Painterly: Editorial Introduction for <i>Painting / Knowledge</i> E-Special Issue

This introduction to Painting / Knowledge , an e-special issue of Theory, Culture &amp; Society , maps 35 articles from the journal (and Body &amp; Society ) that position painting as a dynamic site of critical inquiry. Less a historical genre, the painterly is framed as an expansive field engaging theory, affect, embodiment, memory, and political aesthetics. Structured around four themes (Painting and the Political; Affect, Body, Gesture; Word, Image, Mediation; and Memory, Trauma, Image), the issue situates the articles in broader critical discourses, referencing thinkers such as Rancière, Lyotard, Deleuze, Krauss, and Foster. Painting emerges not as an autonomous medium but as a site where power, trauma, non-Western epistemologies, and sensory experience intersect. The painterly becomes a mode of critical engagement, rethinking visibility, affective knowledge, memory, and contestation. The issue reimagines painting’s place within the interdisciplinary landscape of critical theory, affirming its ongoing relevance as both expressive form and method of thought.