Monday, January 26, 2026
Logan Center for the Arts, The University of Chicago
"THE ACADEMY IN A STATE OF SIEGE: PICTURES OF AN INSTITUTION"
A public lecture by W. J. T. Mitchell titled "THE ACADEMY IN A STATE OF SIEGE: PICTURES OF AN INSTITUTION."
Since there is no doubt that the academy is in a state of siege at the present time, it seems like a good moment to reflect on the persons, places, and things we call “academies” and their long struggle with the forces that both threaten and define their existence. This will be a slide lecture on images and narratives of academia from the story of Akademos, to Plato’s Academy, to the Florentine Academy of Drawing, to the British Royal Academy, to Pierre Bourdieu’s Homo Academicus. W. J. T. Mitchell will focus on the role of the visual arts in the academy (including his own), and conclude with contemporary attempts to re-imagine the academy as itself a work of art.
Moderated by Artist and Gray Center Director of Programs in Fellowships, Zachary Cahill.
Hosted by the Open Practice Committee in the Department of Visual Arts and co-sponsored by the Departments of Art History and English, 3CT and Critical Inquiry