CALL FOR PAPERS
Women and Museums
A Focus Issue for the journal Collections

Guest Edited by Dr. Holly Farrell, Postdoctoral researcher, Leiden University, Netherlands

Deadline: March 1, 2023

While not always as well-known as their male counterparts, women have been involved in
the development of museums since their conception. Whether as donors, collectors, or
employees, women have had important roles in the building up and display of collections in
museums throughout the world. As work is done to highlight the histories of museum
institutions and collecting practices, it is important to acknowledge the distinct position of
women in this area. The contribution of women to museums and collections is invariably
linked to issues of gender, along with class and race, making for a rich and nuanced area of
research. Developing from the Women and Museums Conference, Leiden University 2022,
this special issue will explore the varied ways in which women participated in such
institutions. The relationship between women, museums and collections historically is an
important site for understanding connections between people, institutions and objects.
We invite contributions from scholars and practitioners writing on topics related to the
following:
• Women’s collections
• Women as donators
• Women and museum work
• Private collections
• Imperialism and women collecting
• Folk museums and women
• Women’s photography collections
• Women travellers and collectors
• Women working in the shadow of men
We are particularly interested in articles which relate to gender, race, class intersections in
the lives of the women examined.
For this issue, we are seeking articles, essays, and case studies of 2,000-3,000 words (8-12
pages double spaced, plus notes and references). Authors should express their interest by
submitting a 300-word abstract and any relevant information (such as short bio or pertinent
URLs) to the guest editor, h.o.farrell@hum.leidenuniv.nl, and the journal editor,
jdgsh@rit.edu, by March 1, 2023. Notification of acceptance will be made by May 1, 2023,
with the deadline for submission of final papers of September 1, 2023 through the SAGE
online submission portal. Publication is anticipated for volume 19 or 20 an issue date of
2023/2024. For additional information or to receive samples of the journal, please contact
the journal editor, Juilee Decker, jdgsh@rit.edu.

Issued September 8, 2022

Framing References:
• Women and Museums Conference, Leiden University 2022.
• Two issues of the journal published in 2018,
https://journals.sagepub.com/toc/cjx/14/3 and
https://journals.sagepub.com/toc/cjx/14/4, guest edited by Janet Ashton, Margot
Note, and Consuelo Sendino.
• Bracken, Susan. Andrea M. Gáldy, Adriana. Turpin, and University of London. Institute
of Historical Research. Women Patrons and Collectors. Newcastle upon Tyne:
Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2012.

• D’Ancona Modena, Louisa Levi. “The ‘beautiful enigma,’a case study of German-
Jewish women in collector networks in Rome (1880-1914).” Journal of the History of

Collections (2022).
• Hill, Kate, Women and museums, 1850–1914: modernity and the gendering of
knowledge. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2016.
• Leis, A C. Sarah Sophia Banks: femininity, sociability and the practice of collecting in
late Georgian England. York: University of York, 2013.
• Leis, Arlene, and Kacie Wells. Women and the Art and Science of Collecting in
Eighteenth-Century Europe. New York: Routledge, 2021.
• Levin, Amy K. (ed), Gender, sexuality and museums, A Routledge reader. London:
Routledge, 2010.
• Proctor-Tiffany, Mary. “Doris Duke and Mary Crane, Collecting Islamic art for Shangri
La, a Hawaiian hideaway home.” Journal of the History of Collections (2022).