A number of faculty at Iowa are exploring in various ways the visual elements of culture, such as painting, film, photography, theater, spectacle, and the book itself as a visual artifact. Some of us study the representation of literary texts within visual art and/or the converse, the representation of visual art within literary texts. Some of us examine the dynamics of text/image configurations. Some of us are interested in studying the political, religious, or social function of images. At the heart of much of this research lies an interest in the nature of visuality as a social and perceptual phenomenon and as a basis for knowledge.