What Is an Image?

James Elkins is Associate Professor in the Department of Art History, Theory, and Criticism at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.Maja Naef is an art historian and art critic based in Basel, Switzerland.

• ContentsSeries PrefaceIntroductionJames ElkinsThe Seminars1How Many Theories of Images Are There?2What Is Outside Images3Accounts of Images, and Accounts That Begin from Images4Ontology5Non-Western Accounts6Public and Private7Religion, Ritual, the Sacred8Painting and Images9Image, Notation, Graph . . .AssessmentsPrefaceJames ElkinsFrederick M. AsherMichael Ann HollyAdrian RifkinFrank VigneronKeith MoxeyHarry CooperParul Dave MukherjiThomas BaumeisterVivian SobchackAlex PottsKavita SinghPaul MessarisEmmanuel AlloaAud Sissel HoelEllen ChowXaq PitkowCrispin SartwellKlaus SpeidelAntonia PocockPaul WillemarckRuth SondereggerThomas Macho and Jasmin MersmannCiarán BensonChristoph LüthySebastian EgenhoferIrmgard EmmelhainzLadislav KesnerJohn Michael KroisKarin LeonhardFrancesco PeriFrederik StjernfeltRainer TotzkeMichael ZimmermannSunil ManghaniKlaus Sachs-HombachJosé Luis BreaAfterwordWolfram PichlerNotes on the ContributorsIndex

“What Is an Image? offers a richly informative, wide-ranging, and open-ended ensemble of ideas and viewpoints that significantly advances the scholarly conversation. One of the great virtues of the volume is that it breaks with the standardized format of much academic writing to allow the coexistence of a plurality of voices and opinions. The reader is allowed to ‘listen in’ on a discussion that takes place at the cutting edge of current research and thereby gains a clear overview of the issues at stake in reconceptualizing the image.”—Jason Gaiger, The University of Oxford