This issue seeks to bring together contributions from both emerging and established scholars of U.S.-American photography. Since 2017, the seminar Camera Memoria (University Paris-Diderot/LARCA) has provided a space to discuss new perspectives on the relatively recent field of photo-history. This special issue for Miranda aims to reflect both the broad range of topics that are currently explored in the field and the diversity of scholarly approaches—these include American history, art history, visual studies and cultural studies. The seminar was organized so as to give visibility to scholars who recognized the need to look beyond classical and widely discussed topics and to revitalize the field of photo-history with new research methodologies in mind. This implied a thorough reconsideration of scholarly approaches; made it necessary to look not only at the esthetics and social agency behind the construction of photographic collections, but also at their means of circulation and mediation; and raised debates on the historiographies of the medium, of their agents and their impacts. These attempts at renewing our views on photography at the start of the 21st century cannot, however, be restricted to new methodological and theoretical approaches, but require that old, untouched archival materials be opened up to scholars. This contributes to evening the field of photo-history by integrating into it material that used to be considered marginal.

Contributions suggested for this issue should broadly address the notion of photographic memory, in relation to marginalized collections and agents. We look for archives and collections that have been newly discovered or innovative conceptualizations of familiar materials. We seek to integrate comments on the uses of photography that challenge dominant historical discourse and restore visibility to marginal or forgotten subject matters until now put aside either because they were deemed unimportant (materials labeled as “vernacular”) or because they gave visibility to racial, social, sexual or cultural minorities.

Our focus on ‘everyday’ photography and hyphenated identities reflects current scholarly and historiographical trends in the field. The issue will reflect a strong interest in
1) unearthing underexplored archives of anonymous photographs with little value within the fine-art context, which are nowadays recontextualized as meaningful objects of society;
2) addressing the contemporary efforts at decolonizing history by drawing attention to the perpetuation of dominant narratives through photography and by developing new methodological tools with which to approach photography stemming from hyphenated U.S.-American identities, including but not restricted to both race and gender.

How to submit a paper:
Essays may be written in French or English, count 5,000 – 10,000 words, and include up to 10 illustrations (the rights should be acquired by the author). Miranda works with a triple-blind peer-review process.
Stylesheet: https://journals.openedition.org/miranda/5581
Abstracts, papers and all questions should be sent to Carolin Görgen and Camille Rouquet, only at camera.memoriagmail.com

Deadlines
- September 30, 2020: deadline for sending in abstracts (up to 500 words)
- October 2020: authors notified of editors’ selection
- February 28, 2021: deadline for sending in first drafts of papers
- March 2021-February 2022: peer-review process and corrections
- Spring 2022: final publication