Women and History, c. 1500-Present

Themed Issue of History: Journal of the Historical Association

Call for Papers

Guest Editors: Madeleine Pelling (Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art) and Lilian Tabois (University of York)

Deadline for completed manuscripts 30 June 2020

The last decade has seen women, as the subjects and writers of history, increasingly positioned at the forefront of our cultural and scholarly discussions. From international events like Women’s History Month and social media campaigns including #WomenAlsoKnowHistory to the National Trust’s Women and Power programme, women’s contributions to personal, local and national histories are beginning to be recognised. More often than not, however, focus has remained on women as the subjects of historical narrative, rather than as its authors or makers. This themed issue of History will cover a period from c. 1500 – the present to explore women’s roles as historians, genealogists, antiquarians, archaeologists and activists, asking how they accessed, created and professionalised history across five centuries.

In 1705, the feminist writer and rhetorician Mary Astell observed ‘the Men being Historians, they seldom condescend to record the great and good Actions of Women; and when they take notice of them, ‘tis with this wise Remark that such Women acted above their sex.’ That women were not the subjects of history was, for Astell, a point of controversy. That women were not historians was a given. Women’s voices have been routinely excluded from published historical discourse and their contributions to our understanding of the past regularly neglected. From women who traversed landscapes in search of ruins to those who set about excavating subterranean objects, and from those who sketched historical objects to those who embroidered their own familial histories, engagement in the fabric, ideas and people of the past from the early modern period to the present day has been rich and varied, and freighted with political, emotional and intellectual complexities. This interdisciplinary issue seeks to gain new insights into women’s participation in, and influence over, the development of historiographic practice and will take a global view, turning to a broad range of sources to provide a new and important framing of the ways in which women encountered and created history from a variety of perspectives.

History journal invites research on topics including, but not limited to:

Women as historians working across published and manuscript forms
Women’s work as auto/biographers
Women and early archaeological practice
Women as collectors of and visitors to museums
Women as suppliers and consultants in historical knowledge networks
Childhood and adolescent engagement in history
Travel writing, correspondence, and accounts of historic or archaeologically significant sites
Digital humanities and social media as platforms for recovering and showcasing women’s history
Women’s subversion of, and complicity in, colonial histories
Women as the subjects and makers of queer history
Feminist genealogical strategies
Women as scholars and their role in the professionalisation of history

Articles should be 6000-7000 words, and should be submitted by 30 June 2020. For queries, please contact Madeleine Pelling and Lilian Tabois at womenandhistoryissue@gmail.com