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Article: What W.J.T. Mitchell wants.(What Do Pictures Want?: The Lives and Loves of Images )(book review)(Book Review)
- Article from:
- Afterimage
- Article date:
- January 1, 2006
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2006 Visual Studies Workshop. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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WHAT DO PICTURES WANT?: THE LIVES AND LOVES OF IMAGES
BY W.J.T. MITCHELL
CHICAGO: UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS, 2005
408 PP./$35.00 (HB)
The very title of W.J.T. Mitchell's latest book, What Do Pictures Want?: The Lives and Loves of Images, announces a polemic that puts the reader on the defensive before a single page has been turned. Mitchell's title leaves the reader wondering how to respond without seeming to agree tacitly with the premise implied in the titular question, in this case, that pictures have the capacity to "want" anything in the first place. Of course, Mitchell, a leading thinker and public intellectual on all cultures ...