Call for Articles for the Archives of American Art Journal

The Archives of American Art is delighted to announce that the Archives of American Art Journal is moving to a peer-review system starting December 2013. For a debut issue to appear October 2014 we are inviting submissions of either critical research essays of up to 4,000-5,000 words (including endnotes); or short texts of up to 1,500 words (including endnotes) highlighting new acquisitions or noting discoveries in the Archives’ collections.

Background

The Archives of American Art Journal, first published in 1960, is one of the oldest and most respected periodicals in the field. Since the beginning, the magazine’s primary mission has been to publish scholarship that draws on the important collections at the Archives of American Art. In 1960, there were no specialist degrees offered in American art history, and the journal therefore relied for contents and advice from the then-small group of scholars working on American topics. Fifty-three years on, however, the field has changed radically, and each year, scholars specializing in the history of American art make up a significant portion of new PhDs. This is the reason we have chosen to institute peer review, using a double-blind reviewing system.

Procedure

We support new approaches to primary source materials and encourage scholars to email questions to Telld@si.edu or call 202-633-7971 to speak with the editor before submitting their work. Final acceptance comes only after submissions have been through peer review. We also ask that articles be original, previously unpublished, not under consideration for publication elsewhere, and, most importantly, be based on documentary or visual material in the collections of the Archives of American Art.

Submissions for the October 2014 issue are due no later than February 7, 2014, to allow the approximately nine weeks necessary for their review by peer readers. Production is expected to begin on June 1, 2014.

Full Guidelines for Authors are available on our website, and please see the main Journal web page for recent issues of the journal; issues older than five years are to be found in JSTOR.

Please send submissions as email attachments to: Telld@si.edu and do not hesitate to get in touch with any questions.