Genres of Scholarly Publication

An art historical monograph presents a tightly focused examination of a carefully framed topic, often an artist, group of artists, or a site, form, practice, or theme of artistic production within a given culture. A monograph is usually expected to offer new analytic and critical perspectives on its historical material and to sustain its arguments by detailed research, be it archival, stylistic, iconographic, technical, or socio-historical. Its structure tends to be sequential and linear, with any transcriptions of documents and technical data gathered in appendices. Ph.D. dissertations have traditionally been a primary source of monographs for academic publishers, but conversations with publishers and editors indicate that economic and intellectual imperatives toward broader themes of interdisciplinary appeal have reduced this role of dissertations in recent years.

For several decades, monographs published by North American university presses and their European counterparts have set the gold standard for promotion and tenure, not only because of the thorough research on which they are based but also because of the peer review built into the publication process. In the course of our study, the mechanisms and functions of the peer review process appeared poorly understood by scholars and variously interpreted by editors. While scholars generally think peer review is aimed at improving as well as vetting manuscripts, for publishers and editors the process serves the function of validating (or, more rarely, rejecting) manuscripts already considered worthy of publication.1 The university press monograph continues to prevail as the primary criterion for academic advancement in North American universities and colleges, despite stresses on the system caused by the economics of academic publication in all humanities and especially art history.

The survey offers a deliberately distanced perspective on a broader field of observation, with synthetic accounts of themes and arguments rather than detailed new study. Although supported by broad and deep reading and knowledge, they tend to give extended bibliographies rather than a full scholarly apparatus. Surveys often serve as textbooks and as general interest introductions to a field, and they have traditionally been the preserve of senior scholars. In recent years, however, several new series of surveying "studies" rather than textbooks have also selected their authors from a younger pool of promising scholars. When seen as critical interventions as much as textbooks, these books are now sometimes accepted as significant contributions toward tenure and promotion in their fields of study.2

Art museums and their curators are major producers and disseminators of art historical scholarship. Museums offer rich opportunities specific to art history to advance research through exhibitions and publications based on individual collections and works of art. Because of their large and growing audiences, museums are often able to raise funds for abundantly illustrated, handsomely produced publications, particularly catalogues and journal issues related to exhibitions. Since the 1970s, museum publication has shifted from curatorially focused museum journals and collection catalogues to summary handbooks and exhibition-driven publications. Exhibition catalogues in recent decades have generally grown in page count and illustration program. They usually contain a section of synthetic and thematic essays written by the curator and additional experts from inside and outside the museum, and a catalogue proper of entries dedicated to the works of art on display. Full entries tend to include the kind of detailed information that sustains art historical scholarship, including measurements and information about medium, technique, condition, patronage, subject matter, style, date, provenance, exhibition history, and bibliographic record.

In the academic credentialing process, publications based on collections and exhibitions tend not to be considered as seriously as single-author monographs or peer-reviewed journal articles. As catalogues often synthesize prior scholarship, in the manner of a survey, and as their content is constrained by considerations of audience and availability of loans, questions are occasionally raised about the originality of the research or the factors demarcating the field of study. Because of the exceptionally time-constrained editorial process in museums, catalogue manuscripts are rarely subjected to effective peer review. Promotion and tenure committees are aware of these limitations. Their redress will take rethinking of the museum publication genre by art history scholars within the museum and the academy.

Part III of this report includes further thoughts about the potential of museum publications as sites of disciplinary nurture and collaboration.

In the past two decades, art history's methodological diversification and interdisciplinary moves have yielded increased publication of books of essays by several authors, edited by the lead author(s). A preliminary review of the titles published by eight key university presses in the field suggests that edited volumes make up a larger percentage of all titles published in art history today than was the case during the early 1990s.  Perhaps as many as 20 percent of the art history titles published by these eight presses between 2000 and 2004 were edited volumes, compared to roughly 15 percent a decade earlier.3 Some of these volumes result from conference proceedings, others by commission from an academic editor. They tend to approach a particular topic or research question from a variety of viewpoints, and they thus meet the interest of academic publishers in titles that may reach cross-over audiences. Publishers often position such works as course readers or supplementary textbooks.

Nevertheless, the market for most of these books is not especially vigorous, and production values are usually kept lower than for monographs and museum publications. Peer review tends to be minimal, and usually happens at the stage of the commissioned prospectus rather than for the completed manuscript. In many cases, the genre may not be so different in scholarly content and rigor from that of the time-pressured, surveying exhibition catalogue. Not surprisingly, concerns about originality and scholarly weight of chapters in edited volumes arise in promotion and tenure review, even though the genre incorporates a wide range of scholarly activity. The editorship of volumes with contributions from leading scholars or with sharp new perspectives tends to carry greater prestige.

For many art historians, a peer-reviewed journal article was and is the first step from Ph.D. dissertation to monograph. Before the establishment of the university press monograph as the sine qua non for tenure in leading universities and colleges, sometime in the 1970s, a series of such articles could suffice to establish a scholar's academic credentials. It is easy to see why. The all-field journals of record in the discipline, as well as many field-specific journals, have traditionally been edited by leading scholars in the field and supported by editorial boards of similar caliber. Many have parent organizations that lend professional weight to the publication. The journals maintain high standards of multiple, double-blind peer review and academic copy-editing. Given the continuous vigor of these editorial practices, peer-reviewed journal publication could again play a much more central role in academic credentialing, as such articles do in the sciences and social sciences.

In their present formats, however, even journals with the most liberal word counts, footnote policies, and illustration programs, are unlikely to support publications of monographic scope, depth, and density. Part III of this report gives further thought to the potential of the peer-reviewed journal for the electronic publication of the kinds of extended argument, archival documentation, image programs, and referencing that sustain the discipline.

In principle, each of the publication genres of art history discussed so far could be issued electronically. In the sciences, and increasingly the social sciences, electronic publication has become the standard mode of scholarly communication. The humanities have been slow to follow, particularly art history and other disciplines traditionally dependent on sustained, linear argumentation that stands in an ostensive relation to illustrations. The discipline-wide journals of record do not appear in electronic form, born-digital journals are rare, and few such initiatives appear to be in the pipeline (welcome exceptions include 19th-Century Art Worldwide, caa.reviews, and the Smithsonian Institution's American Art).

Extant electronic publications in art history and visual culture are still based on print forms, rather than fully exploiting the analytic and dialogic potential of electronic media. Such traditional forms do not communicate scholarship in a way optimally suited to the kinds of reading done well on desktop or handheld monitors. In its length and sequential form, the monograph may always be more suited to print, but, as the sciences have found, more compartmentalized and collaborative kinds of scholarship such as catalogues and documentary publications might be more useful to readers as networked publications that allow searching and non-sequential accessing of the parts.4 The serious image copyright issues discussed in Part II of this report partly explain art history's delayed adoption of electronic publication. Part III analyzes other factors impeding electronic publication in art history, and examines the untapped potential of the digital environment for new kinds of art historical publication that might supplement and complement, rather than fully replace, genres that may be as or more effective in print.