The journal invites submissions for the upcoming issue The Museum Issue, which will be guest edited by Jeffrey R. Wilson.

The deadline for submissions is June 1, 2026.

Description 

Museums are a primal scene of public humanities—the messy moment where scholarly research and social institutions come together. A day at the museum implicates everything from childlike awe at the diversity of our universe and data-backed best practices for displaying objects to terrible histories of colonialism and the non-profit industrial complex.

We are in phase four of Museum Studies. First came grand pronouncements on the virtues of museums, second the more critical “new museology” built upon Steven Weil’s call for museums to be “not about something but for someone.” Third was an expansion of concerns beyond universal survey museums into the varieties of local museums, and fourth has been a panic brought by the rise of digital technology. How should we think about museums—where material objectivity is the value proposition—as life becomes more and more virtual?

This issue’s answer is to turn to theory. Bridging the concrete materialities of museums with the conceptual abstraction of theoretical thought, this issue of Public Humanities invites two types of articles:

• Articles that theorize upward from detailed close readings of any aspect of the museum experience: Advertising, Location, Landscaping, Architecture, Lighting, Accessibility, Cost, Docents, Security, Information, Objects, Acquisitions, Exhibits, Audiences, Guest Behavior, Institutional History, Institutional Scope, Executives, Board, Employees, Funding, Programs, Community, Politics, etc.
• Articles that explore the museum experience from a theoretically juiced perspective—e.g., psychoanalysis, Marxism, feminism, critical race theory, decolonialization, globalization, climate activism, disability studies, etc.

Topics may include but are not limited to:

• Museum History
• Museum Objects
• Museum Exhibits
• Museum Design
• Museum Technology
• Museum Audiences
• Museum Ethics
• Museums in Society
• Nation and Race in Museums
• Gender, Disability, and Class in Museums
• Globalization and Museums
• New Museum Sites
• Emergent Issues in Museums

Submission Guidelines

Article submissions should be between 2,000 and 4,000 words, not including abstract, footnotes, and bibliography

Submissions should be written in accessible language for a wide readership across and beyond the humanities: see How to Write for Public Humanities.

All submissions should be made through the Public Humanities online peer review system. Authors should consult the journal’s Author Instructions prior to submission. 
 
All authors will be required to declare any funding and/or competing interests upon submission. See the journal’s Publishing Ethics guidelines for more information.  
 
Articles will be peer reviewed for both content and style. 

Articles will appear digitally and open access in the journal. 

Contacts

The guest editor is happy to discuss potential articles: contact Jeffrey R. Wilson at jwilson@law.harvard.edu.

Questions regarding peer review can be sent to the Public Humanities inbox at publichumanities@cambridge.org.