Picture Theory

What precisely, W. J. T. Mitchell asks, are pictures (and theories of pictures) doing now, in the late twentieth century, when the power of the visual is said to be greater than ever before, and the "pictorial turn" supplants the "linguistic turn" in the study of culture? This book by one of America's leading theorists of visual representation offers a rich account of the interplay between the visible and the readable across culture, from literature to visual art to the mass media.

A novel first published in French in 1982, 'Picture Theory' demonstrates Nicole Brossard's fiction théorique and her preoccupation with the difficulty of writing and reading woman. The title (taken from Wittgenstein) implies her reference to the hologram as a new pictorial model for woman; like the hologram which is intended to be read from an infinite number of changing conditions, Brossard's text abstracts the image of the feminine so that it can be read from all angles. Centred on four women, this novel of lesbian love moves from Curaçao to Montreal, from New York to Paris. Essentially, Picture Theory poses the question of what is a novel.

W.J.T. Mitchell – one of the founders of visual studies – has been at the forefront of many disciplines such as iconology, art history and media studies. His concept of the pictorial turn is known worldwide for having set new philosophical paradigms in dealing with our vernacular visual world. This book will help both students and seasoned scholars to understand key terms in visual studies – pictorial turn, metapictures, literary iconology, image/text, biopictures or living pictures, among many others – while systematically presenting the work of Mitchell as one of the discipline's founders and most prominent figures. As a special feature, the book includes three comprehensive, authoritative and theoretically relevant interviews with Mitchell that focus on different stages of development of visual studies and critical iconology.

Looking at film through its communication properties rather than its social or political implications, this work draws on the tenets of James J. Gibson's ecological theory of visual perception and offers a new understanding of how moving images are seen and understood.

First published in 2005. This book studies the often overlooked work of Ludwig Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logio-Philosophicus, the Tractatus and their later work being argued as being mutually illuminating. Bogen states that the works of Wittgenstein require a study of their points of contact which led to the formation of this title. This is accomplished by studying the text in two parts: its relevance to picture theory, the subsequent abandonment of the picture theory.

"Image Studies provides an engaging introduction to visual studies analysis and an account of existing and emergent visual culture debates, along with chapters on a range of topics, including: consumer culture and identity; photography and digital imaging; painting and drawing; the moving image; the relationship between image and text (including reference to text in art, comics and animation); and scientific imaging. Written in an engaging and accessible way, the text will also include extracts of existing critical materials. Each chapter will include key set readings, including short extracts from existing literatures with accompanying study notes and questions. The chapters will also include a range of critical and creative tasks, designed to bring the academic study of visual culture into direct contact with practical aspects of visual culture and image-making. Image Studies is a new text aimed predominantly at undergraduate students in visual culture, but which will also be useful for media studies students and arts students more generally"--

Gail Jones is one of Australia’s foremost contemporary novelists. Her books have won or been shortlisted for the Prime Minister’s Literary Award, the Miles Franklin Award, the Stella Prize, and numerous state literary awards. They are taught in high schools and universities across the country. This collection of essays offers reflections on Jones’ fiction by leading Australian and international literary critics. For readers who loved Sixty Lights, Five Bells, Sorry and Jones’ other novels, and for students of Jones’ work, this book will be an illuminating companion. With chapters on her use of language, her thematic preoccupations, and her place in local and global literary culture, it is a timely guide to the work of an exceptional Australian writer.

In this final volume of Robert Denoon Cumming's four-volume history of the phenomenological movement, Cumming examines the bearing of Heidegger's philosophy on his original commitment to Nazism and on his later inability to face up to the implication of that allegiance. Cumming continues his focus, as in previous volumes, on Heidegger's connection with other philosophers. Here, Cumming looks first at Heidegger's relation to Karl Jaspers, an old friend on whom Heidegger turned his back when Hitler consolidated power, and who discredited Heidegger in the denazification that followed World War II. The issues at stake are not merely personal, Cumming argues, but regard the philosophical relevance of the personal.