W. J. T. Mitchell is the Gaylord Donnelly Distinguished Service Professor of English and Art History at the University of Chicago. A scholar and theorist of media, visual art, and literature, Mitchell is associated with the emergent fields of visual culture and iconology (the study of images across the media). He is known especially for his work on the relations of visual and verbal representations in the context of social and political issues. He is the editor of Critical Inquiry.