The BU Institute for Philosophy and Religion's 2012-13 Lecture Series: “On Some Relations between Religious Art and the Contemporary Artworld," James Elkins (the School of the Art Institute of Chicago). Professor Elkins has a BA and a graduate degree in painting, and a PhD in Art History (all from the University of Chicago). Since 1989 he has been teaching at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and is currently E.C. Chadbourne Chair in the Department of Art History, Theory, and Criticism. His writing focuses on the history and theory of images in art, science, and nature. Some of his books are exclusively on fine art (What Painting Is, Why Are Our Pictures Puzzles?). Others include scientific and non-art images, writing systems, and archaeology (The Domain of Images, On Pictures and the Words That Fail Them), and some are about natural history (How to Use Your Eyes). His most recent book is Art Critiques: A Guide. Current projects include an edited book series called the Stone Art Theory Institutes, and an edited book series called Theories of Modernism and Postmodernism in the Visual Art. His recent book, What Photography Is, is a work of experimental nonfiction, written against Roland Barthes's Camera Lucida.