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)
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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 made very influential contributions to the scholarship on the essence and function of images. Today, his monographs Iconology (1986) and Picture Theory (1994) are considered standard works in the field of image studies. His research engages with Erwin Panofsky’s thinking as it investigates the ways in which 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.
Events with W. J. T. Mitchell at the ZfL
- Lecture at KW Institute for Contemporary Art, 6 May 2010
Idolatry: Nietzsche, Blake, Poussin - Wednesday lecture, 3 Nov 2004
Cloning Terror: The War of Images, 2001–2004
Publications
Monographs (Selection)
- Blake’s Composite Art: A Study of the Illuminated Poetry. Princeton: Princeton University Press 2019
- 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)
Photo: © Amélie Losier