Susan Sontag (/ˈsɒntɑːɡ/; January 16, 1933 – December 28, 2004) was an American writer and filmmaker, literary icon, and political activist. Beginning with the publication of her 1964 essay "Notes on 'Camp'" Sontag became a lifelong international cultural and intellectual celebrity. Sontag was often photographed and her image became widely recognized even in mainstream society. Her works include On Photography, Against Interpretation, The Way We Live Now, and Regarding the Pain of Others.
Read more about Susan Sontag: Life, Work, Activism, Controversies, Personal Life, Awards and Honors
Famous quotes by susan sontag:
“... the most grandiose result of the photographic enterprise is to give us the sense that we can hold the whole world in our heads—as an anthology of images.”
—Susan Sontag (b. 1933)
“All ... forms of consensus about ‘great’ books and ‘perennial’ problems, once stabilized, tend to deteriorate eventually into something philistine. The real life of the mind is always at the frontiers of ‘what is already known.’ Those great books don’t only need custodians and transmitters. To stay alive, they also need adversaries. The most interesting ideas are heresies.”
—Susan Sontag (b. 1933)
“The whole point of Camp is to dethrone the serious. Camp is playful, anti-serious. More precisely, Camp involves a new, more complex relation to ‘the serious.’ One can be serious about the frivolous, frivolous about the serious.”
—Susan Sontag (b. 1933)
“... liberal intellectuals ... tend to have a classical theory of politics, in which the state has a monopoly of power; hoping that those in positions of authority may prove to be enlightened men, wielding power justly, they are natural, if cautious, allies of the ‘establishment.’”
—Susan Sontag (b. 1933)