Call for Book Proposal Chapters: "Valuing luxury"

Edited Volume

In an era concerned with social and historical injustices, the prized position we still grant luxuries, both within and beyond museums, seems manifestly hypocritical. 

This anthology seeks to bring together scholars at all stages of their careers to offer their discipline’s perspectives on how we balance admiration and accountability when it comes to the possession, education, and presentation of humanity’s great works, particularly those tainted with controversial pasts. Scholars from historically marginalised demographics are particularly welcomed to provide their insights on the narratives, nature, and education on these objects that often embody both great craftsmanship and great cruelty.

Approaches and Models – An Open Invitation

Each chapter will provide disciplinary specific insights into a given problem and/or debate concerning humanity’s relationship with its historical luxuries and treasured goods.

We are particularly interested in debates concerning colonial extraction, coercion, or militarist plunder; cases which prompt reassessment of what constitutes “legitimate” acquisition and whether legality alone justifies continued possession. Similarly, we seek contributions focused on debates regarding objects — from ornate trophies to symbols of conquest — that represent glorified, controversial pasts as well as those that lack this immediate, contentious symbolism but resulted from exploitative labour and environmental practices.

Furthermore, we invite contributions from museum practitioners to offer their perspectives on the nature and appropriateness of museums as custodians of global heritage and repositories of historical dispossessions. Luxury items compel institutions to confront how objects can be both treasured and tainted, how they can glorify violence and reinforce problematic narratives and norms. Decisions regarding preservation and display must therefore negotiate contemporary ethical perspectives alongside historical context, particularly when commemorating figures or conflicts now viewed as oppressive or brutal. Together, these challenges encourage exhibitions of luxury to adopt more critical, inclusive, and ethically engaged storytelling.

What we are looking for

Relevant topics include, but are not limited to, discussions relating to: 

• Appropriation, Repatriation, and Rectificatory justice

• Negative Heritage and the Retelling Dark Histories

• Social Justice and Exploitation

• Environmentalism and Extraction

• Equality, Equity, and Exploitation

• Trade and Commodification of Cultures and Cultural Artefacts

Structure and Organization

Thematic subsections:

• Cultural Heritage Law - Restitution

• Philosophy: Moral Philosophy - Epistemology

• History: History of Church - Cultural History - Global History

• Cultural Sociology

• Museum Education & Pedagogy

• Politics

• Art history

• Cultural Anthropology

Submission Guidelines

Given the global nature of this anthology, we strongly welcome contributions from scholars and researchers working on European, American, African, and Eastern Empires, Monarchies, and Caliphates from both practical and theoretical disciplines.

• Abstracts should be no more than 500 words.

• Submit the proposal to:  rwhem19@gmail.com by 15th May 2026. Authors should state which theme their paper should be associated with.

• Please name the file as follow: Surname_THEME NUMBER_TOPIC

Editor's Bios

Dr Rob Hanson: Researcher in applied philosophy for public policymaking, specifically in the areas of archaeological and anthropological ethics. Member of Durham’s Centre for the Ethics of Cultural Heritage and the Centre for Humanities Engaging in Science and Society, and Centre for Ethics and Law in Life Sciences, Groningen’s Philosophy, Politics, and Economics Research Network, and Durban’s BRICS Research Network. Currently working on his monograph Being Good with the Past: Aristotelian Perspectives on Heritage Ethics.

Dr Elisabetta Maistri: currently is the Collection Manager, Curator and Head of Education at the Eccel Kreuzer Museum in Bozen (IT). She holds a Ph.D. in History of Art and Architecture from Durham University, an MA in History of Early Modern Art (UniVe), a PgDip in Art Registration (IED), an MA in Arts Management (UniVe), and a BA in Economic Law and Administration (UniPd). During her doctorate, generously funded by the Northern Bridge Consortium (2019-2022), she focused on the role of Fine Arts Academies in the central decades of the 19th centuries, in particular the activity of Spanish painters and sculptors in Rome during their traineeship. She is interested in the history of art (in the Italian peninsula & Borbon Spain between the 18th and the 19th centuries), the history of luxury, and the history of reception (particularly the reception of European Early Modern Art in the 21st century).