An interview with W.J.T. Mitchell
Eminent Chicago-based cultural theorist, author and editor Tom Mitchell discusses his long-term investigation of human symbolic behaviour, of the "space between words and images from which ideas, passions, narratives, representations emerge". He reflects upon the complex relationships between the visual, language, criticism, racism, nature, and he outlines why the problem of the twenty-first century may well be the problem of the image.
Andrew McNarnara: Your intellectual background is associated more with literary theory or cultural theory than with the visual arts or art history. What has lead to your interest in the visual?
W.J.T. (Tom) Mitchell: Actually, I've been interested in the visual arts since the beginning of my scholarly career. My dissertation (Slake's Composite Art, 1968) was on the illuminated books of William Blake, and dealt with relationships between poetry and painting, the printed word and the imprinted or engraved image. I've always located my work in this interstitial space between the arts and media. But it's true that, to art historians, I'm often associated with literary and cultural theory, while my literary colleagues sometimes accuse me of deserting literature for the visual arts. I respond to verbal metaphors and descriptions with vivid visual and tactile images, and enjoy the magical process of verbalizing about pictures and works of art, especially the ones that seem most reluctant to "say" anything very explicit.
AM: Your position may be characterized as seeking to trouble all accounts which try to draw neat conceptual demarcations around labels such as the linguistic or the visual. Is this a fair description?
WJTM: Yes, I'm definitely out to make trouble for people who like things to be simple. This is partly a matter of... The rest of this article is available to subscribers of Eyeline