Co-editors: Jillian Cuellar and Agnieszka Czeblakow

Deadline for abstract submission: December 15, 2022

The archives and special collections field is amid a remarkable shift as we strive to reimagine our structures and practices to build a more diverse and inclusive historical record, to center the communities we hope to collaborate with and welcome into our spaces, and to respond to traditional, non-traditional, and emerging research needs. Curators are central to these efforts, and as such, the role of a curator is being redefined. Once seen as gatekeepers, 21st century curators are now visible ambassadors tasked with cultivating diverse communities through intentional collection building, equitable partnerships, and responsible stewardship. Curatorial positions are newly oriented towards “community focused” collection development and engagement as institutions place increased value on relationships with non-traditional scholars and marginalized communities, as well as alternative forms of memory keeping.

Slated to be published by the Society of American Archivists in 2025 and tentatively titled, Radical Visions: New Perspectives in Special Collections Curatorship, this volume is co-edited by Jillian Cuellar and Agnieszka Czeblakow (Tulane University). It aims to offer new theoretical frameworks for the Libraries, Archives, and Museums (LAMs) field to consider, to open pathways to deeper engagements and conversations across allied professions, and to inspire future visions of what we might become.

We invite contributors to respond to the following broad themes and/or engage questions and provocations of interest:

· Definitions of contemporary curatorship, including how roles, responsibilities, and qualifications have evolved and pathways to developing a curatorial career.

· Examinations of curators’ relationships with the book and archives market with regards to building trust, ethics, competition, and the influence of race, class, and generational wealth.

· Approaches to cultivating and working with material and financial donors, including ethical and legal considerations in negotiating gifts; cultural heritage restitution or repatriation requests; acquisition/disposal of collections containing content that is restricted, harmful, or of dubious provenance; managing expectations; and professional codes of ethics.

· Outreach strategies to engage diverse audiences and approaching contextualization of materials that may be harmful, particularly when one may be an “outsider” to these communities.

· Building trust and repairing harm through community-centered practices, including reparative description, post-custodial work, enabling self-identity and definition, and respectful engagement with inherited collections.

· Considerations of “community” curator roles with regards to the necessary skillsets; overlap or divergence from traditional curator positions; alignment with broader collecting strategies; and key institutional support.

· Considerations of how curators without traditional LAM backgrounds reconcile outside or lived experience with traditional practice or use it to instigate change in the profession.

· Explorations of how unconventional formats or newly valued documentary methodologies such as oral histories, post-custodial collecting, digital archives, and storytelling impact collection development strategies, resource allocation, or curatorial expertise.

· Considerations of how evolving theory on core archival principles such as provenance affect acquisition methodologies and how curatorial work can help facilitate new understandings of authority, ownership, and recorded memory.

· Strategies for confronting and combating prestige typically conferred on curatorial roles through associations with erudition, exclusivity, whiteness, Eurocentrism, patriarchy, social class, and generational education and wealth.

· Examining new strategies for collecting, such as distributed collection development, decentering “authority” through community involvement, and de-growth, and their impact on other functional areas in LAMs, as well as relevant social implications such as sustainability and the climate crisis.

· Strategies for forming productive organizational relationships to perform core work, such as setting access priorities, creating description, or engaging with creators and donors. Thoughts or recommendations for navigating potential tensions in team-based collection development or in working with senior leaders to advance the larger institutional mission. Examinations of intentionally designed work environments where power is shared and distributed among many as a means to dismantle internal hierarchies.

· Recommendations for strategically approaching career development and developing skillsets that support future-oriented curatorial work in contemporary LAMs.