http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susan_Sontag

Susan Sontag (/ˈsɒntæɡ/; January 16, 1933 – December 28, 2004) was an American writer and filmmaker, teacher and political activist, publishing her first major work, the essay "Notes on 'Camp'", in 1964. Her best known works include On Photography, Against Interpretation, Styles of Radical Will, The Way We Live Now, Illness as Metaphor, Regarding the Pain of Others, The Volcano Lover and In America.

Sontag was active in writing and speaking about, or travelling to, areas of conflict, including during the Vietnam War and the Siege of Sarajevo. She wrote extensively about photography, culture and media, AIDS and illness, human rights, and communism and leftist ideology. Her essays and speeches sometimes drew criticism. The New York Review of Books called her "one of the most influential critics of her generation."[2]

Contents [show] Early life and education[edit] Sontag was born Susan Rosenblatt in New York City, the daughter of Mildred (née Jacobson) and Jack Rosenblatt, both Jewish. Her father managed a fur trading business in China, where he died of tuberculosis in 1939, when Susan was five years old.[1] Seven years later, her mother married U.S. Army Captain Nathan Sontag. Susan and her sister, Judith, were given their stepfather's surname, although he never adopted them formally.[1] Sontag did not have a religious upbringing and claimed not to have entered a synagogue until her mid-twenties.[3] Remembering an unhappy childhood, with a cold, distant mother who was "always away," Sontag lived in Long Island, New York,[1] then in Tucson, Arizona, and later in the San Fernando Valley in Southern California, where she took refuge in books and graduated from North Hollywood High School at the age of 15. She began her undergraduate studies at the University of California, Berkeley but transferred to the University of Chicago in admiration of its famed core curriculum. At Chicago, she undertook studies in philosophy, ancient history and literature alongside her other requirements. Leo Strauss, Joseph Schwab, Christian Mackauer, Richard McKeon, Peter von Blanckenhagen and Kenneth Burke were among her lecturers. She graduated with an A.B.[4] While at Chicago, she became best friends with fellow student Mike Nichols.[5]

At 17, Sontag married writer Philip Rieff, who was a sociology instructor at the University of Chicago, after a ten-day courtship; the marriage lasted for eight years.[6] While studying at Chicago, Sontag attended a summer school taught by the Sociologist Hans Heinrich Gerth who became a friend and subsequently influenced her study of German thinkers.[7] Upon completing her Chicago degree, Sontag taught freshman English at the University of Connecticut for the 1952–53 academic year. She attended Harvard University for graduate school, initially studying literature with Perry Miller and Harry Levin before moving into philosophy and theology under Paul Tillich, Jacob Taubes, Raphael Demos and Morton White.[8] After completing her master of arts in philosophy, she began doctoral research into metaphysics, ethics, Greek philosophy and Continental philosophy and theology at Harvard.[9] The philosopher Herbert Marcuse lived with Sontag and Rieff for a year while working on his 1955 book Eros and Civilization.[10] Sontag researched and contributed to Rieff's 1959 study Freud: The Mind of the Moralist prior to their divorce in 1958. The couple had a son, David Rieff, who later became his mother's editor at Farrar, Straus and Giroux, as well as a writer.

Sontag was awarded an American Association of University Women's fellowship for the 1957–1958 academic year to St Anne's College, Oxford, where she traveled without her husband and son.[11] There, she had classes with Iris Murdoch, Stuart Hampshire, A. J. Ayer and H. L. A. Hart while also attending the B. Phil seminars of J. L. Austin and the lectures of Isaiah Berlin. Oxford did not appeal to her, however, and she transferred after Michaelmas term of 1957 to the University of Paris.[12] In Paris, Sontag socialized with expatriate artists and academics including Allan Bloom, Jean Wahl, Alfred Chester, Harriet Sohmers and María Irene Fornés.[13] Sontag remarked that her time in Paris was, perhaps, the most important period of her life.[14] It certainly provided the basis of her long intellectual and artistic association with the culture of France.[15] She moved to New York in 1959 to live with Fornés for the next seven years,[16] regaining custody of her son[11] and teaching at universities while her literary reputation grew.[17]

Fiction[edit] Sontag's literary career began and ended with works of fiction. While working on her fiction, Sontag taught philosophy at Sarah Lawrence College and City University of New York and the Philosophy of Religion with Jacob Taubes, Susan Taubes, Theodor Gaster, and Hans Jonas, in the Religion Department at Columbia University from 1960 to 1964. Sontag held a writing fellowship at Rutgers University for 1964 to 1965 before ending her relationship with academia in favor of full-time freelance writing.[18]

At age 30, she published an experimental novel called The Benefactor (1963), following it four years later with Death Kit (1967). Despite a relatively small output, Sontag thought of herself principally as a novelist and writer of fiction. Her short story "The Way We Live Now" was published to great acclaim on November 26, 1986 in The New Yorker. Written in an experimental narrative style, it remains a significant text on the AIDS epidemic. She achieved late popular success as a best-selling novelist with The Volcano Lover (1992). At age 67, Sontag published her final novel In America (2000). The last two novels were set in the past, which Sontag said gave her greater freedom to write in the polyphonic voice.[citation needed]

She wrote and directed four films and also wrote several plays, the most successful of which were Alice in Bed and Lady from the Sea.[citation needed]

Nonfiction[edit] It was through her essays that Sontag gained early fame and notoriety. Sontag wrote frequently about the intersection of high and low art and expanded the dichotomy concept of form and art in every media. She elevated camp to the status of recognition with her widely read 1964 essay "Notes on 'Camp'," which accepted art as including common, absurd and burlesque themes.

In 1977, Sontag published the series of essays On Photography. These essays are an exploration of photographs as a collection of the world, mainly by travelers or tourists, and the way we experience it. In the essays, she outlined her theory of taking pictures as you travel:

The method especially appeals to people handicapped by a ruthless work ethic – Germans, Japanese and Americans. Using a camera appeases the anxiety which the work driven feel about not working when they are on vacation and supposed to be having fun. They have something to do that is like a friendly imitation of work: they can take pictures. (p. 10)

Sontag writes that the convenience of modern photography has created an overabundance of visual material, and "just about everything has been photographed".[19] This has altered our expectations of what we have the right to view, want to view or should view. "In teaching us a new visual code, photographs alter and enlarge our notion of what is worth looking at and what we have the right to observe" and has changed our "viewing ethics".[19] Photographs have increased our access to knowledge and experiences of history and faraway places, but the images may replace direct experience and limit reality.[20] She also states that photography desensitizes its audience to horrific human experiences, and children are exposed to experiences before they are ready for them.[21]

Sontag continued to theorize about the role of photography in real life in her essay "Looking at War: Photography's View of Devastation and Death", which appeared in the December 9, 2002 issue of The New Yorker. There she concludes that the problem of our reliance on images and especially photographic images is not that "people remember through photographs but that they remember only the photographs ... that the photographic image eclipses other forms of understanding – and remembering. ... To remember is, more and more, not to recall a story but to be able to call up a picture" (p. 94).

She became a role-model for many feminists and aspiring female writers during the 1960s and 1970s.[22]

Activism[edit]

The former Sarajevo newspaper building during the Siege of Sarajevo, when Sontag lived in the city During 1989 Sontag was the President of PEN American Center, the main U.S. branch of the International PEN writers' organization. After Iranian leader Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa death sentence against writer Salman Rushdie for blasphemy after the publication of his novel The Satanic Verses that year, Sontag's uncompromising support of Rushdie was critical in rallying American writers to his cause.[23]

A few years later, during the Siege of Sarajevo, Sontag gained attention for directing a production of Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot in a candlelit Sarajevo theatre in the city, that the Daily Telegraph called "mesmerisingly precious and hideously self-indulgent".[24] However, her involvement with the city was well regarded by its besieged residents:

To the people of Sarajevo, Ms. Sontag has become a symbol, interviewed frequently by the local newspapers and television, invited to speak at gatherings everywhere, asked for autographs on the street. After the opening performance of the play, the city's Mayor, Muhamed Kresevljakovic, came onstage to declare her an honorary citizen, the only foreigner other than the recently departed United Nations commander, Lieut. Gen. Phillippe Morillon, to be so named. "It is for your bravery, in coming here, living here, and working with us," he said.[25]

Criticism[edit] Sontag drew criticism for writing in 1967 in the Partisan Review that,

If America is the culmination of Western white civilization, as everyone from the Left to the Right declares, then there must be something terribly wrong with Western white civilization. This is a painful truth; few of us want to go that far. … The truth is that Mozart, Pascal, Boolean algebra, Shakespeare, parliamentary government, baroque churches, Newton, the emancipation of women, Kant, Marx, Balanchine ballets, et al., don't redeem what this particular civilization has wrought upon the world. The white race is the cancer of human history; it is the white race and it alone—its ideologies and inventions—which eradicates autonomous civilizations wherever it spreads, which has upset the ecological balance of the planet, which now threatens the very existence of life itself.[26]

According to journalist Mark M. Goldblatt, Sontag later recanted this statement, saying that "it slandered cancer patients",[27] though according to Eliot Weinberger, "She came to regret that last phrase, and wrote a whole book against the use of illness as metaphor".[28]

In a 1970 article titled America as a Gun Culture, the noted historian Richard Hofstadter wrote:

Modern critics of our culture who, like Susan Sontag, seem to know nothing of American history, who regard the white race as a "cancer" and assert that the United States was "founded on a genocide," may fantasize that the Indians fought according to the rules of the Geneva Convention. But in the tragic conflict of which they were to be the chief victims, they were capable of striking terrible blows.[29]

In "Sontag, Bloody Sontag", an essay in her 1994 book Vamps & Tramps, Camille Paglia describes her initial admiration and subsequent disillusionment:

Sontag's cool exile was a disaster for the American women's movement. Only a woman of her prestige could have performed the necessary critique and debunking of the first instant-canon feminist screeds, such as those of Kate Millett or Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar, whose middlebrow mediocrity crippled women's studies from the start. No patriarchal villains held Sontag back; her failures are her own.

Paglia mentions several criticisms of Sontag, including Harold Bloom's comment on Paglia's doctoral dissertation, of "Mere Sontagisme!" This "had become synonymous with a shallow kind of hip posturing".[page needed] Paglia also describes Sontag as a "sanctimonious moralist of the old-guard literary world", and tells of a visit by Sontag to Bennington College, in which she arrived hours late, ignored the agreed-upon topic of the event, and made an incessant series of ridiculous demands.[page needed] Similar behavior was reported when she staged her Godot; one observer recalled, "I have never seen anything as degrading and insufferable as her conduct towards the Sarajevans. . . . [S]he never listened to any of them but only uttered lordly pronouncements as she held court in the Sarajevo Holiday Inn, while outside scores daily died."[30]

Ellen Lee accused Sontag of plagiarism when Lee discovered at least twelve passages in In America that were similar to, or copied from, passages in four other books about Helena Modjeska without attribution.[31][32] Sontag said about using the passages, "All of us who deal with real characters in history transcribe and adopt original sources in the original domain. I've used these sources and I've completely transformed them. There's a larger argument to be made that all of literature is a series of references and allusions."[33]

At a New York pro-Solidarity rally in 1982, Sontag stated that "people on the left", like herself, "have willingly or unwillingly told a lot of lies".[34] She added that they:

believed in, or at least applied, a double standard to the angelic language of Communism.. Communism is Fascism—successful Fascism, if you will. What we have called Fascism is, rather, the form of tyranny that can be overthrown—that has, largely, failed. I repeat: not only is Fascism (and overt military rule) the probable destiny of all Communist societies—especially when their populations are moved to revolt—but Communism is in itself a variant, the most successful variant, of Fascism. Fascism with a human face... Imagine, if you will, someone who read only the Reader's Digest between 1950 and 1970, and someone in the same period who read only The Nation or [t]he New Statesman. Which reader would have been better informed about the realities of Communism? The answer, I think, should give us pause. Can it be that our enemies were right?[34]

Sontag's speech reportedly "drew boos and shouts from the audience". The Nation published her speech, excluding the passage comparing the magazine with Reader's Digest. Responses included accusations that she had betrayed her ideals.[34]

Sontag received angry criticism for her remarks in The New Yorker (September 24, 2001) about the immediate aftermath of the September 11th, 2001 attacks.[35] In her commentary, she criticized U.S. public officials and media commentators for trying to convince the American public that "everything is O.K." Specifically, she argued that the perpetrators "were not cowards" and that we should acknowledge that "this was not a 'cowardly' attack on 'civilization' or 'liberty' or 'humanity' or 'the free world' but an attack on the world's self-proclaimed superpower, undertaken as a consequence of specific American alliances and actions".[36]

Works[edit] Fiction[edit] (1963) The Benefactor ISBN 0-385-26710-X (1967) Death Kit ISBN 0-312-42011-0 (1977) I, etcetera (Collection of short stories) ISBN 0-374-17402-4 (1991) The Way We Live Now (short story) ISBN 0-374-52305-3 (1992) The Volcano Lover ISBN 1-55800-818-7 (1999) In America ISBN 1-56895-898-6 – winner of the 2000 U.S. National Book Award for Fiction[37] Plays[edit] The Way We Live Now (1990) about the AIDS epidemic A Parsifal (1991), a deconstruction inspired by Robert Wilson's 1991 staging of the Wagner opera[38] Alice in Bed (1993), about 19th century intellectual, Alice James, who was confined to bed by illness[39] Lady from the Sea, an adaptation of Henrik Ibsen's 1888 play of the same name, premiered in 1998 in Italy.[40] Sontag wrote an essay about it in 1999 in Theatre called "Rewriting Lady from the Sea".[41] Nonfiction[edit] Collections of essays[edit] (1966) Against Interpretation ISBN 0-385-26708-8 (includes Notes on "Camp") (1969) Styles of Radical Will ISBN 0-312-42021-8 (1980) Under the Sign of Saturn ISBN 0-374-28076-2 (2001) Where the Stress Falls ISBN 0-374-28917-4 (2002) Regarding the Pain of Others ISBN 0-374-24858-3 (2007) At the Same Time: Essays & Speeches ISBN 0-374-10072-1 (edited by Paolo Dilonardo and Anne Jump, with a foreword by David Rieff) Sontag also published nonfiction essays in The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books, Times Literary Supplement, The Nation, Granta, Partisan Review and the London Review of Books.

Monographs[edit] (1977) On Photography ISBN 0-374-22626-1 (1978) Illness as Metaphor ISBN 0-394-72844-0 (1988) AIDS and Its Metaphors (a continuation of Illness as Metaphor) ISBN 0-374-10257-0 (2003) Regarding the Pain of Others ISBN 0-374-24858-3 Films[edit] (1969) Duett för kannibaler (Duet for Cannibals) (1971) Broder Carl (Brother Carl) (1974) Promised Lands (1983) Unguided Tour AKA Letter from Venice Other works[edit] (2002) Liner notes for the Patti Smith album Land (2004) Contribution of phrases to Fischerspooner's third album Odyssey (2008) Reborn: Journals and Notebooks 1947–1963 (2012) As Consciousness Is Harnessed to Flesh: Journals and Notebooks, 1964–1980 Awards and honors[edit] 1978: National Book Critics Circle Award for On Photography 1990: MacArthur Fellowship 1992: Malaparte Prize, Italy 1999: Commandeur de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, France 2000: National Book Award for In America[37] 2001: Jerusalem Prize, awarded every two years to a writer whose work explores the freedom of the individual in society. 2002: George Polk Award, for Cultural Criticism for "Looking at War," in The New Yorker 2003: Peace Prize of the German Book Trade (Friedenspreis des deutschen Buchhandels) during the Frankfurt Book Fair (Frankfurter Buchmesse). 2003: Prince of Asturias Award on Literature. 2004: Two days after her death, Muhidin Hamamdzic, the mayor of Sarajevo announced the city would name a street after her, calling her an "author and a humanist who actively participated in the creation of the history of Sarajevo and Bosnia." Theatre Square outside the National Theatre was promptly proposed to be renamed Susan Sontag Theatre Square.[42] It took 5 years, however, for that tribute to become official.[43][44] On January 13, 2010, the city of Sarajevo posted a plate with a new street name for Theater Square: Theater Square of Susan Sontag.[43] Personal life[edit] Sontag's mother died of lung cancer in Hawaii in 1986.[1]

Sontag had a close romantic relationship with photographer Annie Leibovitz. They met in 1989, when both had already established notability in their careers. Leibovitz has suggested that Sontag mentored her and constructively criticized her work. During Sontag's lifetime, neither woman publicly disclosed whether the relationship was a friendship or romantic in nature. Newsweek in 2006 made reference to Leibovitz's decade-plus relationship with Sontag, stating, "The two first met in the late '80s, when Leibovitz photographed her for a book jacket. They never lived together, though they each had an apartment within view of the other's."[45] Leibovitz, when interviewed for her 2006 book A Photographer's Life: 1990-2005, said the book told a number of stories, and that "with Susan, it was a love story."[46] While The New York Times in 2009 referred to Sontag as Leibovitz's "companion",[47] Leibovitz wrote in A Photographer's Life that, "Words like 'companion' and 'partner' were not in our vocabulary. We were two people who helped each other through our lives. The closest word is still 'friend.'" [48] That same year, Leibovitz said the descriptor "lover" was accurate.[49] She later reiterated, "Call us 'lovers'. I like 'lovers.' You know, 'lovers' sounds romantic. I mean, I want to be perfectly clear. I love Susan."[50]

Sontag died in New York City on 28 December 2004, aged 71, from complications of myelodysplastic syndrome which had evolved into acute myelogenous leukemia. She is buried in Paris at Cimetière du Montparnasse.[51] Her final illness has been chronicled by her son, David Rieff.[52]

Sexuality and relationships[edit] Sontag became aware of her bisexuality during her early teens and at 15 wrote in her diary, "I feel I have lesbian tendencies (how reluctantly I write this)". At 16, she had a sexual encounter with a woman: "Perhaps I was drunk, after all, because it was so beautiful when H began making love to me...It had been 4:00 before we had gotten to bed...I became fully conscious that I desired her, she knew it, too".[53][54]

Sontag lived with 'H', the writer and model Harriet Sohmers Zwerling whom she first met at U. C. Berkeley from 1958 to 1959. Afterwards, Sontag was the partner of María Irene Fornés, a Cuban-American avant garde playwright and director. Upon splitting with Fornes, she was involved with an Italian aristocrat, Carlotta Del Pezzo, and the German academic Eva Kollisch.[55] Sontag was romantically involved with the American artists Jasper Johns and Paul Thek.[56] During the early 1970s, Sontag lived with Nicole Stéphane, a Rothschild banking heiress turned movie actress,[57] and, later, the choreographer Lucinda Childs.[58] She also had a relationship with the writer Joseph Brodsky.[59] With Annie Leibovitz, Sontag maintained a relationship stretching from the later 1980s until her final years.[60]

In an interview in The Guardian in 2000, Sontag was quite open about being bisexual: "'Shall I tell you about getting older?', she says, and she is laughing. 'When you get older, 45 plus, men stop fancying you. Or put it another way, the men I fancy don't fancy me. I want a young man. I love beauty. So what's new?' She says she has been in love seven times in her life. 'No, hang on,' she says. 'Actually, it's nine. Five women, four men.'"[1] Many of Sontag's obituaries failed to mention her significant same-sex relationships, most notably that with Annie Leibovitz. In response to this criticism, New York Times Public Editor, Daniel Okrent, defended the newspaper's obituary, stating that at the time of Sontag's death, a reporter could make no independent verification of her romantic relationship with Leibovitz (despite attempts to do so).[61] After Sontag's death, Newsweek published an article about Annie Leibovitz that made clear references to her decade-plus relationship with Sontag, stating that they "first met in the late '80s, when Leibovitz photographed her for a book jacket. They never lived together, though they each had an apartment within view of the other's".[60]

Sontag was quoted by Editor-in-Chief Brendan Lemon of Out magazine as saying "I grew up in a time when the modus operandi was the 'open secret'. I'm used to that, and quite OK with it. Intellectually, I know why I haven't spoken more about my sexuality, but I do wonder if I haven't repressed something there to my detriment. Maybe I could have given comfort to some people if I had dealt with the subject of my private sexuality more, but it's never been my prime mission to give comfort, unless somebody's in drastic need. I'd rather give pleasure, or shake things up."[citation needed]

Digital archive[edit] Sontag used a PowerBook 5300, a PowerMac G4, and an iBook. A digital archive of 17,198 of Sontag's emails is kept by the U.C.L.A. Department of Special Collections at the Charles E. Young Research Library.[62] Her archive and the efforts to make it publicly available while protecting it from bit rot, are the subject of the book On Excess: Susan Sontag’s Born-Digital Archive, by Jeremy Schmidt & Jacquelyn Ardam.[63]

Documentary[edit] A documentary about Sontag, titled Regarding Susan Sontag, premiered in 2014.[64] It was directed by Nancy Kates, and received the Special Jury Mention for Best Documentary Feature at the 2014 Tribeca Film Festival.[64][65]

סוזן סונטג

''''''

(באנגלית: Susan Sontag; ‏16 בינואר 1933 – 28 בדצמבר 2004) הייתה סופרת, במאית קולנוע, פילוסופית, מומחית בתורת הספרות ופעילה פוליטית יהודיה-אמריקאית.

סונטג התבטאה בסוגיות פוליטיות וחברתיות בכתב ובעל פה וכן נסעה אל אזורי עימות, ובכלל זה בתקופת מלחמת וייטנאם והמצור על סרייבו. היא כתבה בהרחבה על צילום, תרבות ותקשורת, איידס וחולי, זכויות אדם, וקומוניזם ואידאולוגיה שמאלנית. המאמרים ונאומיה לפעמים גררו ביקורת. The New York Review of Books הכתיר אותה כ"אחת מהמבקרים החשובים ביותר בדורה".[1]

תוכן עניינים 1 קורות חיים 2 עבודתה הספרותית 3 הגותה 4 מעורבות חברתית-ציבורית 5 רשימת יצירותיה 5.1 ספרות 5.2 מחזות 5.3 קובצי מאמרים 5.4 ספרי עיון 5.5 ספריה שראו אור בעברית 5.6 מאמרים שתורגמו לעברית 6 לקריאה נוספת 7 קישורים חיצוניים 8 הערות שוליים

קורות חיים

סונטג נולדה בשם סוזן רוזנבלט בעיר ניו יורק, לג'ק ולמילדרד רוזנבלט, שניהם יהודים אמריקאים. אביה היה פרוון בסין ושם מת ממחלת השחפת ב- 1939 כאשר סוזן הייתה בת חמש. שבע שנים לאחר מות אביה, נישאה אמה בשנית לנתן סונטג, קברניט בצבא ארצות הברית. לסוזן ואחותה ג'ודית ניתן שם משפחתו של אביהן החורג, אף שמעולם לא אימץ אותן באופן חוקי. סונטג לא קיבלה חינוך דתי וטענה שלא נכנסה לבית הכנסת עד אמצע שנות העשרים לחייה.[2]

רוב שנות ילדותה ונעוריה עברו עליה בעיר טוסון באריזונה ובגיל 15 סיימה את לימודי התיכון בלוס אנג'לס, בתיכון צפון הוליווד (North Hollywood High School). לאחר סיום לימודי התיכון החלה בלימודי תואר ראשון באוניברסיטת ברקלי, אולם במהלך הלימודים עברה ללמוד באוניברסיטת שיקגו מתוך הערצה לפרסומה ולתוכנית הליבה של האוניברסיטה. היא למדה פילוסופיה, היסטוריה עתיקה וספרות, וסיימה תואר ראשון. בעת לימודיה בשיקגו היא ומייק ניקולס הפכו לחברים טובים.[3] בהמשך, למדה באוניברסיטת הרווארד לתואר שני. בתחילה למדה ספרות עם פרי מילר והארי לוין, ולאחר מכן עברה ללמוד פילוסופיה ותאולוגיה עם מורים כמו פאול טיליך, יעקב טאובס, רפאל דמוס ומורטון ווייט. עם סיום התואר השני, המשיכה ללמוד בהרווארד לימודי דוקטורט במטפיזיקה, אתיקה, פילוסופיה יוונית ופילוסופיה קונטיננטלית ותאולוגיה.

עם סיום לימודי הדוקטורט זכתה סונטג במלגת מחקר מטעם American Association of University Women's לשנה אקדמית בקולג' סנט אן באוניברסיטת אוקספורד, לשם היא נסעה ללא בנה ובעלה. היא לא סיימה את תקופת מלגת המחקר באוקספורד, והמשיכה לסורבון בפריז. בפריז היא התחברה עם אמנים גולים, אינטלקטואלים ואנשי רוח. סונטג מציינת את תקופתה בפריז כתקופה החשובה ביותר בחייה. תקופה זו היוותה בסיס לחיבורה האינטלקטואלי והאמנותי עם התרבות הצרפתית.

עוד בתקופת לימודיה בשיקגו, בהיותה בת 17, נישאה למרצה לסוציולוגיה בשם פיליפ ריף, לאחר שזה חיזר אחריה במשך 10 ימים. השניים התגרשו לאחר שמונה שנות נישואים. במהלך הנישואים נולד לזוג בן - דייוויד ריף, לימים העורך הספרותי של אמו בהוצאת הספרים פרר, שטראוס וג'ירו ואף סופר בזכות עצמו.

סונטג הייתה ביסקסואלית, ועל משיכתה לנשים כתבה בפירוט כבר בגיל 15 ביומנה האישי.[4][5] בשנות ה-70 המוקדמות היא ניהלה מערכת יחסים עם השחקנית הצרפתייה ניקול סטפני (1923 – 2007)[6] ובהמשך הייתה בת זוגן של הצלמת אנני ליבוביץ', הכריאוגרפית לוזיאנה צ'יילדס והתסריטאית מריה אירין פורנס.[7] סונטג הייתה פתוחה לגבי נטייתה המינית, ואף דיברה על כך בהרחבה בראיון לעיתון הבריטי הגארדיאן בשנת 2000.[8]

עבודתה הספרותית סוזן סונטג החלה את עבודה הספרותית בעודה מלמדת פילוסופיה באוניברסיטת העיר ניו יורק וב- Sarah Lawrence College. במקביל היא גם לימדה עם מוריה פילוסופיה של הדת באוניברסיטת קולומביה בין השנים 1960-1964. ב-1965 היא סיימה את הקריירה האקדמית שלה והתמסרה לכתיבת ספרות ומסות.

ב- 1963, היא פרסמה רומן ניסיוני בשם "איש החסד" ( The Benefactor); בעקבותיו, ארבע שנים לאחר מכן, התפרסם ספרה Death Kit . למרות שלא פרסמה מספר רב של ספרים, סונטג התייחסה לעצמה בעיקר כסופרת. הסיפור הקצר שלה "The Way We Live" יצא לאור וזכה לשבחים רבים בניו יורקר 1986.[9] הסיפור מתאר את ראשיתו של משבר האיידס בראשית שנות השמונים בארצות הברית, כאשר המחלה החלה לגבות קרבנות מבני האליטה התרבותית בניו יורק. הסיפור מסופר כולו בצורה של שברי שיחה, אזכורים ולחישות. הוא מסופר, כביכול, על ידי חבריו הרבים של אלמוני השוכב חולה בבית חולים. מחלת האיידס עדיין לא היה מוכרת כשהופיע הסיפור לראשונה, ולמרות זאת, הסיפור זכה להצלחה ופופולריות. הוא נחשב ליצירת הדגל על מחלת איידס שנים ארוכות.[10]

סונטג זכתה להצלחה מאוחרת כסופרת עם פרסום רב המכר (The Volcano Lover (1992. בגיל 67 פרסמה את הרומן האחרון שלה, באמריקה (2000). בנוסף, היא כתבה וביימה ארבעה סרטים וכן כתבה מספר מחזות.

הגותה מאמריה של סונטג הם אלו שהביאו לה הכרה ומוניטין. בגיל 31 (1964) פרסמה את "הערות על קאמפ", מאמר שסימן אותה כאינטלקטואלית מבטיחה. במאמר היא דנה במשמעויות הקאמפ ב-58 היבטים שונים. היא מבטלת את הדיכוטומיה בין אמנות גבוהה ונמוכה, בוחנת את הקשר בין מעמד, תופעות חברתיות ופוליטיות לבין סגנון אסתטי, תפיסות מיניות ועוד.[11]

בספר "נגד פרשנות ומאמרים נוספים" (Against Interpretation)‏ (1966), עוסקת סונטג במחלוקות בין שני סוגים שונים של ביקורת אמנות ותאוריה: פרשנות פורמליסטית, ופרשנות מבוססת תוכן. היא יוצאת נגד עיסוק היתר בפרשנות באמנות (באמנות הפלסטית, בספרות, בקולנוע ובתיאטרון). לטענתה הפרשנות "השתלטה" על האמנות והפכה את האמנות לצייתנית. הפרשנות הפורמליסטית, היא הפרשנות המודרנית, איבדה את הרגישות והיא שואפת לחפור עד הרס. על אף שמו של המאמר, סונטג אינה מתנגדת כלל לפרשנות. פרשנות התוכן מאפשרת להתחבר להיבטים החושניים ולחבר מחדש את התוכן והצורה של עבודת האמנות. ההנאה מאמנות פוחתת בגלל עומס יתר על החושים שיוצרת הפרשנות ובעזרת "המצאת" אוצר מילים על מה העבודה עושה ואיך היא עושה.[12][13][14]

סונטג כותבת בספרה הצילום כראי התקופה (1977, 1978) כי הקלות בצילום מודרני יצרה עודף של חומר ויזואלי, ונראה כאילו הכל כבר צולם. המצלמה המודרנית הקלה לתפעול, שזמינותה רבה בעולם המערבי, שינתה את תפיסת המציאות, את תפיסת הזמן - היכולת לתעד את ההווה, וגרמה לטשטוש בין אמנות לצילום התפקודי. תמונות מסוגלות לתפוס את מקומה של המציאות, ראשית משום שתצלום אינו בבואה או אינטרפטציה של הממשי, אלא הוא גם דבר מה הלקוח במישרין מהמציאות. זמינות הצילום שינתה את הציפיות שלנו בנוגע לאובייקטים עליהם ראוי להתבונן, שאנחנו מעוניינים להתבונן עליהם, והאם יש לנו זכות להציגם. נוצר קוד אתי חזותי חדש. הצילום הרחיב את הידע שלנו על מקומות רחוקים ותיעד רגעים היסטוריים שעד כה לא היו נגישים. סונטג מפנה את תשומת ליבנו לכך שהצילום הוריד את רמת הרגישות של קהל הצופים וחשף אותם לחוויות אנושיות מחרידות.[15]

סונטג שואלת במחלה כמטאפורה (1978, 1979), באיזו מידה מדע הרפואה מושפע מהתרבות? האם דימויים של מחלות, משפיעים על ההבנה הרפואית שלנו? היא קראה תיגר על המנטליות של "האשמת הקורבן", שמסתתרת מאחורי השפה בה אנו משתמשים כדי לתאר מחלות ואת אלה הסובלים מהן. היא מדגימה את טיעוניה תוך כדי בחינת היחס למחלת הסרטן במאה ה-20 ומחלת השחפת במאה ה-19. סונטג מראה כי שתי המחלות מתקשרות עם תכונות פסיכולוגיות. היא טוענת שמטאפורות ומונחים המשמשים לתיאור שתי המחלות הובילו ליצירת קשר בין המבנה האישיותי של החולה לבין המחלה הפיזית עצמה. לסרטן מיוחסים רגשות קיצוניים, דיכוי נפשי, סגפנות והדחקה, ואילו השחפת נתפסה כמחלה של רומנטיקנים, משוררים, אמנים, וקשורה בתשוקות חסרות מימוש וחוסר יכולת לממש אידיאלים רומנטיים.[16][17]

סונטג המשיכה לפתח את התאוריה על תפקידו של הצילום בחיים האמיתיים במאמרים ובספרה להתבונן בסבלם של אחרים (2003, 2005). ספר זה אינו המשך או הרחבה של "הצילום בראי התקופה" אלא הוא בעיקר עוסק בצילום מלחמה. באמצעות הדיון בצילום היא מבקשת לענות על אחת משלוש השאלות שהוצגו ב"שלוש הגינאות" ספרה של וירג'יניה וולף, "איך לדעתך ניתן למנוע מלחמה?".

הספר מבקש לעורר את הקורא להרהר באופן שבו אנחנו מתבוננים בתצלומים שמתעדים את פגעי המלחמה. אילו תגובות מתעוררות בנו כאשר אנחנו מתבוננים בתמונות של החורבן, פציעה ומוות. ההתבוננות מביאה, לרוב, לתחושות של אמפתיה כלפי מי שסובל, אולם ההזדהות מניעה מעטים ביותר לפעולה.

להתבונן בסבלם של אחרים היה הספר האחרון שסוזן סונטג פרסמה לפני מותה. הספר זכתה לפרס The National Book Critics Circle Awards לשנת 2013.[18][19][20]

מעורבות חברתית-ציבורית סוזן סונטג הייתה פעילה פוליטית גם לאחר 1960. כסופרת עסקה בנושאים הנוגעים לזכויות אדם, מיעוטים ואקטיביזם. היא נסעה להאנוי בעת ההפצצות האמריקאיות על העיר בעת מלחמת וייטנאם וכתבה באופן אוהד על החברה הצפון וייטנאמית. לדידה, הייתה הבחנה ברורה בין האידאולוגיה הצפון וייטנאמית לבין סין המאואיסטית וכן הקומוניזם המזרח-אירופאי, אותו כינתה בשלב מאוחר יותר בחייה "פשיזם עם פנים אנושיות". ב-1982 היא הזדהתה עם תנועת סולידריות הפולנית.

בין השנים 1987-1989, בזמן שכיהנה סונטג כנשיאה של הסניף האמריקאי של ארגון הסופרים הבינלאומי PEN, איתאללה רוחאללה חומייני קרא למותו של הסופר סלמאן רושדי בגלל הדרך בה הוצגה דמותו של הנביא מוחמד בספר "פסוקי השטן". סונטג הובילה את המחאה בקהילה הספרותית.[21]

בשנות התשעים נסעה סונטג מספר פעמים לסרייבו וקראה לפעולה בינלאומית נגד מלחמת האזרחים המתרחבת באזור. בשנת 1993, היא הפיקה בסרייבו מחזה "מחכים לגודו".[22]

סונטג זכתה בשנת 2001 בפרס ירושלים לספרות.

סונטג הלכה לעולמה ב-28 בדצמבר 2004, בגיל 71, מלוקמיה. כשלושים שנים קודם למותה קיבלה כימותרפיה והקרנות לטיפול בסרטן השד וסרטן הרחם בהם לקתה. היא נקברה בבית הקברות מונפרנאס בפריז. את תקופת מחלתה האחרונה תיעד בנה דייוויד ריף.

רשימת יצירותיה ספרות (1963) The Benefactor ISBN 0-385-26710-X (1967) Death Kit ISBN 0-312-42011-0 (1977) I, etcetera (Collection of short stories) ISBN 0-374-17402-4 (1991) The Way We Live Now (short story) ISBN 0-374-52305-3 (1992) The Volcano Lover ISBN 1-55800-818-7 (1999) In America ISBN 1-56895-898-6 (National Book Award for fiction in 2000) מחזות (1991) "A Parsifal"[23] (1993) Alice in Bed[24] (1999) "Lady from the Sea"[25] קובצי מאמרים (1966) Against Interpretation ISBN 0-385-26708-8 (includes Notes on "Camp") (1969) Styles of Radical Will ISBN 0-312-42021-8 (1980) Under the Sign of Saturn ISBN 0-374-28076-2 (2001) Where the Stress Falls ISBN 0-374-28917-4 (2007) At the Same Time: Essays & Speeches ISBN 0-374-10072-1 ספרי עיון (1977) On Photography ISBN 0-374-22626-1 (1978) Illness as Metaphor ISBN 0-394-72844-0 (1988) AIDS and Its Metaphors (a continuation of Illness as Metaphor) ISBN 0-374-10257-0 (2003) Regarding the Pain of Others ISBN 0-374-24858-3 ספריה שראו אור בעברית המחלה כמטאפורה. מאנגלית: יהודא לנדא. תל אביב: עם עובד, 1980. הצילום כראי התקופה. מאנגלית: יורם ברונובסקי. תל אביב: עם עובד, 1979. באמריקה. מאנגלית: עדה פלדור. ירושלים: הוצאת כתר, 2005. ISBN 9650713182 להתבונן בסבלם של אחרים. מאנגלית: מתי בן יעקב. בן-שמן: מודן, 2005. מאמרים שתורגמו לעברית "נגד פרשנות", המדרשה, גיליון מס' 12, סתיו 2009, עמ' 29-39 ״הערות על קאמפ״, סרטים - כתב-עת לקולנוע, גיליון מס׳ 3, 1987, עמ׳ 47-53 לקריאה נוספת Sontag and Kael by Craig Seligman ISBN 1-58243-311-9. The Din in the Head. Essays by Cynthia Ozick ISBN 978-0-618-47050-1 See Forward: On Discord and Desire. Conversations with Susan Sontag. Edited by Leland Poague ISBN 0-87805-833-8 Susan Sontag in her own words. Susan Sontag. The Elegiac Modernist by Sohnya Sayres ISBN 0-415-90031-X Swimming in a Sea of Death by David Rieff A memoir about Susan Sontag's death by her son. ISBN 0743299469 קישורים חיצוניים ויקישיתוף מדיה וקבצים בנושא סוזן סונטג בוויקישיתוף IMDB Logo 2016.svg סוזן סונטג , במסד הנתונים הקולנועיים IMDb (באנגלית) Allmovie Logo.png סוזן סונטג , באתר AllMovie (באנגלית) סוזן זונטג מספרת איך זה מרגיש לעשות סרט , באתר תקריב: כתב עת לקולנוע דוקומנטרי, גיליון 4, יוני 2012 תשוקה וייסורים ביומני סוזן זונטג , הארץ, 26 בפברואר 2009 אשת חיל הסופרת והאינטלקטואלית האמריקנית סוזן זונטג , גלובס, 29 בפברואר 2004 פרופ' קלייר רבין, המדונה של האינטלקטואלים , nrg, ‏6 ביוני 2001 סוזן זונטג, כוחו של העיקרון , באתר "מסרבים למען ישראל" Errol Morris, Which Came First, the Chicken or the Egg? (Part One) , The New York Times טרזה גראואר, סוזן סונטג , באנציקלופדיה לנשים יהודיות (באנגלית) צבי ינאי, ‏המציאות הקפואה של המצלמה , מחשבות 49, אוקטובר 1980, עמ' 12–19 סוזן סונטג

באתר Find a Grave (באנגלית) https://he.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D7%A1%D7%95%D7%96%D7%9F_%D7%A1%D7%95...

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susan_Sontag

Susan Sontag (/ˈsɒntæɡ/; January 16, 1933 – December 28, 2004) was an American writer and filmmaker, teacher and political activist, publishing her first major work, the essay "Notes on 'Camp'", in 1964. Her best known works include On Photography, Against Interpretation, Styles of Radical Will, The Way We Live Now, Illness as Metaphor, Regarding the Pain of Others, The Volcano Lover and In America.

Sontag was active in writing and speaking about, or travelling to, areas of conflict, including during the Vietnam War and the Siege of Sarajevo. She wrote extensively about photography, culture and media, AIDS and illness, human rights, and communism and leftist ideology. Her essays and speeches sometimes drew criticism. The New York Review of Books called her "one of the most influential critics of her generation."[2]

Contents [show] Early life and education[edit] Sontag was born Susan Rosenblatt in New York City, the daughter of Mildred (née Jacobson) and Jack Rosenblatt, both Jewish. Her father managed a fur trading business in China, where he died of tuberculosis in 1939, when Susan was five years old.[1] Seven years later, her mother married U.S. Army Captain Nathan Sontag. Susan and her sister, Judith, were given their stepfather's surname, although he never adopted them formally.[1] Sontag did not have a religious upbringing and claimed not to have entered a synagogue until her mid-twenties.[3] Remembering an unhappy childhood, with a cold, distant mother who was "always away," Sontag lived in Long Island, New York,[1] then in Tucson, Arizona, and later in the San Fernando Valley in Southern California, where she took refuge in books and graduated from North Hollywood High School at the age of 15. She began her undergraduate studies at the University of California, Berkeley but transferred to the University of Chicago in admiration of its famed core curriculum. At Chicago, she undertook studies in philosophy, ancient history and literature alongside her other requirements. Leo Strauss, Joseph Schwab, Christian Mackauer, Richard McKeon, Peter von Blanckenhagen and Kenneth Burke were among her lecturers. She graduated with an A.B.[4] While at Chicago, she became best friends with fellow student Mike Nichols.[5]

At 17, Sontag married writer Philip Rieff, who was a sociology instructor at the University of Chicago, after a ten-day courtship; the marriage lasted for eight years.[6] While studying at Chicago, Sontag attended a summer school taught by the Sociologist Hans Heinrich Gerth who became a friend and subsequently influenced her study of German thinkers.[7] Upon completing her Chicago degree, Sontag taught freshman English at the University of Connecticut for the 1952–53 academic year. She attended Harvard University for graduate school, initially studying literature with Perry Miller and Harry Levin before moving into philosophy and theology under Paul Tillich, Jacob Taubes, Raphael Demos and Morton White.[8] After completing her master of arts in philosophy, she began doctoral research into metaphysics, ethics, Greek philosophy and Continental philosophy and theology at Harvard.[9] The philosopher Herbert Marcuse lived with Sontag and Rieff for a year while working on his 1955 book Eros and Civilization.[10] Sontag researched and contributed to Rieff's 1959 study Freud: The Mind of the Moralist prior to their divorce in 1958. The couple had a son, David Rieff, who later became his mother's editor at Farrar, Straus and Giroux, as well as a writer.

Sontag was awarded an American Association of University Women's fellowship for the 1957–1958 academic year to St Anne's College, Oxford, where she traveled without her husband and son.[11] There, she had classes with Iris Murdoch, Stuart Hampshire, A. J. Ayer and H. L. A. Hart while also attending the B. Phil seminars of J. L. Austin and the lectures of Isaiah Berlin. Oxford did not appeal to her, however, and she transferred after Michaelmas term of 1957 to the University of Paris.[12] In Paris, Sontag socialized with expatriate artists and academics including Allan Bloom, Jean Wahl, Alfred Chester, Harriet Sohmers and María Irene Fornés.[13] Sontag remarked that her time in Paris was, perhaps, the most important period of her life.[14] It certainly provided the basis of her long intellectual and artistic association with the culture of France.[15] She moved to New York in 1959 to live with Fornés for the next seven years,[16] regaining custody of her son[11] and teaching at universities while her literary reputation grew.[17]

Fiction[edit] Sontag's literary career began and ended with works of fiction. While working on her fiction, Sontag taught philosophy at Sarah Lawrence College and City University of New York and the Philosophy of Religion with Jacob Taubes, Susan Taubes, Theodor Gaster, and Hans Jonas, in the Religion Department at Columbia University from 1960 to 1964. Sontag held a writing fellowship at Rutgers University for 1964 to 1965 before ending her relationship with academia in favor of full-time freelance writing.[18]

At age 30, she published an experimental novel called The Benefactor (1963), following it four years later with Death Kit (1967). Despite a relatively small output, Sontag thought of herself principally as a novelist and writer of fiction. Her short story "The Way We Live Now" was published to great acclaim on November 26, 1986 in The New Yorker. Written in an experimental narrative style, it remains a significant text on the AIDS epidemic. She achieved late popular success as a best-selling novelist with The Volcano Lover (1992). At age 67, Sontag published her final novel In America (2000). The last two novels were set in the past, which Sontag said gave her greater freedom to write in the polyphonic voice.[citation needed]

She wrote and directed four films and also wrote several plays, the most successful of which were Alice in Bed and Lady from the Sea.[citation needed]

Nonfiction[edit] It was through her essays that Sontag gained early fame and notoriety. Sontag wrote frequently about the intersection of high and low art and expanded the dichotomy concept of form and art in every media. She elevated camp to the status of recognition with her widely read 1964 essay "Notes on 'Camp'," which accepted art as including common, absurd and burlesque themes.

In 1977, Sontag published the series of essays On Photography. These essays are an exploration of photographs as a collection of the world, mainly by travelers or tourists, and the way we experience it. In the essays, she outlined her theory of taking pictures as you travel:

The method especially appeals to people handicapped by a ruthless work ethic – Germans, Japanese and Americans. Using a camera appeases the anxiety which the work driven feel about not working when they are on vacation and supposed to be having fun. They have something to do that is like a friendly imitation of work: they can take pictures. (p. 10)

Sontag writes that the convenience of modern photography has created an overabundance of visual material, and "just about everything has been photographed".[19] This has altered our expectations of what we have the right to view, want to view or should view. "In teaching us a new visual code, photographs alter and enlarge our notion of what is worth looking at and what we have the right to observe" and has changed our "viewing ethics".[19] Photographs have increased our access to knowledge and experiences of history and faraway places, but the images may replace direct experience and limit reality.[20] She also states that photography desensitizes its audience to horrific human experiences, and children are exposed to experiences before they are ready for them.[21]

Sontag continued to theorize about the role of photography in real life in her essay "Looking at War: Photography's View of Devastation and Death", which appeared in the December 9, 2002 issue of The New Yorker. There she concludes that the problem of our reliance on images and especially photographic images is not that "people remember through photographs but that they remember only the photographs ... that the photographic image eclipses other forms of understanding – and remembering. ... To remember is, more and more, not to recall a story but to be able to call up a picture" (p. 94).

She became a role-model for many feminists and aspiring female writers during the 1960s and 1970s.[22]

Activism[edit]

The former Sarajevo newspaper building during the Siege of Sarajevo, when Sontag lived in the city During 1989 Sontag was the President of PEN American Center, the main U.S. branch of the International PEN writers' organization. After Iranian leader Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa death sentence against writer Salman Rushdie for blasphemy after the publication of his novel The Satanic Verses that year, Sontag's uncompromising support of Rushdie was critical in rallying American writers to his cause.[23]

A few years later, during the Siege of Sarajevo, Sontag gained attention for directing a production of Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot in a candlelit Sarajevo theatre in the city, that the Daily Telegraph called "mesmerisingly precious and hideously self-indulgent".[24] However, her involvement with the city was well regarded by its besieged residents:

To the people of Sarajevo, Ms. Sontag has become a symbol, interviewed frequently by the local newspapers and television, invited to speak at gatherings everywhere, asked for autographs on the street. After the opening performance of the play, the city's Mayor, Muhamed Kresevljakovic, came onstage to declare her an honorary citizen, the only foreigner other than the recently departed United Nations commander, Lieut. Gen. Phillippe Morillon, to be so named. "It is for your bravery, in coming here, living here, and working with us," he said.[25]

Criticism[edit] Sontag drew criticism for writing in 1967 in the Partisan Review that,

If America is the culmination of Western white civilization, as everyone from the Left to the Right declares, then there must be something terribly wrong with Western white civilization. This is a painful truth; few of us want to go that far. … The truth is that Mozart, Pascal, Boolean algebra, Shakespeare, parliamentary government, baroque churches, Newton, the emancipation of women, Kant, Marx, Balanchine ballets, et al., don't redeem what this particular civilization has wrought upon the world. The white race is the cancer of human history; it is the white race and it alone—its ideologies and inventions—which eradicates autonomous civilizations wherever it spreads, which has upset the ecological balance of the planet, which now threatens the very existence of life itself.[26]

According to journalist Mark M. Goldblatt, Sontag later recanted this statement, saying that "it slandered cancer patients",[27] though according to Eliot Weinberger, "She came to regret that last phrase, and wrote a whole book against the use of illness as metaphor".[28]

In a 1970 article titled America as a Gun Culture, the noted historian Richard Hofstadter wrote:

Modern critics of our culture who, like Susan Sontag, seem to know nothing of American history, who regard the white race as a "cancer" and assert that the United States was "founded on a genocide," may fantasize that the Indians fought according to the rules of the Geneva Convention. But in the tragic conflict of which they were to be the chief victims, they were capable of striking terrible blows.[29]

In "Sontag, Bloody Sontag", an essay in her 1994 book Vamps & Tramps, Camille Paglia describes her initial admiration and subsequent disillusionment:

Sontag's cool exile was a disaster for the American women's movement. Only a woman of her prestige could have performed the necessary critique and debunking of the first instant-canon feminist screeds, such as those of Kate Millett or Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar, whose middlebrow mediocrity crippled women's studies from the start. No patriarchal villains held Sontag back; her failures are her own.

Paglia mentions several criticisms of Sontag, including Harold Bloom's comment on Paglia's doctoral dissertation, of "Mere Sontagisme!" This "had become synonymous with a shallow kind of hip posturing".[page needed] Paglia also describes Sontag as a "sanctimonious moralist of the old-guard literary world", and tells of a visit by Sontag to Bennington College, in which she arrived hours late, ignored the agreed-upon topic of the event, and made an incessant series of ridiculous demands.[page needed] Similar behavior was reported when she staged her Godot; one observer recalled, "I have never seen anything as degrading and insufferable as her conduct towards the Sarajevans. . . . [S]he never listened to any of them but only uttered lordly pronouncements as she held court in the Sarajevo Holiday Inn, while outside scores daily died."[30]

Ellen Lee accused Sontag of plagiarism when Lee discovered at least twelve passages in In America that were similar to, or copied from, passages in four other books about Helena Modjeska without attribution.[31][32] Sontag said about using the passages, "All of us who deal with real characters in history transcribe and adopt original sources in the original domain. I've used these sources and I've completely transformed them. There's a larger argument to be made that all of literature is a series of references and allusions."[33]

At a New York pro-Solidarity rally in 1982, Sontag stated that "people on the left", like herself, "have willingly or unwillingly told a lot of lies".[34] She added that they:

believed in, or at least applied, a double standard to the angelic language of Communism.. Communism is Fascism—successful Fascism, if you will. What we have called Fascism is, rather, the form of tyranny that can be overthrown—that has, largely, failed. I repeat: not only is Fascism (and overt military rule) the probable destiny of all Communist societies—especially when their populations are moved to revolt—but Communism is in itself a variant, the most successful variant, of Fascism. Fascism with a human face... Imagine, if you will, someone who read only the Reader's Digest between 1950 and 1970, and someone in the same period who read only The Nation or [t]he New Statesman. Which reader would have been better informed about the realities of Communism? The answer, I think, should give us pause. Can it be that our enemies were right?[34]

Sontag's speech reportedly "drew boos and shouts from the audience". The Nation published her speech, excluding the passage comparing the magazine with Reader's Digest. Responses included accusations that she had betrayed her ideals.[34]

Sontag received angry criticism for her remarks in The New Yorker (September 24, 2001) about the immediate aftermath of the September 11th, 2001 attacks.[35] In her commentary, she criticized U.S. public officials and media commentators for trying to convince the American public that "everything is O.K." Specifically, she argued that the perpetrators "were not cowards" and that we should acknowledge that "this was not a 'cowardly' attack on 'civilization' or 'liberty' or 'humanity' or 'the free world' but an attack on the world's self-proclaimed superpower, undertaken as a consequence of specific American alliances and actions".[36]

Works[edit] Fiction[edit] (1963) The Benefactor ISBN 0-385-26710-X (1967) Death Kit ISBN 0-312-42011-0 (1977) I, etcetera (Collection of short stories) ISBN 0-374-17402-4 (1991) The Way We Live Now (short story) ISBN 0-374-52305-3 (1992) The Volcano Lover ISBN 1-55800-818-7 (1999) In America ISBN 1-56895-898-6 – winner of the 2000 U.S. National Book Award for Fiction[37] Plays[edit] The Way We Live Now (1990) about the AIDS epidemic A Parsifal (1991), a deconstruction inspired by Robert Wilson's 1991 staging of the Wagner opera[38] Alice in Bed (1993), about 19th century intellectual, Alice James, who was confined to bed by illness[39] Lady from the Sea, an adaptation of Henrik Ibsen's 1888 play of the same name, premiered in 1998 in Italy.[40] Sontag wrote an essay about it in 1999 in Theatre called "Rewriting Lady from the Sea".[41] Nonfiction[edit] Collections of essays[edit] (1966) Against Interpretation ISBN 0-385-26708-8 (includes Notes on "Camp") (1969) Styles of Radical Will ISBN 0-312-42021-8 (1980) Under the Sign of Saturn ISBN 0-374-28076-2 (2001) Where the Stress Falls ISBN 0-374-28917-4 (2002) Regarding the Pain of Others ISBN 0-374-24858-3 (2007) At the Same Time: Essays & Speeches ISBN 0-374-10072-1 (edited by Paolo Dilonardo and Anne Jump, with a foreword by David Rieff) Sontag also published nonfiction essays in The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books, Times Literary Supplement, The Nation, Granta, Partisan Review and the London Review of Books.

Monographs[edit] (1977) On Photography ISBN 0-374-22626-1 (1978) Illness as Metaphor ISBN 0-394-72844-0 (1988) AIDS and Its Metaphors (a continuation of Illness as Metaphor) ISBN 0-374-10257-0 (2003) Regarding the Pain of Others ISBN 0-374-24858-3 Films[edit] (1969) Duett för kannibaler (Duet for Cannibals) (1971) Broder Carl (Brother Carl) (1974) Promised Lands (1983) Unguided Tour AKA Letter from Venice Other works[edit] (2002) Liner notes for the Patti Smith album Land (2004) Contribution of phrases to Fischerspooner's third album Odyssey (2008) Reborn: Journals and Notebooks 1947–1963 (2012) As Consciousness Is Harnessed to Flesh: Journals and Notebooks, 1964–1980 Awards and honors[edit] 1978: National Book Critics Circle Award for On Photography 1990: MacArthur Fellowship 1992: Malaparte Prize, Italy 1999: Commandeur de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, France 2000: National Book Award for In America[37] 2001: Jerusalem Prize, awarded every two years to a writer whose work explores the freedom of the individual in society. 2002: George Polk Award, for Cultural Criticism for "Looking at War," in The New Yorker 2003: Peace Prize of the German Book Trade (Friedenspreis des deutschen Buchhandels) during the Frankfurt Book Fair (Frankfurter Buchmesse). 2003: Prince of Asturias Award on Literature. 2004: Two days after her death, Muhidin Hamamdzic, the mayor of Sarajevo announced the city would name a street after her, calling her an "author and a humanist who actively participated in the creation of the history of Sarajevo and Bosnia." Theatre Square outside the National Theatre was promptly proposed to be renamed Susan Sontag Theatre Square.[42] It took 5 years, however, for that tribute to become official.[43][44] On January 13, 2010, the city of Sarajevo posted a plate with a new street name for Theater Square: Theater Square of Susan Sontag.[43] Personal life[edit] Sontag's mother died of lung cancer in Hawaii in 1986.[1]

Sontag had a close romantic relationship with photographer Annie Leibovitz. They met in 1989, when both had already established notability in their careers. Leibovitz has suggested that Sontag mentored her and constructively criticized her work. During Sontag's lifetime, neither woman publicly disclosed whether the relationship was a friendship or romantic in nature. Newsweek in 2006 made reference to Leibovitz's decade-plus relationship with Sontag, stating, "The two first met in the late '80s, when Leibovitz photographed her for a book jacket. They never lived together, though they each had an apartment within view of the other's."[45] Leibovitz, when interviewed for her 2006 book A Photographer's Life: 1990-2005, said the book told a number of stories, and that "with Susan, it was a love story."[46] While The New York Times in 2009 referred to Sontag as Leibovitz's "companion",[47] Leibovitz wrote in A Photographer's Life that, "Words like 'companion' and 'partner' were not in our vocabulary. We were two people who helped each other through our lives. The closest word is still 'friend.'" [48] That same year, Leibovitz said the descriptor "lover" was accurate.[49] She later reiterated, "Call us 'lovers'. I like 'lovers.' You know, 'lovers' sounds romantic. I mean, I want to be perfectly clear. I love Susan."[50]

Sontag died in New York City on 28 December 2004, aged 71, from complications of myelodysplastic syndrome which had evolved into acute myelogenous leukemia. She is buried in Paris at Cimetière du Montparnasse.[51] Her final illness has been chronicled by her son, David Rieff.[52]

Sexuality and relationships[edit] Sontag became aware of her bisexuality during her early teens and at 15 wrote in her diary, "I feel I have lesbian tendencies (how reluctantly I write this)". At 16, she had a sexual encounter with a woman: "Perhaps I was drunk, after all, because it was so beautiful when H began making love to me...It had been 4:00 before we had gotten to bed...I became fully conscious that I desired her, she knew it, too".[53][54]

Sontag lived with 'H', the writer and model Harriet Sohmers Zwerling whom she first met at U. C. Berkeley from 1958 to 1959. Afterwards, Sontag was the partner of María Irene Fornés, a Cuban-American avant garde playwright and director. Upon splitting with Fornes, she was involved with an Italian aristocrat, Carlotta Del Pezzo, and the German academic Eva Kollisch.[55] Sontag was romantically involved with the American artists Jasper Johns and Paul Thek.[56] During the early 1970s, Sontag lived with Nicole Stéphane, a Rothschild banking heiress turned movie actress,[57] and, later, the choreographer Lucinda Childs.[58] She also had a relationship with the writer Joseph Brodsky.[59] With Annie Leibovitz, Sontag maintained a relationship stretching from the later 1980s until her final years.[60]

In an interview in The Guardian in 2000, Sontag was quite open about being bisexual: "'Shall I tell you about getting older?', she says, and she is laughing. 'When you get older, 45 plus, men stop fancying you. Or put it another way, the men I fancy don't fancy me. I want a young man. I love beauty. So what's new?' She says she has been in love seven times in her life. 'No, hang on,' she says. 'Actually, it's nine. Five women, four men.'"[1] Many of Sontag's obituaries failed to mention her significant same-sex relationships, most notably that with Annie Leibovitz. In response to this criticism, New York Times Public Editor, Daniel Okrent, defended the newspaper's obituary, stating that at the time of Sontag's death, a reporter could make no independent verification of her romantic relationship with Leibovitz (despite attempts to do so).[61] After Sontag's death, Newsweek published an article about Annie Leibovitz that made clear references to her decade-plus relationship with Sontag, stating that they "first met in the late '80s, when Leibovitz photographed her for a book jacket. They never lived together, though they each had an apartment within view of the other's".[60]

Sontag was quoted by Editor-in-Chief Brendan Lemon of Out magazine as saying "I grew up in a time when the modus operandi was the 'open secret'. I'm used to that, and quite OK with it. Intellectually, I know why I haven't spoken more about my sexuality, but I do wonder if I haven't repressed something there to my detriment. Maybe I could have given comfort to some people if I had dealt with the subject of my private sexuality more, but it's never been my prime mission to give comfort, unless somebody's in drastic need. I'd rather give pleasure, or shake things up."[citation needed]

Digital archive[edit] Sontag used a PowerBook 5300, a PowerMac G4, and an iBook. A digital archive of 17,198 of Sontag's emails is kept by the U.C.L.A. Department of Special Collections at the Charles E. Young Research Library.[62] Her archive and the efforts to make it publicly available while protecting it from bit rot, are the subject of the book On Excess: Susan Sontag’s Born-Digital Archive, by Jeremy Schmidt & Jacquelyn Ardam.[63]

Documentary[edit] A documentary about Sontag, titled Regarding Susan Sontag, premiered in 2014.[64] It was directed by Nancy Kates, and received the Special Jury Mention for Best Documentary Feature at the 2014 Tribeca Film Festival.[64][65]