Published by the Institut national d’histoire de l’art (INHA) since 2006, Perspective is a biannual journal which aims to bring out the diversity of current research in art history, highly situated and explicitly aware of its own historicity. It bears witness to the historiographic debates within the field without forgetting to engage with images and works of art themselves, updating their interpretations as well as fostering intra- and inter-disciplinary reflection between art history and other fields of research, the humanities in particular. In so doing, it also puts into action the “law of the good neighbor” as conceived by Aby Warburg. All geographical areas, periods, and media are welcome.

The journal publishes scholarly texts which offer innovative perspectives on a given theme. Its authors contextualize their arguments using case studies allows them to interrogate the discipline, its methods, its history, and its limits. Moreover, articles that are proposed to the editorial committee should necessarily include a methodological dimension, provide an epistemological contribution, or offer a significant and original historiographic evaluation.

Other contributions may take the form of cross-reviews of several recent works (published in the last ten years) that are significant to the debates raised by the themes under consideration.

The journal publishes texts with an emphasis on current questions that drive research in art history and neighboring disciplines, particularly those that speak to all of us as citizens. Each article thus calls creating links with the great societal and intellectual debates of our time.

Evaluation and editing process

After selection on the basis of a synopsis and/or an invitation, each article submitted is evaluated and edited as follows:

1. The editor-in-chief assesses the article’s suitability for the journal’s scientific and editorial line, and may invite the author to make initial modifications.

2. The editorial team then submits the article to a double-blind peer-reviewing process (where possible, one expert from within the editorial board and one from outside), who write a report based on our guidelines for reviewers. All articles are anonymized before being sent to the reviewers.

3. The anonymized summary of the reports is presented to the author by the editorial team; he or she may be invited to submit a revised version of the text, taking account of the comments.

4. The second version of the text is read by the editorial team, who may ask for additions and clarifications, or for a new expert opinion if necessary. If the text is definitively accepted, in exchange for the a non-exclusive transfer of copyright, the editorial team takes charge of the editing and preparation work, iconographic orders and translation if necessary, as well as the layout of the contribution; several exchanges may take place until the final manuscript is validated for layout.

5. The author receives a set of PDF and/or electronic proofs, which he or she is asked to validate before the article is published (print and digital).

Once the editorial team has received the first manuscript, the whole editorial process will take approximately eight months, including a three-month peer-reviewing process.

Calls for contributions

Proposals will only be considered if they respond to a call for contributions published by the editorial team on a specific theme. The current and previous calls for papers can be consulted in the dedicated sections of this site.