All images in this essay are copyright as indicated. The author, James Elkins, takes all responsibility for copyright issues. In 2005, I was working at the University College Cork in Ireland. Visual studies, film studies, and art history were expanding, and the time seemed right for a university-wide center for the study of images. I was interested in finding out who at the university was engaged with images, so I sent an email to all the faculty in the sixty-odd departments, asking who used images in their work. The responses developed into an exhibition that represented all the faculties of the university.