Call for Papers – Museological Review Issue 24

Submission Deadline: Monday 3rd November 2019, 17.00 GMT

Museological Review is a peer-reviewed journal published annually by the community of PhD students of the School of Museum Studies at the University of Leicester, UK. It is a forum for the exchange of museological ideas and the development of academic skills.

Museological Review’s issue 24 will consider what a museum is now, particularly how museums play a role in society through exhibitions, programming and projects which respond to current affairs.
The theme for this issue was sparked by the debate around the new museum definition proposed by the International Council of Museums (ICOM) and discussed during their annual conference in Kyoto, Japan in September. The proposed new definition includes terminology that highlights the role of museums in reflecting and interacting with society. The ICOM’s Extraordinary General Assembly decided, however, to postpone the vote on a new museum definition so the discussions and conversation about what a museum is can continue. The new definition that was debated is as follows:

“Museums are democratising, inclusive and polyphonic spaces for critical dialogue about the pasts and the futures. Acknowledging and addressing the conflicts and challenges of the present, they hold artefacts and specimens in trust for society, safeguard diverse memories for future generations and guarantee equal rights and equal access to heritage for all people.
Museums are not for profit. They are participatory and transparent, and work in active partnership with and for diverse communities to collect, preserve, research, interpret, exhibit, and enhance understandings of the world, aiming to contribute to human dignity and social justice, global equality and planetary wellbeing.”
With this context in mind, Museological Review invites authors to submit abstracts for Issue 24, which will reflect on and respond to how museums and art galleries are adding to current conversations through their exhibitions, programmes and projects and how this challenges the definition of a museum and its relation to the public. Should museums participate and be involved in the debate around social justice, global equality and wellbeing, as the new definition proposes?
In this regard, Museological Review is interested in submissions which consider how museums and art galleries are responding to and communicating themes including but not limited to the following:

• Community-based programmes and projects
• Crisis of democracy
• Equal rights
• Future of Europe after Brexit
• Global warming and climate change
• Human dignity and wellbeing
• Migrant crisis
• Museums in time of austerity
• Social justice
• Technology and big data

Submissions are invited in the form of academic articles, exhibition/book reviews and visual contributions from graduated students (MA and PhD), current PhD candidates, early-career researchers and museum practitioners. In light of the debate of the new definition of what is a museum, Issue 24 will contribute to the discussion by including a section where researchers and museum practitioners submit their own definition (no more than 300 words) of what they believe a museum is.

The deadline for submissions and abstracts/proposals is Monday 3rd November 2019, 17.00 GMT. Submissions and enquiries should be emailed to: museologicalreview @[at]leicester.ac.uk

Notes for contributors

Museological Review is accepting the following submissions:

• Academic Articles (maximum 5,000 words)
• Exhibition or Book Reviews (maximum 1,000 words)
  We encourage creative and alternative formats including exhibition or book reviews. Abstract submission requirements are the same as indicated below.
• Visual Submissions
  We welcome visual submissions comprising a single image which depicts the theme of “what a museum is”. The image can be manipulated and edited. A title and a short caption of 150 words or less should enhance the message, but the image must be able to communicate on its merit. Visual submissions must be original work. Any identifiable persons depicted must agree to allow their image to be published. Please submit your image as a .jpeg or .tif file to a resolution of 600 dpi and 3508×2480 pixels. Please submit your caption in a Microsoft Word document.
• Definition of what you feel a museum is
  Within the context of the proposed new definition by the ICOM, we invite authors to submit their own views of what a museum is. (Maximum 300 words). Please do send your full name, postal address, professional qualifications and position held along with this submission.

For all submissions we require the following information sent to us via email:

• Title of your proposed submission(s)
• Full name of the author
• 350-word proposal
• 3-5 keywords which best represent your submission(s)
• Full postal address, professional qualifications, position(s) held
• Any social media handles, if you would like to be tagged in our posts (Twitter, Facebook, Instagram)
  Results
  The authors of selected abstracts/exhibition or book reviews/visual submissions will be contacted in late-November 2019. The deadline for the submission of the full academic articles (maximum 5,000 words) is mid-January 2020. The editorial process (peer-review and editing) of accepted submissions will take place from January to April 2020. Final publication decisions will be made after the peer review and editing process. The issue will be available from the Museological Review webpage by June 2020.
  Format
• A digital copy of the typescript is required in Microsoft Word format
• All submissions must be in English. British English spelling is preferred.
• Times New Roman font size 12
• A4 format (21 cm x 29.7 cm)
• Double line spacing
• Normal margins (2.54 cm on all sides)
  Note: It is NOT POSSIBLE for the editorial team to undertake or arrange for independent proofreading and the obligation for thorough checking is the responsibility of the authors. The publication cannot be assured until final revisions are accepted.

Illustrations/Figures/Tables
Written papers can be accompanied by black and white or colour photographs, line drawings, maps, tables or any other visual element. All illustrations and figures should be numbered consecutively in the order in which they are referred to in the text. Please note that they must be fully captioned and supplied separate from the manuscript document, NOT included in a Word document, as .jpeg, .tif or .bmp files (NOT eps).
Referencing/Bibliography
References must be presented using the Harvard system (author and date given in the text, e.g. Connerton, 1989; Cook, 1991: 533).
The bibliography should be at the end of the paper, arranged alphabetically by author, then chronologically if there is more than one work by the same author. Use the inverted format as follows: Connerton, P. (1989). How Societies Remember. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. Cook, B.F. (1991). ‘The archaeologist and the Art Market: Policies and Practice.’ Antiquity 65: 533.

Copyright
It is the author’s responsibility to obtain copyright approval for non-original materials included in submissions.
If the author wishes to include any material in which they do not hold the copyright, written permission from the copyright owner must be obtained before submission. This applies to direct reproduction as well as ‘derivative reproduction’, where a new table or figure has been created which derives substantially from a copyrighted source.
The author must provide appropriate acknowledgement of the permission granted to them for reuse by the copyright holder in each caption or figure. The author is solely responsible for any fees which the copyright holder may charge for reuse.

Acknowledgement of Funding Sources
Source of funding for the research reported in the submission should be acknowledged at its end. All authors should disclose in their submission any financial or other substantive conflicts of interest that might be construed to influence the results or interpretation of the submission.

Submissions
Submission is free.

Thank you,
Editors-in-chief
Eloisa Rodrigues
Laura Dudley