The editors for the upcoming book Deep White: Unsettling White in Western Art History and Aesthetics (Brill, 2025) are seeking contributions concerning examination of white and whiteness from the period 400-1400 AD. The notion of Western will be interpreted broadly and contributions that focuses on material or locations that have traditionally been considered peripheral are particularly welcome. This could include histories of material exchange, cultural and religious encounters and the circulation of objects and techniques.

About the book:

The book Deep White: Unsettling White in Western Art History and Aesthetics will delve into an examination of the different entanglements of whiteness in western art. Whiteness is one of today’s key societal and political concerns. Within and beyond academia worldwide, actions of revolt and regret seek to cope with past and present racist mindsets and structures. In the pivotal works in whiteness studies within art and architecture history, whiteness is understood as cultural and visual structures of privilege. This book, however, addresses a distinctively different battleground for politics of whiteness in art and architecture. Deep White critically investigates the cultural, ideological, and aesthetic preconditions of an ambivalent and challenging segment of Western art history, namely the colour white itself. 

While numerous scholars have engaged with the colour white in art history, few systematic research has been carried out to unfold the correlations between materiality and ideology of the colour white in Western art history. Two core premises underpin the book: Whiteness is not only a cultural and societal condition tied to skin color, privileges, and systematic exclusion, but materializes everywhere around us. Second, this materialization is intimately linked to Western arts and aesthetics.  

The aim of this book is to uncover how the myths, materialities, and ideologies of white colour in Western art history has been caught up in different unsettling ambivalences and to map and disentangle these different transhistorical frameworks. The book is written with an experimental methodological approach that merges art history, artistic research, and research-by-design (the chapters are written by art historians, artists, and designers). In addition to conventional academic book chapters, the book also induces shorter artistic essays and photographic essays which explore and contextualize white in art history with and through contemporary art and design practices.

The book is edited by Ingrid Halland, Tonje Haugland Sørensen, and Helene Engnes Birkeli and will be published as part of Brill’s book series Studies in Art & Materiality. It is set to be published in 2025 and funding for the book is secured.

Interested authors are asked to send a max 800 word abstract and biographical details before 1. April 2024 to tonje.sorensenuib.no

Notification of acceptance will be given within the first week of april. Deadline for full chapter (5000 words) will be 1. October 2024.