Call for Articles | Queerness in 18th- and 19th-C. European Art

Posted in Calls for Papers, journal articles by Editor on October 20, 2025

Queerness in 18th- and 19th-Century European Art and Visual Culture, 2nd Edition

Special issue of the journal Arts, guest edited by Andrew Shelton

Abstracts due by 15 January 2025; final manuscripts will be due by 1 July 2026

Essays regarding a wide variety of topics that subvert or disrupt heteronormative interpretations of the art and visual culture of this period are welcome, including the works of art produced by or under the auspices of personages who can plausibly be identified as attracted to members of the same sex; works or creative situations that can be construed as expressing or eliciting same-sex sexual desire or attraction; works or creative situations in which the heteronormative polarity of the processes of identification and desire can be perceived as having been collapsed or scrambled; works or creative situations that involve gender-bending or gender fluidity; works or creative situations that either deepen or complicate our understanding of sexuality and/or sexual identity during the 18th and 19th centuries; and works that eroticize individuals or situations that are normally regarded as lying outside the realm of the erotic.

Arts is an international, peer-reviewed, open access journal promoting significant research on all aspects of the visual and performing arts, published bimonthly online by MDPI.

Submission Planning
• Abstracts due by 15 January 2025, submission link for abstracts.
• Final manuscripts due by 1 July 2026, submission link for full articles.

Submission Criteria
• Abstract and a short biography should be sent to Andrew Shelton (shelton.85@osu.edu) and Sylvia Hao (sylvia.hao@mdpi.com).
• Final articles, in English only, should be at least 4000 words long; a 150-word abstract and 5 keywords should also be submitted.
• Authors can include image files (tables, maps, graphs, photographs …) in ..jpg; they should ensure that images are free of rights (or that rights have been obtained).
• Each article will be peer-reviewed by at least two anonymous referees.

For inquiries, please contact: Sylvia Hao (sylvia.hao@mdpi.com) and Editorial Office of Arts (arts@mdpi.com).