James Elkins
News:
If you're in Chicago and interested in experimental literary fiction, join the new writer's group. Latest book: What Heaven Looks Like. Passed the 300,000 word mark on my work in progress. Writing every day! Please use the contact form to schedule lectures, studio visits, or seminars. I'm using Academia.edu as a message board. See Lectures page for my travel schedule.
I have decided not to find a publisher for The Impending Single History of Art. (Too many years spent pursuing academic publishers.) It's the last of my art history books, and the one with the most information about global art history. I'm going to be posting it in its entirety on this site and on Academia. The chapters are on Google Drive, so they're live and always up to date. Please send comments & criticism here.
Latest uploads:
The book Why Are Our Pictures Puzzles?; the book How to Use Your Eyes; and an essay on the complicity between torture and formal analysis. (There is also a website with reviews of contemporary piano music.)
Live Writing Projects:
I am experimenting with writing live on the internet. These texts update live, and you can contribute to them & be thanked when the book is published. (1) What is Interesting Writing in Art History?, (2) Writing with Images. Other live writing projects are finished: Visual Worlds, and The Impending Single History of Art. Thanks everyone for contributing!
What Heaven Looks Like
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A book of commentary on a beautiful and mysterious manuscript in a library in Scotland.
Art History in Smaller Countries
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Two essays on the state of art history in Ireland, with reference to the general question of how art history is taught in smaller countries.
The End of the Theory of the Gaze
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An essay on the current state of the theory of the gaze, and a critical assessment of its recent development.
On The Unrepresentable in Pictures
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An essay on the limits of visual representation, with attention to recent positions taken by Rosalind Krauss and Georges Didi-Huberman.
How to Invite a Speaker
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Instructions and tips on inviting people to speak at your university.
Two Ways of Looking at Ceramics
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An essay about the reasons ceramics is marginal in art history, and how it can be central in some philosophy.
The Stone Art Theory Institutes
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A series of five books on art theory, produced at the School of the Art Institute in Chicago.
Artists with PhDs
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A book about the PhD degree in studio art, as it is practiced around the world.
