{"id":640,"date":"2015-01-19T22:51:43","date_gmt":"2015-01-20T03:51:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sequitur\/?page_id=640"},"modified":"2026-08-24T11:11:51","modified_gmt":"2026-08-24T15:11:51","slug":"cfp","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sequitur\/submissions\/cfp\/","title":{"rendered":"call for content"},"content":{"rendered":"

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SEQUITUR<\/span><\/i> Issue 13.1<\/span>
\n<\/span> Fall 2026<\/span>
\n<\/span> https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sequitur<\/span>
\n<\/span><\/a> CFP: \u201cEphemera\u201d<\/b>
\n<\/b>Deadline: Monday, September 28, 2026<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

The editors of SEQUITUR, the graduate student journal published by the Department of History of Art & Architecture at Boston University, invite current and recent MA, MFA, and PhD students to submit content on the theme of \u201c<\/span>Ephemera<\/b>\u201d for our Fall 2026 issue.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

This issue invites submissions that consider material ephemera and its temporal connotations. \u201cEphemera\u201d refers to the short-lived: fragments, traces, and remnants of material culture, survived in physical form or in memory alone. We encourage submissions that deal not only with physical objects, but with artworks, ideas, and texts that memorialize or reference things past.<\/span><\/p>\n

Ephemera takes many forms, including letters, notes, doodles, waste, newspapers, trinkets, receipts, clothing, digital articles, or other transitory objects. It invites a consideration of fragmentary materials\u2014pieces of ceramics, scraps of fabric or paper, archaeological remnants, among other parts of a whole. Ephemera also refers to short-lived events\u2014pageants, parades, spectacles, and performances, whether unrecorded or reenacted\u2014or it may be commemorative in its intertextuality, allusion, or indexicality.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In 1589, the Medici staged a mock sea battle\u2014a naumachia\u2014at the Palazzo Pitti as one of several events to celebrate the marriage of Christine of Lorraine to Ferdinando de Medici. The event is recorded in text but elaborated in an etching by Orazio Scarabelli, the only visual evidence from that grandiose celebration. While the event was a spectacle, it is preserved through a print, easily distributable and quotidian in comparison to the event. And yet, it is the print that indexes the performance.<\/span><\/p>\n

Ephemera also relates to the temporal dimensions of memory that an object holds onto. As Andreas Huyssen argues, the past persists in the present like a palimpsest, meaning our access to the past is inevitably mediated by the present, even as traces of the past continue to shape how the present is experienced. Such temporal layering complicates any attempt to encounter an object solely through the historical moment of its production or from the perspective of the present. Ephemera are thus self-referential: their material or immaterial presence points toward what has passed, while the traces they accumulate make visible the distance between then and now. Remembering, in this sense, does not necessarily preserve the past intact. Whether oral, visual, material, digital, or embodied, it can reconstruct, fragment, or reactivate the past, at times pushing against the coherence and authority of official historical narratives.<\/span><\/p>\n

This issue seeks to collect scholarship spanning antiquity to the present that investigates the traces, scraps, fragments, and mementos of daily life\u2014extant or refuse, partial or whole, indexical or commemorative.<\/span><\/p>\n

Potential subjects may include but are not limited to:<\/span><\/p>\n

material culture, temporary materials, traditional or non-traditional archival materials, mementos, remnants, ruins, photographs, newspapers, notes, letters, cards, postcards, trinkets, tickets, receipts, stickers, organic matter, fabric, scraps, junk, compostable material, disposable\/plastic\/single use objects, waste, garbage, unpublished materials, advertisements, flyers, digital ephemera (texts, social media, emails), digital memory, database, preservation, conservation, fragmentary, partial, reconstruction, reenactment, tribute, memory, memorializing, remembering, mnemonic traces, commemorative, personal memory, collective memory, generational memory, legacy, heritage, referentiality, the picturesque, temporality, anachronism, palimpsest, forgetting, amnesia, post-memory<\/span><\/p>\n

SEQUITUR<\/span><\/i> welcomes submissions from graduate students in the disciplines of art history, architecture, archaeology, fine arts, material culture, visual culture, literary studies, queer and gender studies, disability studies, memory studies, and environmental studies, among others. We encourage submissions that take advantage of the digital format of the journal.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Founded in 2014, <\/span>SEQUITUR<\/span><\/i> is an online biannual scholarly journal dedicated to addressing events, issues, and ideas in art and architectural history. <\/span>SEQUITUR<\/span><\/i>, edited by graduate students at Boston University, engages with and expands current conversations in the field by promoting the perspectives of graduate students from around the world. It seeks to contribute to existing scholarship by focusing on valuable but often overlooked parts of art and architectural history.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Previous issues of <\/span>SEQUITUR<\/span><\/i> can be found <\/span>here<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

We invite <\/span>full<\/span> submissions in the following categories. <\/span>Please submit your materials in full for consideration in the publication:<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n