W. J. T. Mitchell

William John Thomas Mitchell (born March 24, 1942) 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. His collection of essays What Do Pictures Want? won the Modern Language Association's prestigious James Russell Lowell Prize in 2005. In a recent podcast interview, Mitchell traces his interest in visual culture to his early work on William Blake, and his then burgeoning interest in developing a science of images that would breach the boundaries between science and the humanities. In that same interview, he discusses his ongoing efforts to rethink verbal and visual image forms in the age of social media and artificial intelligence.

In 2014, Mitchell was elected to the American Philosophical Society, He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2017. He is a member of the British Academy, was awarded a Berlin Prize Fellowship by the American Academy in Berlin, and has a resident fellowship at the American Academy in Rome.

Mitchell has been noted as a supporter of the BDS campaign by Canary Mission. Mitchell has written on both Israeli and Palestinian filmmakers and has given invited lectures at Hebrew University, Bar-Ilan University, Tel Aviv University, the Bezalel Academy of Art, Birzeit University, the American University of Beirut, and the International Academy of Art Palestine.

Early life and education Mitchell was born on March 24, 1942. He received his B.A. from Michigan State University in 1963 and his M.A. and Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins University in 1968. He began his teaching career in the English Department at Ohio State University (1968–1977) before joining the University of Chicago in 1977. He was invited by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. to give the W.E.B. DuBois Lectures at Harvard University, subsequently published as Seeing through Race.

Editorial leadership Mitchell served as editor of the interdisciplinary journal Critical Inquiry for 42 years (1978–2020), succeeding Sheldon Sacks. Under his leadership, the journal broadened its scope to include critical theory across the arts and human sciences, publishing special issues on topics such as feminism, race and identity, public art, and postcolonial theory. It was described by The New York Times'' as "academe's most prestigious theory journal". The journal received multiple awards for outstanding special issues during its tenure. He also edited seven essay collections for the University of Chicago Press.

He stepped down in 2020 to focus on writing.

Later work and public engagement Recent books include the 2020 memoir Mental Traveler: A Father, a Son, and a Journey through Schizophrenia, reflecting on his son's 20-year struggle with schizophrenia. His spouse, composer Janice Misurell-Mitchell, is a poet who contributed poems to the book. His daughter is completing a film about her brother’s life, Gabriel’s Back Pages, which will be released in 2026. He has curated exhibitions (e.g., , 2018–2021 in Beijing and Chicago) and continues to lecture and publish on media, politics, and visual culture. In his numerous interviews, he discusses rethinking visual culture in the digital age and the role of images in politics and war. His latest book, Seeing through Madness: Essays in Crazy Times, is forthcoming in the fall of 2026. He is currently developing the project, “The Academy in a State of Siege: Pictures of an Institution,” which he plans to expand into a book.