ABSTRACT
Far and away the most pressing problem facing the discipline is the prospect of world art history. 1 And yet the first thing that needs to be said about that troublesome expression is that there is no consensus about its meaning or even its value. The common alternates and near-synonyms for world art history are also problematic: multiculturalism carries with it the air of a compromised relativism; 2 visual culture is currently an unstable field, subject to intensive debates; 3 and global art has the unfortunate connotation of conceptual imperialism, as if art history is already adequate to all possible occasions. 4 It remains unclear how a world art history might be related to its neighboring disciplines. It has been proposed that art historians take anthropological theories as models; but it has also been urged that art history define itself by its difference from anthropology. 5 It has been said that art history should remain distinct from visual studies, but it has also been predicted that the two fields will end up entwined. 6 It has been suggested that literary theory is the best resource for the expanding discipline, but it has also been claimed that literary theory is a wrong direction for art history. 7
