Collaboration as Art Historical Practice

In a September 2023 Art Bulletin editorial, Editor-in-Chief Christy Anderson urged art historians to recognize and reward collaborative research endeavors, thus challenging a longstanding tendency within the discipline, perhaps most apparent within tenure and promotion processes, to devalue co-authored outcomes. According to Anderson, emphasis on solitary production ignores the fact that scholarship always depends on the intellect and labor of more than any one person. Furthermore, collaborations often fuel innovative, inter- or multi-disciplinary approaches and yield significant insights into our methods and subjects of study. Art historians are increasingly advancing research through engagement with other scholars and professionals working in realms outside of the discipline and the domain of the humanities, calling upon expertise from areas of practice such as conservation science, creative writing, or technical imaging, to name a few. The co-produced outcomes propel knowledge by offering fresh evidence, generating new modes of argumentation, and expanding audiences. Collaborations also result in rosters of contributors that recognize each person’s role in a project and reflect an emerging ethical standard for advanced research in art history and other areas of the humanities. We invite interested colleagues who have engaged in meaningful collaborative practice to submit short statements indicating how they wish to contribute to a structured and scaffolded roundtable discussion aimed at informing broader insights into the value of scholarly co-production within and beyond the discipline of art history. We also welcome expressions of interest from teams.