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Feminism and Museums 

Guerrilla Girls, Do Women Have To Be Naked To Get Into The Met. Museum?, 2012. Pomona College Collection. 

Feminism and Museums, Museumsetc Magazine, 16 September 2016

We invite international submissions for our forthcoming book, Feminism and Museums: Intervention, Disruption and Change, which we’ll be publishing next year (2017) and which will be edited by Dr Jenna Ashton (Manchester Metropolitan University).

You can download the full Call for Papers here. The closing date for proposals is Monday 21 November 2016.

This year, feminist activists The Guerrilla Girls stage their latest exhibition (and first in the UK), showcasing a survey of 400 European galleries and revealing that museums still fail to reflect the full diversity of art activity and art history. The anonymous art collective’s methods of disruption range from site-specific protests and performances to research, publications, posters and billboards. All the while remaining anonymous in their gorilla masks.

Many other feminist curatorial projects continue to challenge the exclusion or misrepresentation of women’s histories and cultural activities. As long ago as 1913, in the first disruptive feminist act, three suffragettes attacked a number of pictures in Manchester Art Gallery as part of the campaign for women’s votes. More recently, artists such as Judy Chicago have created activist pieces aiming to redress the absence of women’s creativity and cultural heritage in museums; while academics such as Linda Nochlin in her seminal essay Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists? have analysed the sexual politics underpinning the exclusion of women from cultural canons.

Feminism and Museums: Intervention, Disruption and Change will bring together case studies and analyses of recent feminist actions, interventions and disruptions which aim to directly impact and influence collecting, interpretation and engagement activities in museums, galleries and heritage organisations. The aims of the publication are:

  • To encourage and facilitate feminist practice by sharing examples of success and positive experience in the museum and heritage sector.
  • To evaluate the impact and results of feminist practices and actions in the museum and heritage sector.

EDITOR
Dr Jenna Ashton is Impact and Engagement Manager at Manchester Metropolitan University’s Office for Research and Knowledge Exchange, and Creative Director of the Digital Women’s Archive North [DWAN]. Her research and curatorial practice explores memory and narrative, material culture, archives and feminist interventions.

SUBMISSIONS
We welcome international proposals for both (longer) chapters and (briefer) case studies from museum, gallery and heritage professionals, academics and researchers. Proposals from those with practical experience of assessing and evaluating outcomes in this field are particularly welcome, as are contributions which present the practical experience of innovative programmes, or the results of the impact of new initiatives.

Aspects of interest include – but are not limited to – innovations and successes in any of the following areas:

  • Curatorial and collecting decisions and initiatives
  • Positive innovations in the fields of management, marketing, interpretation, exhibitions, digital, outreach and other key aspects of museum and heritage work.
  • Successful changes to institutional structures, policies or practices
  • The discovery and presentation of hidden herstories
  • Positive engagement with voluntary or activist women’s organisations
  • The impact of organisations founded or managed on a feminist ethos
  • Artist interventions

SUBMITTING A PROPOSAL
If you are interested in being considered as a contributor, please submit a proposal and a short biography (in Microsoft Word format). Proposals should be 300-500 words in length and biographies 100-200 words.

You can propose to submit either a chapter or a case study. Chapters will be 4000-6000 words in length. Case studies will be 1000-2000 words. The inclusion of images is encouraged. Please prepare your proposal with these parameters in mind. The work should not have been published elsewhere and all contributions must be submitted in English – translation services will not be provided.

The deadline for proposals is Monday 21 November 2016. Please email your proposal to both the editor: [email protected] and the publishers: [email protected]. Any queries in advance of submission should be sent to the editor.

Feminism and Museums will be published by MuseumsEtc in print and digital editions in 2017. Contributors will receive a complimentary copy of the publication and a discount on more.

KEY DATES
Proposals due: Monday 21 November 2016
Contributors notified: 5 December 2016
Completed Papers due: 20 February 2016