Prof. W. J. T. Mitchell
Honorary member of the ZfL, Gaylord Donnelley Distinguished Service Professor for English and Art History at the University of Chicago (USA)
CV
W. J. T. Mitchell studied English at Michigan State University and Johns Hopkins University Baltimore and received his PhD in 1968. From 1968 to 1977 he taught at Ohio State University’s English department. He has been Professor for English and Art History at the University of Chicago since 1977 and an editor at Critical Inquiry since 1978. In 2008 he became an Honorary Member of the ZfL.
Mitchell’s contributions to the scholarship on the essence and function of images have been extremely influential. His monographs, Iconology (1986) and Picture Theory (1994), are standard works in the field of image studies today. His research engages with Erwin Panofsky’s thinking as it investigates the ways that seeing and speaking interact. In 1992 he introduced the idea of a “pictorial turn” in response to increased attention to how people think in images – in scientific, cultural, and social contexts.
Photo © Amélie Losier
Publications
Monographs (Selection)
- Image Science: Iconology, Media Aesthetics, and Visual Culture. Chicago: University of Chicago Press 2015
- Occupy: Three Inquiries in Disobedience. Chicago: University of Chicago Press 2013 (with Bernard E. Harcourt, Michael Taussig)
- Seeing Through Race. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press 2012
- Cloning Terror. The War of Images. 9/11 to the Present. Chicago: University of Chicago Press 2011
- Ed.: The late Derrida. Chicago: Chicago University Press 2007 (with Arnold I. Davidson)
- What Do Pictures Want? The Lives and Loves of Images. Chicago: University of Chicago Press 2005
- The Last Dinosaur Book: The Life and Times of a Cultural Icon. Chicago: Chicago University Press 1998
- Picture Theory. Essays on Verbal an Visual Representation. Chicago: Chicago University Press 1994
- Iconology: Image, Text, Ideology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press 1986
Articles (ZfL)
- Idolatrie: Nietzsche, Blake und Poussin, in: Trajekte. Zeitschrift des Zentrums für Literatur- und Kulturforschung Berlin 21 (2010), 20–29 (transl. by Dirk Naguschewski)
Interview with W. J. T. Mitchell on image theory and visual culture (Nov. 2007)