Art History: Facts and Fiction?

This panel explores a neglected tradition in art history: the strategic use of fictional elements in scholarly writing. We seek to examine the scope of this underexplored practice and consider the benefits, challenges and legacies of such creative strategies.

The use of such elements in art history is long-standing. Vasari, for example, drew on Italian novelistic traditions in The Lives of the Artists to craft compelling historical narratives, an aspect of art historical writing that is often overlooked. Yet, as Hayden White observed, the writing of history is ‘at once poetic, scientific and philosophical.’

Fictional perspectives have been employed in the humanities more widely to challenge prevailing conceptions and to address archival gaps. Examples include Clifford Geertz’s ‘faction,’ which addresses the fiction of the neutral anthropological observer and Saidiya Hartman’s critical fabulation, which blends historical research with critical theory and fictional narrative to amplify suppressed voices, particularly those of enslaved people. Donna Haraway’s speculative fabulation also needs to be mentioned here, which combines fact and fiction to explore complex issues and imagine possible futures, while Gerald Vizenor’s ‘Native American slipstream’ employs time travel and alternate realities to explore ‘Indigenous’ worldviews, perspectives on history and conception of futurity.

We welcome papers that explore fictional elements in art history, visual culture, and material culture studies, examining specific applications and/or their relationship to broader interdisciplinary trends in the humanities. We invite presentations on both personal experiences with employing such strategies as well as critical analysis of such work in the field.

Submit your Paper via this form. Please download, complete and send it directly to the Session Convenor(s) below by Sunday 2 November 2025:

Renate Dohmen, Open University, renate.dohmen@open.ac.uk

Marcus Milwright, University of York, marcus.milwright@york.ac.uk