. To be considered, essays should 

  • embody original historical research on a significant topic in library history 
  • be based on primary sources whenever possible 
  • use good English composition and superior style. 

The Library History Round Table is particularly interested in works that place the subject within its broader historical, social, cultural, and political context and make interdisciplinary connections.

Applicants are encouraged to follow the submission guidelines for Libraries: Culture, History, and Society when formatting their manuscripts. Submissions should conform to the latest edition of the Chicago Manual of Style, using the author-date system, and should not exceed thirty typewritten, double-spaced pages. 

Submissions and Selection

Applicants must submit their manuscripts electronically. Applications must be received by Thursday April 30th. The application deadline is firm; submissions received after the deadline will not be forwarded to the committee. 

Please upload your manuscripts electronically via the web form: LHRT Justin Winsor Award Submission Form.

Interested applicants can direct inquiries to Rachel Trnka, Justin Winsor Award Committee Chair, rachel.trnka@ucf.edu; please include “LHRT Winsor Award” in the subject line.

Contact Information

Rachel Trnka

Instruction & Engagement Librarian

UCF Libraries

Contact Email

rachel.trnka@ucf.edu

CFP: Reimagining “Modern” Heritage in Africa, Nsibidi: A Journal of African Heritage

Background to the Theme

The historiography of 20th-century modernism has historically marginalized the Global South, frequently framing Africa’s modern heritage as derivative, or strictly a product of exogenous colonial and post-colonial interventions (Le Roux, 2003; Uduku, 2006). For our inaugural issue, we turn our attention to a critically under-theorized and rapidly disappearing subset of the continent’s history: the Modern Heritage of Africa.

The material and socio-cultural realities of this heritage are vast and complex, ranging from the Afro-Brazilian typologies of West Africa and the brutalist university campuses of the independence era (Herz et al., 2015), to colonial railway networks, early industrial mining towns, and the mid-century cinemas and radio stations that gave birth to new urban cultures. Currently, mainstream heritage discourse often struggles to adequately conserve or interpret these sites, largely due to an over-reliance on Eurocentric conservation frameworks, such as the Venice Charter, which traditionally prioritize static material authenticity.

In response, and guided by the decentering mandate of the Cape Town Document on Modern Heritage (2022) alongside the recently adopted Nairobi Outcome on Heritage and Authenticity (2025), this issue argues that preserving the memory of these sites requires a profound epistemological shift. The Cape Town Document underscores the imperative to untether the concept of the “modern” from its Eurocentric origins, advocating for equitable, expanded definitions that account for plural modernities and multiple narratives. Complementing this, the Nairobi framework establishes that African heritage is dynamic, community-centered, and intricately links the tangible with the intangible. Consequently, we must re-examine these contentious structures not as inert, fossilized relics, but as active sites of socio-spatial negotiation whose authenticity is continuously evolving.

The “Nsibidi” Approach

We challenge the prevailing notion that “Modern” heritage is strictly a Western phenomenon or a direct import. Contributors from across disciplines: history, anthropology, architecture, urban studies, and cultural heritage are invited to analyze these sites critically through the lens of African Indigenous Knowledge Systems (AIKS), the Cape Town Document, and the pluralistic framework of the Nairobi Outcome.

We ask scholars and practitioners to consider questions such as:

  • How do we interpret the “authenticity” and integrity of modernist structures when their spatial meaning and utility have been entirely reimagined by local communities?
  • How do modernist structures and infrastructural networks interface with the spiritual geography and traditional land-use practices of their contexts?
  • How have communities indigenized colonial spaces and technologies through ritual, informal urbanism, or adaptive reuse?
  • What do oral histories and archival research reveal about the indigenous labor, vernacular craftsmanship, and lived experiences that built and sustained these modern spaces?

“When the music changes, so does the dance.” — Hausa Proverb

In the spirit of this proverb, we seek to understand how African heritage practice dances with modernity, adapting to and transforming the physical and cultural remnants of the 20th century.

Sub-Themes

We welcome original research articles, case studies, conservation reports, and critical essays that engage with the following sub-themes:

  • Evolving Authenticities & Decentered Modernities: Applying the Cape Town Document and the Nairobi Outcome to the preservation, reconceptualization, and interpretation of 20th-century built heritage.
  • Architectural & Spatial Realities: Critical assessments of “Tropical Modernism,” civic monuments, and the indigenization of 20th-century architecture.
  • Infrastructural Memory: The social and cultural histories of colonial railways, ports, industrial sites, and segregationist urban masterplans.
  • Sites of Cultural Production: The legacy and preservation of mid-century cinemas, radio stations, printing presses, and post-independence cultural hubs.
  • Difficult Heritage: Managing, interpreting, and decolonizing sites associated with pain, apartheid, or colonial extraction.
  • Intangible Modernities & Oral History: Documenting the voices, labor narratives, and newly forged urban traditions associated with 20th-century modernization.

Language Policy

Nsibidi is committed to epistemic justice and encourages the use of indigenous languages for key theoretical, spatial, and cultural concepts. Terms without direct English equivalents should be retained in their original language and explained contextually within the text.

Submission Guidelines

All submissions will undergo a rigorous double-blind peer review process. We encourage submissions from academic researchers, heritage practitioners, and spatial designers.

  • Abstract Submission: Please submit an abstract (approx. 250–300 words) outlining your proposed paper, methodology, and relevance to the theme, along with a brief author bio.
  • Final Paper: Accepted abstracts will be invited to submit full manuscripts. Manuscripts should be formatted according to the journal’s style guide (provided upon abstract acceptance) and stripped of all identifying information to ensure a blind review. High-resolution archival photographs, maps, and diagrams are highly encouraged.

Important Dates

  • Abstract Submission Deadline: May 15, 2026
  • Notification of Acceptance: June 1, 2026
  • Final Paper Submission Deadline: August 15, 2026

Contact & Inquiries

Please send all abstracts, full manuscript submissions, and inquiries to the editorial team at:

journal@nsibidi.institute

References

  • Folkers, A. (2010). Modern architecture in Africa. Springer.
  • Herz, M., Frei, I., Hunt, M., & Ritz, C. (Eds.). (2015). African modernism: The architecture of independence. Ghana, Senegal, Côte d’Ivoire, Kenya, Zambia. Park Books.
  • Le Roux, H. (2003). The networks of tropical architecture. The Journal of Architecture, 8(3), 337–354.
  • MoHoA (Modern Heritage of Africa). (2022). The Cape Town Document on Modern Heritage. University of Cape Town / UCL.
  • Ndlovu, S. (2014). African heritage and the limits of traditional conservation charters. Journal of Heritage Stewardship, 11(2), 45–62.
  • Uduku, O. (2006). Modernist architecture and ‘the tropical’ in West Africa: The tropical architecture movement in West Africa, 1948–1970. Habitat International, 30(3), 396–411.
  • UNESCO & African World Heritage Fund. (2025). The Nairobi Outcome on Heritage and Authenticity. International Conference on Cultural Heritage in Africa, Nairobi, Kenya.

Contact Email

journal@nsibidi.institute

URL

http://journal.nsibidi.institute

CFP: Fwd: Museums Journal 2027 – Collections, Collecting, Collectives

Theme: Collections, Collecting, Collectives

The urge to collect predates the development of modern museums. The Wunderkammer, also known as the “Cabinet of Curiosities,” was a practice established in Europe in which collectors could admire the beauty and artistry of foreign artifacts while also exhibiting their wealth and power to society.  This model then became the basis for Western museums. These collections became open to the public through collectives gathering and demanding equal space, changing how objects were seen from sites of creation to consumption. Moreover, with the inclusion of the public, collections transformed from a performance of status to a highlighting of personal memorabilia, allowing people to preserve and display what is most important to them. How do we reframe collecting not as an elite pursuit but as a practice integral to our humanity? Collectives gather to admire what stands in pristine cases, that once were part of the earth, made by someone’s hands, and held close to someone’s heart. What begins as an intimate act of gathering soon hardens into structure. Collections emerge not merely as accumulations of objects, but as frameworks that determine what is preserved, displayed, and ultimately remembered.

Collections: 
A collection is an accumulation of objects. Cultural institutions and organizations inherit the work of preserving cultural and personal heritage. What responsibilities come with holding, curating, or inheriting a collection? How does collecting build upon these responsibilities? How do they build narrative and tell a story? How do museums portray history through the physical? How do we form relationships with relics?

Collecting: 
Collecting is an activity that manifests in auction houses, stores, homes, and streets. Along with histories of physical collections, the importance of oral history creates a sense of unity and oneness with oneself through history. When memory is sustained through people rather than objects, it becomes inherently collective. What are the economic and environmental impacts of collecting? How can collecting become a site of ritual for oneself and others? In the context of collecting, how can spaces such as libraries and personal collections demonstrate ways of life and create a sense of history? How can acts of collecting help preserve traditions in new and distinctive ways?

Collectives:
Collectives make up the core of museums. From administrators and educators to visitors and guests, people are the lifeblood of cultural institutions. Yet, collectivity does not begin or end within museum walls. How does collective action extend beyond institutional frameworks and move into communities, organizing, people-centric networks, and shared cultural labor?  How do collectives form through shared objects, tastes, grief, or resistance? How do we interact with various institutions? How can collectives change what is seen and what is obscured?  How can collectives be formed and appreciated outside of a central museum space? 

Produced and edited by the University of Illinois Chicago Museum and Exhibition Studies graduate students and published by Chicago-based Bridge Books, Fwd: Museums strives to create a space for challenging, critiquing, and providing alternative modes of thinking and production within and outside of museums.

For our twelfth issue, we invite contributions and collaborations rooted in reflections on collections across cultural institutions, personal archives, and community-held alike. What does it mean to collect within and beyond systems of capital and curation? How do institutional collections intersect with personal, familial, or grassroots forms of gathering and preservation? What is collective about museums?

Fwd: Museums invites academic articles, artwork, essays, exhibition/book reviews, creative writing, interviews, poetry, rants, love letters, and experimental forms to analyze, critique, and make space for new thinking about museums and exhibitions. All submissions should follow the guidelines and relate to the journal’s mission statement (bolded above). We strongly encourage book and exhibition reviews on multiple topics, but require all other submissions to connect to the 12th issue’s theme, “Collections, Collecting, Collectives.”

The submission deadline is January 5, 2027, 11:59 PM (CST). Submit your work here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSewSwV6sx0d6mPwX7x6DrYObxj0X1e2WdhB2IVaVeQBzNzVYA/viewform 

Questions? Email fwd.museums@gmail.com. 

Find us on Instagram @fwd_museums 

Guidelines
Written submissions such as essays, research papers, and poems should be between 2,500 – 4,000 words and use Chicago Manual of Style formatting and citations, in a DOCX file. Broadly accessible language that a large audience can understand is preferred. If you think your submission may exceed 4,000 words, please email us at fwd.museums@gmail.com to discuss the length of your submission. 

All images should be sent as separate files (not embedded in text) at 300+ dpi in tiff format. Note in-text where images should be inserted and include credit, caption, date of execution, materials used, and dimensions, as appropriate.

A Note on Reviews
Reviews should be between 1,500 – 2,500 words. We welcome long-form museum, exhibition, film, and book reviews with a point of view and connections to social, historical, political, and other contexts, rather than summaries of book contents. We invite creative formats; email us if you’d like examples. Check our Instagram or email us for books available for review.

Who Should Submit?
Anyone! You! Students, faculty, scholars, museum employees, artists and art handlers, volunteers, part-timers, activists, and other people with something to say about museums, exhibits, and cultural work are welcome to submit. 

Please see the Journal Style and Manuscript Guide for information on how to format your submission.

Contact Information

Dr. Therese Quinn

Museum and Exhibition Studies

University of Illinois Chicago

Contact Email

fwd.museums@gmail.com

URL

https://fwdmuseumsjournal.weebly.com/

CFP: Fontes Special Issue: “Preserving Cultural Heritage in the Performing Arts”

Invitation for submissions on Preserving Cultural Heritage in the Performing Arts for a special issue of Fontes Artis Musicae.

This special issue focuses on the extraordinary efforts librarians, archivists, curators, and supporters of the performing arts have taken or are taking to preserve our cultural heritage for the future. It is amazing what we have saved in the face of war and conflict over the course of our histories. Today, the specter of war continues, as does this work. We are also at a moment when new methods and workflows for digital content must be developed in order to capture and preserve what is important and meaningful to us. This issue will explore past successes, present challenges, and ideas for the future. Submissions may take many forms, including original research, case studies, and essays.

Possible topics include:

Histories of collections saved in wars

Unique considerations for saving and preserving performing arts materials

Leveraging crowdsourcing for preservation

Toolkits for preserving collections at the onset of a conflict

Preserving born-digital compositions

Fontes Artis Musicae is a peer-reviewed journal published by the International Association of Music Libraries, Archives and Documentation Centres (IAML).

The deadline for submission is June 30, 2026. Articles will undergo a double-blind peer review process. To discuss ideas or propose a paper, please email the guest editor:  Stephanie.Bonjack@Colorado.edu”

IOHA 2026 Call for Submissions: Articles and Reviews

The Editorial Team of Words & Silences | Palabras & Silencios is pleased to invite submissions for articles and reviews in our upcoming 2026 edition.

Published by the International Oral History Association (IOHA), the journal is a peer-reviewed, open-access digital publication, freely available online, that welcomes contributions from all individuals engaged in oral history, whether in academia, community-based projects, creative practices, or activist contexts.

For this edition, we are accepting submissions in three sections:

1. Special Topic: (Re)Thinking Oral History

The section draws from the theme of the 23rd International Oral History Association Conference, (Re)Thinking Oral History, held in Krakow, Poland, in 2025, and extends its concerns into the pages of the journal. It invites articles that take a critical look at how oral history defines its aims, responsibilities, and modes of practice in the present.

In a world shaped by democratic tensions, geopolitical conflicts, climate change, deepening inequalities, wars, and mass displacement, we are interested in how oral history is being reworked in response to these conditions, and in how its ethical, methodological, political, and public commitments are being rethought.

We welcome theoretically informed, empirically grounded, and practice-based contributions that engage with issues such as neutrality and involvement, technological change (including AI), documenting moments of crisis, care and healing, marginalized voices, environmental concerns, community archives, global asymmetries in knowledge production, multilingualism, and new ways of circulating oral history—asking, ultimately, what kinds of stories are we producing, and for whom, now and in the years ahead.

Deadline for submissions: May 30, 2026

2. Articles and Essays

This open section reflects the broad, plural spirit of the International Oral History Association and its commitment to dialogue among oral historians working in different contexts around the world.

We invite both research articles and reflective essays on a wide range of themes related to oral history, including theory, methodology, ethics, archives, memory, public history, artistic practices, and community-based work. Contributions should offer original perspectives on oral history’s practices, debates, and futures across regions, languages, and traditions.

Deadline for submissions: June 30, 2026

3. Reviews

We are looking for reviews of diverse products and mediums, created no earlier than 2023, that focus on oral history or critically reflect on its challenges, methodologies, and practices, including but not limited to: books, electronic media, exhibitions, podcasts, films, events, festivals, conferences, archives, and collections.

Reviews should go beyond summary, having oral history as a central focus and offering critical insight into the contribution, reach and significance of the work for oral history and related fields.

Deadline for submissions: June 30, 2026

Submission Guidelines

  • Length: 2,500–6,000 words (Special Topic and Articles and Essays) and 1,000–1,500 words (Reviews).
  • Format: Double-spaced throughout (except footnotes), Times New Roman, size 12pt.
  • Style: Chicago Manual of Style, including footnotes (not endnotes) and a complete References or Works Cited section at the end.
  • Articles and essays should include an abstract (150–200 words) and 3–5 keywords. Reviews do not require an abstract.
  • Language: Submissions may preferably be made in English and/or Spanish. Submissions in other languages are possible; however, upon acceptance, authors will be asked to provide a final revised version in English and/or Spanish. Authors are encouraged to submit the final version in more than one language to support IOHA’s multilingual tradition.

Submission Instructions

  • Submissions should be sent as a Word document (.doc or .docx) to iohajournal@gmail.com  
  • Please indicate in the subject line the section for which the submission is intended (Special Topic, Articles and Essays, or Reviews).
  • Manuscripts should be anonymized for peer review, with any identifying information removed from the text and file properties. A separate title page should include the author’s name(s), institutional affiliation (if any), a brief biographical note, and contact information.

For further inquiries, feel free to contact us at iohajournal@gmail.com

CFP: Thinking with Things: Narrative, Culture, and Material Politics

Call for Papers: Thinking with Things: Narrative, Culture, and Material Politics (with strong interest from Routledge, New York)

Even though questions of matter and materiality have long informed humanistic thought, recent years have witnessed a renewed and intensified engagement with “materiality” across the humanities and social sciences. This resurgence responds to a range of contemporary challenges—environmental instability, planetary disruption, digital overdetermination, infrastructural fragility, and the erosion of anthropocentric exceptionalism—all of which have reshaped how we understand what it means to be human in a more-than-human world. While materialist, new materialist, and posthuman paradigms have expanded the grammar of critical discourse, much existing scholarship remains focused on conceptual elaboration, often treating literary and cultural texts as secondary illustrations of theoretical claims. Such an approach risks reinstating the familiar Cartesian divide between mind and matter, idea and experience, theory and praxis. What remains underexplored is how material thinking itself operates within narrative practices—how conceptual structures are articulated through storytelling, and how narratives are shaped, constrained, and transformed by the presence and agency of things.

As Jane Bennett suggests, materiality is never passive; it possesses “the curious ability of inanimate things to animate, to act, and to produce effects.” Taking this insight seriously, Thinking with Things: Narrative, Culture, and Material Politics seeks to reposition narrative as a site where matter is not merely represented but actively participates in the production of meaning, ethics, and power. The volume brings together contributions that explore how material entities—objects, infrastructures, ecological conditions, nonhuman agents, technological assemblages, and everyday artefacts—intervene in and generate narrative processes. Rather than approaching materiality as a neutral medium, the collection understands it as a dynamic force that mediates relations and constitutes the very conditions of meaning-making. In doing so, the project aims to move beyond human-centered epistemologies and purely representational frameworks, demonstrating how material forces reshape ontological assumptions, challenge inherited political models, and reconfigure ethical frameworks.

By foregrounding the active role of things in cultural and political life, the volume fosters a cross-disciplinary dialogue across literary studies, philosophy, cultural theory, media studies, anthropology, geography, and science and technology studies. It is particularly interested in how things, understood as “material-semiotic” agents in the sense articulated by Donna Haraway, enable new modes of conceptual and narrative practice that move beyond the dualisms of mind and matter, theory and praxis, while remaining attentive to textual specificity. The volume also seeks to examine how objects—from everyday artefacts to large-scale infrastructures—mediate temporality, responsibility, and relations of power; how narratives respond to ecological disruption and planetary instability; and how literary and cultural texts reimagine the human by tracing the co-constitution of human and nonhuman actors within complex material assemblages.

We invite contributions that engage with themes such as materiality and narrative form; objects and material culture; literature, cinema, and visual culture; affect and embodiment; ecological and planetary imaginaries; everyday life and capitalist circulation; ethics and material relations; transmedia storytelling; human/nonhuman interfaces; urban space and spatial materialities; temporality, ruin, and breakdown; archives and material traces; digital media and technological assemblages; and object-oriented ontology, among others. Submissions that combine theoretical rigor with close attention to texts, media, or cultural practices are especially welcome.

Submissions are invited from scholars who have completed the doctoral degree or are at an advanced stage of doctoral research with an established record of scholarly engagement. Abstracts of approximately 300 words, along with a brief bio (100–150 words), should be sent to thinkingthings.project@gmail.com by May 30, 2026. Accepted chapters will be expected to be in the range of 6000–8000 words; the full submission timeline will be communicated after the selection of abstracts.

This is a selective, peer-reviewed edited volume currently under development. Contributors will be chosen on the basis of originality, conceptual rigor, and relevance to the thematic concerns of the collection. The volume is co-edited by Ratul Nandi (Department of English, Siliguri College, University of North Bengal, India) and Anik Sarkar (Department of English, Uttar Banga Maheshwari College, University of North Bengal, India).

Some areas that the chapters can explore, but not limited to:

  • Things and Narrative Form
  • Things and Objects of Material Culture
  • Things and Literary Texts
  • Things and Cinema and visual culture
  • Things and Affect
  • Things, materiality and Psychoanalysis
  • Things and Ecological and Planetary imaginaries
  • Things, Objects and Everyday Life
  • Things and Capitalist Circulations 
  • Things and Questions of Ethics
  • Things and Transmedia Storytelling
  • Things and the Human / Nonhuman Interface
  • Things and Critical Theory
  • Things and Polity and definition of the Political
  • Things and Temporality
  • Things and Graphic Narratives / Comics
  • Things and Ruin, Breakdown, and Failure
  • Things and the question of Archive
  • Things and Digital Media
  • Things and in-betweenness 
  • Things and Object-Oriented Ontology

Contact Information

Editors

Ratul Nandi, PhD
Department of English
Siliguri College, University of North Bengal, India

Anik Sarkar, PhD
Department of English
Uttar Banga Maheshwari College, University of North Bengal, India

Contact Email

thinkingthings.project@gmail.com

Call for Papers: transfer – Journal for Provenance Research and the History of Collection

The online journal transfer is an academic publication platform in the area of provenance research and the history of collection as well as adjacent fields of investigation, like art market studies, reception history, cultural sociology, or legal history. Issues are published semi-annually and exclusively online in Diamond Open Access. Research articles and research reports, to be submitted in English or German, are subject to a double-blind peer-review. All submissions undergo an internal evaluation by the editors supported by the advisory board and receive professional copy-editing before publication. The journal is based at the Research Centre for Provenance Research, Art and Cultural Property Law at the University of Bonn and at the Leipzig Museum of Fine Arts. transfer receives funding from the German Research Foundation (DFG). Webhosting is provided by our partner institution Heidelberg University Library via arthistoricum.net.

Website: https://journals.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/index.php/transfer/index

Editors: Felicity Bodenstein, Ulrike Saß & Christoph Zuschlag

Managing Editor: Florian Schönfuß

Advisory Board: Arbeitskreis Provenienzforschung e.V., dbv-Kommission Provenienzforschung und Provenienzerschließung, Didier Houénoudé, Larissa Förster, Gilbert Lupfer, Antoinette Maget-Dominicé, Barbara K. Murovec, Gesa Vietzen

Open Call for Submissions

transfer is an interdisciplinary, cross-epoch and international journal. It primarily addresses a scholarly audience. Besides experienced researchers, transfer equally aims at early career researchers, including PhD students, offering broad impact and high accessibility for the publication of recent research. Abstaining from any author charges or other publication fees, transfer provides a Diamond Open Access platform assuring research quality as well as transparency, fostering research interconnection and the crossing of disciplinary and institutional boundaries. Authors are invited to submit papers on the following fields of interest:

– Provenance research on individual objects or object groups

– Collections, History of collection

– Translocation of art and cultural assets 

– Art and cultural property law

– Culture of remembrance, Cultural identity, Collective memory

– Art trade, Art market studies

– Art policy, Sociology of art, Cultural sociology

– Restitution, Return, Repatriation

In conjunction with the articles in transfer, corresponding research data sets can be published via the Open Research Data platform heiData. For further information on this and regarding submissions, text categories, peer-review as well as our Style Sheet, please see the journal-website or contact us under redaktion.transfer@uni-bonn.de.

The editorial deadline for issue 5 (2026), no. 2, is July 15, 2026.

Contact Information

Dr. Florian Schönfuß

transfer – Zeitschrift für Provenienzforschung und Sammlungsgeschichte / 

Journal for Provenance Research and the History of Collection

Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn

Forschungsstelle Provenienzforschung, 

Kunst- und Kulturgutschutzrecht

Kunsthistorisches Institut

Rabinstraße 1

53111 Bonn (Germany)

florian.schoenfuss@uni-bonn.de

Contact Email

redaktion.transfer@uni-bonn.de

URL

https://journals.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/index.php/transfer/index

Call for Chapter Proposals: Intangible Archives

Call For Chapter Proposals

Book Title :Intangible Archives (Working Title)

Editors: Jeannette A. Bastian, Professor Emerita, Simmons University.

Stanley H. Griffin, Head, Dept. of Library and Information, University of the West Indies.

Introduction

In the primarily text-driven archival discipline, intangible expressions are too often discounted as records.  And yet these expressions, created by societies world-wide and in multiple formats, are carriers of significant information, recorders in themselves of a  variety of beliefs, history, customs, and cultures. Intangible Cultural Heritage  (ICH) as defined by UNESCO includes orality, performance, social practices, festivals, and generational knowledge, and can also encompass craftsmanship, landscapes and memory texts,  but to what extent are these cultural signifiers also the archival records of the societies that produce them? And to what extent are these active forms of documentation and memory seen as valid and equal archival representations in ways that textual works are  traditionally perceived to be?

     Seeking essays from an international range of cultures and traditions, we invite chapters on intangible archives for an edited book to be published by Bloomsbury Press.  

Possible topics include:

·      Exploring the ways in which societies ‘document’ themselves through intangible expressions.

·      Whether intangible expressions are archival within traditional understandings of records or whether they are indicative of new understandings of what an archive could be.

·      Tensions between intangible and tangible archives, between community memory and  official records.

·      How community rituals and practices serve as record formation and archival processing

·      Institutional configurations to center intangible cultural heritage collections and holdings.

·      Ethical considerations and challenges for inclusion of intangible cultural heritage materials within archival collections.

·      Digital culture as intangible cultural heritage archives.

·      Preserving the intangible.

Please send an abstract of no more than  300 words to Jeannette Bastian at jbastian6@gmail.com  and Stanley Griffin at stanley.griffin@uwi.edu  by March 25, 2026.

Deadlines:

Submission of Proposals: March 25, 2026

Notification of Acceptance: April 10, 2026

Full Chapter Submission: June 30, 2026

Call for Proposals: Media Studies Grant 2026

The Media Studies Grant call for proposals is open until March 15th, 2026.

Download the full call for proposals. (there is extensive detail)

The 2026 Call for Proposals for the Media Studies Grant is now open for applications. The FIAT/IFTA Media Studies Commission is looking to commission two small-scale research projects that deal with one or more of the following core themes: audiovisual archives and public service value, memory and identity through the lens of audiovisual archives, precarity in audiovisual archives, and audiovisual archives in the Latin American context.

The Media Studies Grant aims to promote archive-based research and ensure the valorization of scientific knowledge for archival practice. Junior and senior researchers from across different disciplines (e.g. media studies, history, sociology, political sciences, cultural studies, environmental studies, anthropology, conflict studies, etc.) are encouraged to apply. We particularly encourage researchers from outside Europe to apply.

Requirements

  • Candidates are required to send in their application in PDF format by 15 March 2026;
  • Applications should be emailed to: msc@fiatifta.org.
  • Awarded candidates need to sign a funding agreement with FIAT/IFTA;
  • Awarded candidates should report back on their work in progress to the Media Studies Commission at regular intervals, as specified in the funding agreement;
  • Awarded candidates are expected to deliver by the end of their grant period:
    • A written research report at the quality standards of a scholarly article but written for a readership made up of broadcast archivists.
    • A discussion of their research findings at the FIAT/IFTA World Conference in São Paulo, Brazil, 6-9 October 2026, pitched to an audience of FIAT/IFTA members.
    • A short video to be distributed further on social media and which highlights some of the interesting discoveries, curiosities or inspirations of their research.
    • Other forms of creative output aiming to disseminate the research findings to a wider audience are encouraged (e.g. audiovisual essay, an interactive digital story, creative demo, etc.). Please make sure there are no copyright restrictions for the archival material you may want to re-use in this type of output.
  • All output needs to mention the support of FIAT/IFTA and should be made available to FIAT/IFTA.
  • Candidates may be asked for promotional interviews and/or to share their research progress during an online session.
  • FIAT/IFTA reserves the right to make accessible the output of funded studies on its own website.
  • Proposed studies can be part of a bigger project (e.g. a PhD dissertation, book project, etc.) or can be stand-alone research initiatives that the candidate wishes to pursue.