The Historiography of Islamic Art

Journal of Art Historiography

The editors seek submissions for a dedicated issue of the Journal of Art
Historiography, inviting current research that reflects on and engages
with the history and present state of the discipline of Islamic art
history itself. Research predicated on material from any historical
period and geographical area of the Islamic world is welcomed, provided
the study also makes a conscious and sustained engagement with its own
parameters.

The study of Islamic art and architecture and its position within the
wider disciplines of both Art History and Middle Eastern Studies has
been under considerable scrutiny in recent years. An exponential
increase in the volume of scholarship being conducted on Middle Eastern
visual culture in the last decade in particular has left practitioners
and observers alike seeking to understand the history of the discipline
in addition to the histories of the objects it propounds. At this
juncture, with new publications and dedicated exhibitions seeking to
extend the historiographic discourse, the time is right for an
interrogation of our field, from the intellectual legacies of earlier
scholarship to current strands and future directions.

As the Journal of Art Historiography is published electronically, this
issue has the facility to include relevant supplementary documentation.
Therefore, in addition to articles, the editors also seek translations
of interesting or landmark material into English, documents (meaning
vital material that has been published in places that are not easily
accessible electronically), topic-related bibliographies, notes, book
reviews and suggestions of books for review.

Possible strands for examination include, but are by no means limited to:

Legacies of connoisseurship

The role of the collector

Relationships between academia, museums and the art market

The shifting status of objects and material culture

Hierarchies of arts and the place of the "minor" and "decorative"

Postcolonial studies and the subaltern voice Problematising the terms
"Islamic" and "Art"

Please send abstracts of articles (c. 500 words) and/ or proposals for
notes, documents, reviews and translations to Moya Carey and Margaret
Graves by 1st October 2010. Following acceptance, full texts (including
all images and permissions) are to be submitted by 1st September 2011,
for publication in the December 2011 edition of the journal. The editors
will act as peer reviewers for the issue and will operate within the
Peer Review Guidelines.

Further information for authors, the journal's mission statement,
editorial board and previous issues can be found on the website:
http://www.gla.ac.uk/departments/arthistoriography/

Best,

Margaret Graves (University of Edinburgh; margaretgraves_36@hotmail.com)

Moya Carey (Victoria and Albert Museum, London; m.carey@vam.ac.uk)

        Margaret Graves
University of Edinburgh
History of Art
Email: margaretgraves_36@hotmail.com