Vernon Press invites book chapter proposals to be included in a forthcoming scholarly volume edited by Cindy Persinger, Jennifer Kingsley, and Rose Trentinella.

The media and higher education agree: the humanities and especially the field of Art History appear to be in crisis. Dropping enrollments, program closures and lay-offs, student anxiety about career preparation, the instrumentalization of education, and political attacks on colleges and universities are pressuring art history in complex and insidious ways. Responses from art historians on these and related issues include David Breslin’s and Darby English’s 2016 publication Art History and Emergency: Crises in the Visual Arts and Humanities; the College Art Association’s (CAA) 2018 guidelines for addressing proposed changes to art, art history, or design units in colleges and universities; Leda Cempellin’s chaired panel at SECAC 2022 titled “Saving Art History From Extinction;” and, in 2023, a CAA panel organized by this volume’s co-editors called “Advocating for Art History.”

Our aim is to produce an edited volume that articulates the value and impact of art history, offers proven strategies for demonstrating its value and impact to stakeholders within as well as beyond academe, and/or explores and raises new questions about the stakes and ethical considerations of our response to contemporary pressures as a discipline.

Demonstrating value and relevance is nothing new for art history: the discipline took shape in the United States in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries under pressure to earn its place both as an intellectual project and as a social good. More than a century later, new pedagogies in the undergraduate classroom, curricular reforms at colleges and universities, renewed emphasis on interdisciplinary training and versatility in graduate education, and increasing political scrutiny offer opportunities to reflect on why art history matters: to articulate core values and responsibilities, to consider what art history and its most innovative practices look like, and to imagine future practices that align with disciplinary, institutional, even personal values.

We welcome submissions representing perspectives from across varied types of academic institutions (private or public, 2 or 4yr, those with dedicated history programs/departments or not etc…), as well as perspectives from outside academe. We welcome authors from all parts of higher education, including contingent, tenured, tenure-track and non-tenure-stream faculty, as well as students, academic leaders, administrators and staff.

We are open to chapters of varied length and voice as appropriate to the author’s preferred theme and topic. Please submit a short CV and 500-word proposal that identifies your chosen sub-topic, theme, or topic to co-editors Cindy Persinger, Jennifer Kingsley, and Rose Trentinella at advocatingforarthistorygmail.com by October 30, 2023.