James Elkins

A sketch for an ideal textbook of modern and postmodern art, and why it can't be written.

An essay on the reasons why it is difficult to write about modern art outside the traditional trajectories (Europe, North America, the North Atlantic).

A book project on the spread of North American- and western European-style art history around the world, and on the impossibility of writing a history of world modernisms.

A short text on the fact that English is art history's lingua franca, and how that limits scholars worldwide.

A text on the problematic terms "Western," "non-Western," "Euramerican," "North Atlantic," and others.

A project for two books—or two sets of class notes—on writing that uses images. The first project is about art history, and the second is on novels and experimental writing.

A large book project on the visual world in art, science, and visual theory.

A perpetually unfinished project on different criteria of success and failure.