Emilie’s writing and research focuses on 19th century art literature (such as art novels, art criticism and painters’ texts) as well as literary art (paintings, illustrations, portraits of writers, etc.). She also works on interdisciplinary methodologies, museology, history of display, cultural education, participation, (European) cultural identity/ies.
Academic books
Illustration, Book Art and Artists’ Books: An Expanding Art Form, Europe 1850-1960s
Bloomsbury forthcoming 2027
Pre-orders soon available
Cover image. Arthur Rackham, The Seven Raven, in The Fairy tales of the brothers Grimm, 1909. Reprinted from Grimm, J., & Grimm, W. (1909). The fairy tales of the brothers Grimm (; E. Lucas, Trans.). Constable & Company, Ltd. Courtesy of Maastricht University Special Collections: MU KPB 057
Come to Your Senses – A Senses-based Learning Guide
Eds. Emilie Sitzia, Elene Kadagidze, Tânia Alexandra Cardoso (Nai010 2025)
Order here | Open access
Participatory Practices in Art and Cultural Heritage: Learning Through and from Collaboration
Eds. Christoph Rausch, Ruth Benschop, Emilie Sitzia, Vivian van Saaze (Springer 2022)
The book is available here.
Art in Literature, Literature in Art in 19th Century France
Cambridge Scholars Publishing, Newcastle upon Tyne, 2012.
The book is available here or on Amazon.
L’artiste entre mythe et réalité dans trois œuvres de Balzac, Goncourt et Zola
Åbo Akademi Press, Turku, 2004.
Chapter in books
- “Exhibiting Conflict as a Transformative Strategy: Writing Contemporary History with the Local Community” In Calvi Licia, Vermeeren Arnold, Sabiescu Amalia (eds.)Transformative Museum Experiences (Springer, 2025) pp.153-168
- Co-authored with Julia Ferloni. “Médiation, multivoix et émotions dans l’exposition : Le cas de « Barvalo » au Mucem. ” In Dehail Judith (dir.), Savoirs critiques de la médiation culturelle, (Editions des Archives Contemporaines, 2025) pp.109-126.
- “Senses and Sensibility: Finding the Balance in Sensory Museum Education” in A. Sinner, P. Osler, B. White (ed.), Propositions for Museum Education (Intellect Publishing, 2024) pp. 317-328.
- Co-authored with Julia Ferloni. “Challenging Romaphobia” in Rowson Love A. & Villeneuve P. (eds) Dimensions of Curation: Considering Competing Values for Intentional Exhibition Practices (American Alliance of Museums, 2023)
- Co-authored with Ruth Benschop, Christoph Rausch, Vivian van Saaze. “Introduction to the Volume” in Participatory Practices in Art and Cultural Heritage: Learning Through and from Collaboration, (Springer, 2023)
- “Museology and Its Others: Analyzing Exhibition Storytelling through Narratology, Space analysis, Discourse analysis, and Ethnographic Research” in K. Bijsterveld,A. Swinen (ed.), Interdisciplinarity in the Scholarly Life Cycle Learning by Example in Humanities and Social Science Research (Palgrave, 2022) pp. 153–171. The book is available here
- “Picture Book Illustrations and Children’s Identity Formation: The Case of Fiep Westendorp’s Jip and Janneke”. in S. Aymes, N. Collé, B. Friant-Kesseler, and M. Leroy (eds.), Book Practices & Textual Itineraries: Illustrating Identity/ies (Nancy: Editions Universitaire de Lorraine (PUN), 2020) pp. 167–184.
- “Public Participation and Agency in Art Museums” in B. Eriksson, C. Stage, and B. Valtysson (eds.), Cultures of Participation (Routledge, 2019) pp. 185–200.
- “Le temps qui oublie l’heure : la marche dans les écrits de Giacometti” in C., Grenier; S. Delot; J.B. Lacourt; C. Alandete (eds.), Alberto Giacometti Une Aventure Moderne (Paris: Gallimard LaM, 2019), pp.158–161. (also translated in Dutch).
- “Watercolours and Dendrites, Lakes and Seascapes: Water in George Sand’s Visual Art” in F. Ghillebaert (ed.), Water Imagery in George Sand’s Work (Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2018), pp. 213–36.
- “Imag(e)ining Poe: The visual reception of Poe in France from Manet to Redon“ in Aymes S., Collé N., Friant-Kesseler B., Leroy M. (ed) Book Practices & Textual Itineraries: Illustrations and Intermedial Avenues, Editions Universitaire de Lorraine (PUN), 2017.
- “Defining Participation: Practices in the Dutch artworld” in Kavanagh J., McSweeney K. (ed.) Museum Participation: New Directions for Audience Collaboration, Museum Etc., 2016 (co-authored with Anna Elffers)
The book is available here - “Machines and Monsters: The Modern Decadent Interior as Spectacle in Huysmans’s À Rebours”
in Anca I. Lasc, Georgina Downey, Mark Taylor (eds), Designing the French Interior: The Modern Home and Mass Media, Bloomsbury Publishing, London, 2015.
The book is available here - “Telling Stories” and “Science and the Enlightenment” (co-author of chapters)
in Chris Jones, Bronwyn Matthews, Jennifer Clement (eds), Treasures of the University of Canterbury Library, Canterbury University Press, Christchurch, 2011.
The book is available here - “Contre ‘la muraille de peinture’: la résistance de Balzac à l’art moderne dans Le Chef-d’œuvre inconnu”
In Christophe Ippolito (Ed.), Resistances à la Modernité Dans la Littérature Française de 1800 à Nos Jours, L’Harmattan, Paris, 2010.
The book is available here - “A toutes les heures, par tous les temps: Impressionist landscape and capturing time”
in Jan Lloyd Jones et al, eds, Art and Time, Australian Scholarly Publishing, Melbourne, 2007.
The book is available here
Articles
- Co-authored with Pierre Gramond, “From Collective Memory to Activism: Exploring the Mechanisms of Comics as Multimodal Tools for Transformative Learning”. Memory, Mind & Media. 5 (2026) pp.1–17.
- “Never enough, never perfect: participatory activist practice in the museum”. Conjunctions: Transdi
sciplinary Journal of Cultural Participation. 11:1, (2024) pp.1–15. - “Ghost Stories: Redon’s ‘transmission’ of Gothic literature”. Journal of Illust
ration,10:1(2023) pp.133-151. - “Multiple Narratives and Polyvocality as Strategies of Inclusive Public Participation: Challenges and Disruption in the History Museum”. Museologies, 10:2, (2023) pp. 51–63
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co-written with Julia Ferloni (“When the society museum gives power: challenges of participatory exhibition co-creation at the Mucem”) « Quand le musée de société donne du pouvoir : enjeux de la construction participative d’expositions au Mucem », Culture & Musées 39(2022) pp. 135–162. Link: https://journals.openedition.
org/culturemusees/7888 -
co-written with Florent Molle (“A new way to build a museum discourse: the example of an HIV exhibition constructed with communities”) « Une nouvelle façon de construire le discours muséal : L’exemple d’une exposition sur le VIH conçue avec des personnes concernées », Pa
trimoine, (2022) pp.80–89. - “Picasso’s Poems: Cubist Word Experiments” in Image and Narrative (2021): pp. 5–20. Link:http://www.imageandnarrative.be/index.php/imagenarrative/article/view/2574/2067
- “Lost in Intersemiotic Translation? J. J. Grandville’s Illustration of Robinson Crusoe” in JLIC (Journal for Literary and Intermedial Crossings) (2020): pp. c1–28. Link: https://clic.paddlecms.net/sites/default/files/2022-10/SITZIA_FIN.pdf
- “Picturing Sleeping Beauty: Illustrations as Modern Storytellers”. in Jaarboek voor Nederlandse Boekgeschiedenis [Yearbook for Dutch Book History] (2019): pp.145–62.
- “The many faces of knowledge production in art museums: an exploration of exhibition strategies” in Muséologies. Les cahiers d’études supérieures, forthcoming 2018.
- “The ignorant art museum: Beyond meaning-making” in International Journal of Lifelong Education, 2017.
More info… - “Narrative theories and learning in contemporary art museums: a theoretical exploration” in Stedelijk Studies (peer-reviewed academic online journal of the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, 2016.
More info… - “Beyond the Book in the Glass Coffin – Musealization of Fairy Tales: From Theme Parks to Museums?“ in Interférence littéraires 16: Ce que le musée fait à la littérature, 2015.
More info… - “Translating Colour: The Case of Manette Salomon” in Polysèmes 14: La Couleur : entre silence et éloquence, 2015.
More info… - “De Manet à Moreau: l’évolution artistique des tableaux de Claude Lantier dans L’Œuvre” in Textimage (revue d’étude du dialogue texte-image), 2011.
More info… - “‘Where is the Prince?’ Unlocking Doré’s Illustration of Perrault’s Cinderella” in Relief (revue électronique de littérature française), 2010.
More info… - “Women on the Edge: Berthe Morisot and Liminal Spaces” in CT Review, 2010.
More info… - “Devenir un dieu : évolution politique des portraits de Napoléon I” in Raison Publique, 2010.
More info… - “L’écrivain-peintre : Stratégies d’écriture picturale dans quelques romans d’art réalistes du XIXe siècle français.” Recherches Universitaires Revue de la faculté des Lettres et Sciences Humaines de Sfax, 2009.
- “Sarah Bernhardt-Mucha: La création d’une déesse de la décadence” in Image and Narrative, 2008.
More info… - “Peindre l’absence : Manet et le couple absent” Echo, December 2005.
Exhibition catalogues:
- Trailblazers: 20th century illustrators and activism (2023). Contributor and co-editor.
- Oksana Chepelik (2020) Contributor and co-editor.
- Robin Neate: The Ray Paintings & The Other Yesterday Paintings, 2013 (Ilam Press), contributor.
More info… - Fragments, Stories, Myth: The Lives of Lost Artworks, November 2011, (University of Canterbury Campus Gallery), contributor and managing editor.
More info… - Imaging and imagining the Pacific, November-December 2010, (University of Canterbury Campus Gallery), editor.
More info… - The Grand Tour: The University of Canterbury European Print Collection, January 2010, (SOFA Gallery), contributor and managing editor.