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Stepping into the debates over visual culture’s purported interdisciplinarity, Elkins accounts for two main positions. First, he argues, there is the largely ‘uninteresting’ attempt at interdisciplinarity. Here he draws our attention to three key models: (i) a magpie theory that simply ‘cobbles methods, subjects, and texts from various disciplines’ (p. 27); (ii) a more dynamic trans- disciplinary mingling of disciplines, out of which all sorts of trouble spots emerge; and (iii) W.J.T. Mitchell’s notion of a ‘de-disciplinary’ operation whereby visual culture ducks out of the realm of disciplines to discover what is usually passed over or bracketed out. The suggested problem with any of these modes is that ‘as long as you know what you’re doing, you are likely to be operating in a way that can be described as disciplinary, even if it is a rogue disciplinarity’ (p. 29). However, it should not then follow that the achievements of ‘rogue disciplinarity’ are necessarily so ‘uninteresting’.

Second, there is the ‘interesting’ kind of interdisciplinary visual culture that ‘does not know its subjects but finds them through its preoccupations’ (p. 30). In this case, disciplines are largely to be ignored; instead, you are prompted to follow your nose. And so for Elkins, although it is predominant- ly art history that provides the initial base from which he claims to be able to go elsewhere, the underlying principle is to break out of the strictures that the ‘codification of knowledge’ enforce.

FULL REVIEW:
Review: James Elkins' 'A Skeptical Introduction to Visual Studies'in Journal of Visual Culture, 2004, Vol 3, no. 2, pp.373-377
http://vcu.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/3/3/373