Museums and Photography: Displaying Death, Edited Volume
This is an open call for submissions for an edited volume on the ways in which death is displayed in museums through photography. The editors seek submissions that investigate theoretically and/or through specific international case studies the complexities of displaying photographs of death in a museum context. Submissions are expected to contribute to our understanding of the changing role of photography in museums and of the museum’s ethical, pedagogical and political responsibilities for addressing diverse audiences with the display of death through photography.
More specifically, contributors might consider, but are not confined to, the following themes relevant to the display of death in museums through photography:
– Making visible the effects of violence, war or brutality on the human body
– The display of death through absence(s)
– War, Memorial, or Holocaust museums and photographs of death as documents/ evidence
– Artistic photography and the display of death in museums
– Documentary photography, death and art
– Vernacular (or other) photography in the museum
– The ethnographic versus the artistic display of death through photography
– Institutional versus artistic intentionality
– Individual, collective historical narratives constructed, sustained or challenged
– The aestheticization of violence/death in the art museum through photography
– The political potential of museums that display photographs of death
– Visitor responses to the display of death and the question of empathy
– The issue of museums’ ethical responsibility
– The affective impact of photographs representing death in museum displays and meaning-making processes
Please submit an abstract of 300 words and a short biography of no more that 150 words to Elena Stylianou at e.stylianou@euc.ac.cy and to Theopisti Stylianou-Lambert at theopisti.stylianou@cut.ac.cy by February 10, 2014.