Das Graduiertenkolleg "Sichtbarkeit und Sichtbarmachung" (Universität Potsdam) und das Graduiertenkolleg "Schriftbildlichkeit" (Freie Universität Berlin) laden ein zu dem Abendvortrag von Prof. James Elkins (School of the Art Institute of Chicago).

Images and pictures are the subjects of an enormous literature, li!le of which articulates what might make visual objects di"erent from wri!en objects. Few critics, historians, or philosophers develop theories of the visual, or of visual objects; most work empirically, relying on received accounts for foundational conceptualizations of what visual objects are and how they create meaning. As a result, academia and the art world tend to operate pragmatically, assuming that the nature of the visual is well understood. Foundational issues remain unexplored: What are the optimal accounts of what visual objects are, and how they create meaning? What is the e"ect of deferring work on the nature of images, even as the literature on them builds exponentially? This lecture is a survey of the principal theories and problems and the current state of visual studies.