W.J.T. Mitchell

William John Thomas Mitchell is an American scholar. Mitchell is the Gaylord Donnelley Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus of English and Art History at the University of Chicago. His research is focused on media theory, iconology, and the relations between different art forms, such as the verbal representation of visual art. He was the editor of Critical Inquiry for 42 years, from 1978 to 2020, and also contributed to numerous other journals, including the London Review of Books, Public Culture, the Los Angeles Review of Books, Times Literary Supplement, Art forum, and New Literary History. He is the author or editor of more than twenty books and the recipient of numerous awards and prizes, including lifetime achievement awards for literary criticism from the Modern Language Association of America and for art history from the College Art Association. The University of Chicago Press has awarded him its Gordon E. Laing Prize for the best book by a Chicago author twice: for ''Picture Theory'' (1995) and ''What Do Pictures Want?'' (2005).