Fwd: Museums Journal
​Fwd: Museums Journal strives to create a space for challenging, critiquing, and fostering new futures for cultural production within and outside of museums. 

​Fwd: Museums Journal is produced and edited by students at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC). Its home is UIC's Museum and Exhibition Studies Program and it is published by Chicago-based StepSister Press. 

Email fwd.museums@gmail.com with inquiries and see Buddy Chicago and Amazon for purchasing information. ​

A Museology that is not life-oriented
​is not worthy;
All the memories are kept in our bodies;

Our museological practice involves affection, fraternity, reciprocity, love, joy and poetry... "

Córdoba Declaration, XVIII International Movement for a New Museology (MINOM) Conference, Córdoba/Argentina, 2017

Call for Submissions 2023

Art by Oscar Solis

Fwd: Museums 2023 - [Redacted]
​Call for Submissions
​Link to submissions: https://tinyurl.com/FwdSubmissions
Deadline: January 5, 2023 by 11:59 (CT)

Condensing a confidential memo from 25 pages to one paragraph. A form of editing to prepare a text for publication. The altering of information. What does it look like to censor?

A notable absence, a muting, making invisible. Redaction extends beyond the simple black squares as incomplete redactions – stamps marked with ‘deleted’ covering the text– white squares, and handmade notations. 

Each black square signifies absence. It serves as a reminder for enforced forgetfulness. Uncovering the secret behind the mask and discovering the text underneath seems like a daring task, but is the redacted information really gone? 

What is visible in cultural spaces, and what is invisible? In attempts to appeal to the public, what is redacted? 

We accept any theme that explores the theme of CENSORSHIP. Potential topics include: 
​

• Relationship between ethics and empathy 

             -flexibility of ethics 
             -meaning-making

• Cultural taboos and disgust 
• Repatriation in cultural institutions
• Memorialization (death and mourning)
• Right to privacy, what is private (public vs. private spheres)
• Invisible labor 

            - preparators
             -unpaid co-curation
             -interns

• Salary transparency 
• Invisible illness/disability and accessibility
• Underrepresented narratives and communities 
• Houselessness
• Queer and Trans
• Political radicals
• Regulated behaviors in cultural institutions
• Tainted Funding and/or Donors
• Destruction of material culture/art (intentional) 
• Politics/news; muted movements 
• Gatekeeping
• Body-mind politics + a(sexuality)
• ​And more...

Deadline: January 5, 2023 by 11:59 (CT)
Link to submissions: https://tinyurl.com/FwdSubmissions

Questions? Email us: fwd.museums@gmail.com

Fwd: Museums, a peer reviewed journal, invites academic articles, artwork, essays, exhibition/book reviews, creative writing, interviews, poetry, love letters, and other expressive forms to analyze, critique, and make space for new thinking about museums and exhibitions.
​
All submissions should follow the guidelines and relate to the journal’s mission statement (see above). We strongly encourage book and exhibition reviews on multiple topics, but require all other submissions to connect to the seventh issue’s theme, “CENSORSHIP.”

Guidelines
​Written submissions should be between 1,000 and 2,500 words and use Chicago Manual of Style formatting and citations, in a DOCX file. Please read the APA Bias-Free Language Guide and Journal Style Guide before submitting a text for the journal.

All images should be sent as separate files (not embedded in text) at 300+ dpi in tiff format. Note in text where images should be inserted and include credit, caption, date of execution, materials used, dimensions, and alt text/image descriptions, as appropriate.

A Note on Reviews
Reviews need not directly engage an issue’s theme but should relate to the journal’s mission statement (see below). We welcome long-form museum, exhibition, film, and book reviews with a point of view and connections to social, historical, political and other contexts.

Who Should Submit?
Students, faculty, scholars, museum employees, artists and art handlers, volunteers, part-timers, activists, and other people with something to say about museums, exhibits, and cultural work are welcome to submit.

---

---