Arts (ISSN 2076-0752) is currently running a Special Issue entitled "Race and Architecture in the Iberian World, c. 1500-1800s". Cody Barteet and I are serving as the Guest Editors for this issue and we are welcoming contributions. If you are interested, please find more information on this Special Issue and the manuscript submission guidelines here: https://www.mdpi.com/si/111386.
In the field of art history, previous scholarship has addressed (and continues to address) the contribution of Indigenous, Black, Asian, and mixed-raced artists to the early modern visual culture in the Atlantic world. Frequently scholars are interested in documenting race and its enduring legacy through a variety of cultural artifacts such as paintings, sculptures, manuscripts, featherworks, metalwork, etc. However, much less attention has been given to architectural history, and particularly that of the early modern Iberian world.
Recently, Irene Cheng, Charles L. Davis II, and Mabel O. Wilson edited a ground-breaking volume titled Race and Modern Architecture (2020). Their publication provides an important collection of essays that discuss how the discipline of architectural history has been shaped by racial thought. Likewise, the Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians dedicated a short roundtable-style conversation on the subject of race and architecture in the 1400s through the 1800s (Carey, Dudley, Escobar, et. al. 2021). Each short paper considers the role of race in architecture and implores other scholars to investigate this understudied topic. This Special Issue of Arts is a response to this scholarly call to engagement. Specifically, we will explore the intersection of race, labor, and architectural history and their interconnectivity with the architecture and its accompanying artistic forms in the early modern Iberian world. We do so through considering how race and architecture are activated through construction projects, the building trades, the history of labor, and in plans, pictorial, and print representations, etc., in the vast territories (European, American, African, Asian) that comprised the Spanish and Portuguese empires.
We invite contributors to submit their research in English for consideration. Please note that there is a two-stage submission procedure. We will first collect a title and short abstract (maximum 250 words), 5 keywords, and a short bio (150 words), by May 22, 2022, via email to Dr. Cody Barteet (cbarteet@uwo.ca) and Dr. Luis Gordo Peláez (luisgordopelaez@csufresno.edu). Before June 15, 2022, we will invite selected abstracts to be submitted as 7000–9000-word papers for peer review by March 1, 2023. Journal publication is expected to occur from spring through fall 2023, depending on the revision time needed after peer review. Each article will be published open access, on a rolling basis after successfully passing peer review.
