essay susan sontag

• Share full article

Advertisement

Supported by

Regarding The Torture Of Others

By Susan Sontag

• May 23, 2004

Correction Appended

For a long time -- at least six decades -- photographs have laid down the tracks of how important conflicts are judged and remembered. The Western memory museum is now mostly a visual one. Photographs have an insuperable power to determine what we recall of events, and it now seems probable that the defining association of people everywhere with the war that the United States launched pre-emptively in Iraq last year will be photographs of the torture of Iraqi prisoners by Americans in the most infamous of Saddam Hussein's prisons, Abu Ghraib.

The Bush administration and its defenders have chiefly sought to limit a public-relations disaster -- the dissemination of the photographs -- rather than deal with the complex crimes of leadership and of policy revealed by the pictures. There was, first of all, the displacement of the reality onto the photographs themselves. The administration's initial response was to say that the president was shocked and disgusted by the photographs -- as if the fault or horror lay in the images, not in what they depict. There was also the avoidance of the word ''torture.'' The prisoners had possibly been the objects of ''abuse,'' eventually of ''humiliation'' -- that was the most to be admitted. ''My impression is that what has been charged thus far is abuse, which I believe technically is different from torture,'' Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said at a press conference. ''And therefore I'm not going to address the 'torture' word.''

Words alter, words add, words subtract. It was the strenuous avoidance of the word ''genocide'' while some 800,000 Tutsis in Rwanda were being slaughtered, over a few weeks' time, by their Hutu neighbors 10 years ago that indicated the American government had no intention of doing anything. To refuse to call what took place in Abu Ghraib -- and what has taken place elsewhere in Iraq and in Afghanistan and at Guantánamo Bay -- by its true name, torture, is as outrageous as the refusal to call the Rwandan genocide a genocide. Here is one of the definitions of torture contained in a convention to which the United States is a signatory: ''any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession.'' (The definition comes from the 1984 Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. Similar definitions have existed for some time in customary law and in treaties, starting with Article 3 -- common to the four Geneva conventions of 1949 -- and many recent human rights conventions.) The 1984 convention declares, ''No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat of war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture.'' And all covenants on torture specify that it includes treatment intended to humiliate the victim, like leaving prisoners naked in cells and corridors.

Whatever actions this administration undertakes to limit the damage of the widening revelations of the torture of prisoners in Abu Ghraib and elsewhere -- trials, courts-martial, dishonorable discharges, resignation of senior military figures and responsible administration officials and substantial compensation to the victims -- it is probable that the ''torture'' word will continue to be banned. To acknowledge that Americans torture their prisoners would contradict everything this administration has invited the public to believe about the virtue of American intentions and America's right, flowing from that virtue, to undertake unilateral action on the world stage.

Even when the president was finally compelled, as the damage to America's reputation everywhere in the world widened and deepened, to use the ''sorry'' word, the focus of regret still seemed the damage to America's claim to moral superiority. Yes, President Bush said in Washington on May 6, standing alongside King Abdullah II of Jordan, he was ''sorry for the humiliation suffered by the Iraqi prisoners and the humiliation suffered by their families.'' But, he went on, he was ''equally sorry that people seeing these pictures didn't understand the true nature and heart of America.''

To have the American effort in Iraq summed up by these images must seem, to those who saw some justification in a war that did overthrow one of the monster tyrants of modern times, ''unfair.'' A war, an occupation, is inevitably a huge tapestry of actions. What makes some actions representative and others not? The issue is not whether the torture was done by individuals (i.e., ''not by everybody'') -- but whether it was systematic. Authorized. Condoned. All acts are done by individuals. The issue is not whether a majority or a minority of Americans performs such acts but whether the nature of the policies prosecuted by this administration and the hierarchies deployed to carry them out makes such acts likely.

We are having trouble retrieving the article content.

Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.

Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and  log into  your Times account, or  subscribe  for all of The Times.

Thank you for your patience while we verify access.

Already a subscriber?  Log in .

Want all of The Times?  Subscribe .

We’re fighting to restore access to 500,000+ books in court this week. Join us!

Send me an email reminder

By submitting, you agree to receive donor-related emails from the Internet Archive. Your privacy is important to us. We do not sell or trade your information with anyone.

Internet Archive Audio

• This Just In
• Grateful Dead
• Old Time Radio
• 78 RPMs and Cylinder Recordings
• Audio Books & Poetry
• Computers, Technology and Science
• Music, Arts & Culture
• News & Public Affairs
• Spirituality & Religion
• Radio News Archive

• Flickr Commons
• Occupy Wall Street Flickr
• NASA Images
• Solar System Collection
• Ames Research Center

• All Software
• Old School Emulation
• MS-DOS Games
• Historical Software
• Classic PC Games
• Software Library
• Kodi Archive and Support File
• Vintage Software
• CD-ROM Software
• CD-ROM Software Library
• Software Sites
• Tucows Software Library
• Shareware CD-ROMs
• Software Capsules Compilation
• CD-ROM Images
• ZX Spectrum
• DOOM Level CD

• Smithsonian Libraries
• FEDLINK (US)
• Lincoln Collection
• American Libraries
• Canadian Libraries
• Universal Library
• Project Gutenberg
• Children's Library
• Biodiversity Heritage Library
• Books by Language
• Additional Collections

• Prelinger Archives
• Democracy Now!
• Occupy Wall Street
• TV NSA Clip Library
• Animation & Cartoons
• Arts & Music
• Computers & Technology
• Cultural & Academic Films
• Ephemeral Films
• Sports Videos
• Videogame Videos
• Youth Media

Search the history of over 866 billion web pages on the Internet.

Mobile Apps

• Wayback Machine (iOS)
• Wayback Machine (Android)

Browser Extensions

Archive-it subscription.

• Explore the Collections
• Build Collections

Save Page Now

Capture a web page as it appears now for use as a trusted citation in the future.

Please enter a valid web address

• Donate Donate icon An illustration of a heart shape

Essays of the 1960s & 70s

Bookreader item preview, share or embed this item, flag this item for.

• Graphic Violence
• Explicit Sexual Content
• Hate Speech
• Misinformation/Disinformation
• Marketing/Phishing/Advertising
• Misleading/Inaccurate/Missing Metadata

Cut-off text on some pages due too tight binding. Inherent obscured text

plus-circle Add Review comment Reviews

547 Previews

62 Favorites

Better World Books

DOWNLOAD OPTIONS

No suitable files to display here.

PDF access not available for this item.

IN COLLECTIONS

Uploaded by station08.cebu on July 21, 2022

SIMILAR ITEMS (based on metadata)

‘The Word Is Camp’: What to Know About the Inspiration for This Year’s Met Gala, as Explained in 1964

T he annual benefit for the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute is as high-fashion as fashion gets — but this year’s Met Gala, on Monday night, will bring a heavy dose of low culture to the red carpet. After all, the gala’s theme celebrates the opening of its exhibition Camp: Notes on Fashion , and that interaction of high and low is key to camp’s spirit.

While the origins of camp can be traced back to the reign of the French King Louis XIV, the inspiration for this show is much more recent. The modern camp aesthetic was solidified in the 1964 Partisan Review essay “Notes on ‘Camp'” by the American critic Susan Sontag .

The essay first appeared that fall, and didn’t take long to grab mainstream attention. Case in point: That December, TIME’s “Modern Living” section explained to readers why everyone was suddenly talking about camp:

Where are the dandies these days? Not the mere fops and mannered exhibitionists, but the lovers and arbiters of style for style’s sake, the cherishers and curators of what’s amusing (as opposed to what’s serious) — a predilection that is one of the luxuries of affluent societies. They thrived in Socrates’ Athens and at the Roman courts of emperors and Popes. The 18th century shone with them, and the 19th century produced the dandy of all time, Oscar Wilde. Wilde rebutted the industrial revolution with flowing locks and velvet suits; he warded off its fumes with a long-stemmed flower. The modern dandy, on the other hand, revels detachedly and deliciously in the vulgarity of mass culture. And the word is not dandyism any more. According to one of Manhattan’s brightest young intellectuals, Novelist Susan Sontag, the word is “Camp.” The essence of Camp, writes Miss Sontag in the Partisan Review , is “its love of the unnatural: of artifice and exaggeration.” Tiffany lamps are Camp, she says by way of illustration, and so is a fondness for Scopitone films and the lurid pseudo journalism of the weekly New York National Enquirer. Turn-of-the-century postcards are Camp; so is enthusiasm for the ballet Swan Lake and the 1933 movie King Kong . Dirty movies are Camp — provided one gets no sexual kick out of them — and so are the ideas of the French playwright Jean Genet, an ex-thief and pederast who boasts about it. “Genet’s statement that ‘the only criterion of an act is its elegance’ is virtually interchangeable, as a statement, with Wilde’s ‘In matters of great importance, the vital element is not sincerity, but style.'” In matters sexual, according to Miss Sontag, Camp goes against the grain, cherishing either the androgynous, swoony girl-boys and boy-girls of pre-Raphaelite painting or the plangent supersexiness of Jayne Mansfield or Victor Mature. In art, Camp’s exaggeration must proceed from passion and naiveté. “When something is just bad (rather than Camp),” she writes “it’s often because the artist hasn’t attempted to do anything really outlandish. ‘It’s too much,’ ‘It’s fantastic,’ ‘It’s not to be believed,’ are standard phrases of Camp enthusiasm.” Click here to read the full story from 1964 in the TIME Vault

The essay launched Sontag’s career as a literary critic, in which “she argued for a more sensuous, less intellectual approach to art,” TIME noted in her obituary , when she died in 2004 at the age of 71. “It was an irony lost on no one, except perhaps her, that she made those arguments in paragraphs that were marvels of strenuous intellection.”

“Notes on ‘Camp'” not only launched her career, but also it launched a new way of thinking. It fit right in with the spirit of the ’60s, an era known for new ideas and the breaking down of taboos. As TIME noted in 1964, when it came to camp, this phenomenon was particularly true in terms of sexuality. Camp was not gender or sexuality specific, Sontag argued, but the aesthetic had been embraced by the LGBTQ community as a way to “neutralize moral indignation” by promoting a playful approach to that which others took seriously.

Which was not to say Sontag didn’t take camp seriously.

“Seriousness was one of Sontag’s lifelong watchwords, but what she sometimes dared to take seriously were matters that educated opinion, as it emerged from the cramped quarters of the 1950s, dismissed as trivia,” TIME wrote in her obituary. “At a time when the barriers between high-and lowbrow were absolute, she argued for a genuine openness to the pleasures of pop culture.”

At the time, however, some were worried that coverage in a mainstream publication like TIME would spell the closing of camp’s fun. “By publishing your recent analysis of ‘Camp,’ you have ensured that Camp will no longer be Camp, if you see what I mean,” one reader argued in a letter to the editor, while another argued that “‘Camp’ is here to stay.” Fifty-five years later, on camp’s big night, it’s clear that the latter was right.

For more current examples of “camp,” see TIME’s illustrated guide .

More Must-Reads from TIME

• Breaking Down the 2024 Election Calendar
• Heman Bekele Is TIME’s 2024 Kid of the Year
• The Reintroduction of Kamala Harris
• A Battle Over Fertility Law in China
• For the Love of Savoring Sandwiches : Column
• The 1 Heart-Health Habit You Should Start When You’re Young
• Cuddling Might Help You Get Better Sleep
• The 50 Best Romance Novels to Read Right Now

Write to Olivia B. Waxman at [email protected]

Susan Sontag

(1933-2004)

What Is Susan Sontag Known For?

Susan Sontag was born on January 16, 1933, in New York City. In 1964, she gained recognition for her essay “Notes on Camp.” Sontag became widely known for her nonfiction works including Against Interpretation and Other Essays (1966), On Photography (1976) and Illness as Metaphor (1978), as well as for novels like The Volcano Lover (1992) and In America (2000), for which she won the National Book Award. Sontag died from cancer on December 28, 2004, in New York.

Early Life and Education

Susan Sontag was born on January 16, 1933, in New York, New York to Mildred and Jack Rosenblatt, with the couple later having a second daughter, Judith. Sontag’s father was a fur trader, and her parents lived overseas for his business while Sontag lived with her grandparents in New York. Sontag's father died when she was still a child. Her mother moved the family to milder climates because of Sontag’s asthma and they eventually relocated ato California. In 1945, Mildred married Air Corps captain Nathan Sontag, from whom a pre-teen Sontag would take her surname.

Sontag became an avid reader and learner. She graduated high school at the age of 15 and attended the University of California at Berkeley before transferring to the University of Chicago, where she met lecturer Philip Rieff. The two were married in less than two weeks after meeting and would have a son, David. Upon earning her bachelor’s in philosophy, Sontag went on to earn her master’s in English and philosophy at Harvard and did additional postgraduate work abroad at Oxford and the Sorbonne.

'Notes on Camp'

Sontag returned to the states by the late 1950s and opted to end her marriage with Rieff, moving to back to New York City with her son. She worked as a college instructor and began to make a name for herself as an essayist, writing for publications like The Nation and The New York Review of Books . A piece she wrote for The Parisian Review , “Notes on Camp,” earned her accolades. She had also been working on her debut novel, The Benefactor , released in 1963 by Farrar, Straus & Giroux, Sontag’s publisher for the duration of her career.

As an intellectual and a woman in what was still too often a boys’ club, Sontag challenged traditional notions of how art should be interpreted and consumed and what cultural tropes could receive serious scrutiny. She was a renaissance soul as known for everything from collections of nonfiction prose like Against Interpretation and Other Essays (1966) and On Photography (1977) to fiction like I, etcetera: Stories (1978) and The Volcano Lover (1992). She also wrote and directed films, including Duet for Cannibals (1969) and Letter from Venice (1981).

National Book Award

Sontag was the source of much controversy throughout her career, with critics looking at everything from her political statements (i.e. she once offered words of support for communist governments, changing her stance later on) to the amount of attention she received from the general media.

Relationships, Illness and Death

Though Sontag took on sexuality-based cultural criticism, she was generally private about her affairs and enjoyed intimate relationships with women, including Eva Kollisch and photographer Annie Leibovitz , with whom she collaborated on the book Women (1999).

Sontag was diagnosed with an aggressive form of breast cancer in 1975. She detailed how myths around the disease can derail effective treatment in the book Illness as Metaphor (1978), later followed by another book about health and stigma, AIDS and Its Metaphors (1989).

Sontag died from a form of leukemia on December 28, 2004, in New York City. Her son David, who went on to become an editor and a writer as well, paid tribute to Sontag in the book Swimming in a Sea of Death: A Son’s Memoir (2008).

QUICK FACTS

• Name: Susan Sontag
• Birth Year: 1933
• Birth date: January 16, 1933
• Birth State: New York
• Birth City: New York City
• Birth Country: United States
• Gender: Female
• Best Known For: Susan Sontag was a critical essayist, cultural analyst, novelist and filmmaker. She wrote 'On Photography,' 'Illness as Metaphor,' 'The Volcano Lover' and 'In America,' among many other works.
• War and Militaries
• Education and Academia
• Journalism and Nonfiction
• Fiction and Poetry
• Politics and Government
• Astrological Sign: Capricorn
• The Sorbonne
• Oxford College
• University of Chicago
• Harvard University
• Nacionalities
• Occupations
• Anti-War Activist
• Death Year: 2004
• Death date: December 28, 2004
• Death State: New York
• Death City: New York City
• Death Country: United States

We strive for accuracy and fairness.If you see something that doesn't look right, contact us !

CITATION INFORMATION

• Article Title: Susan Sontag Biography
• Author: Biography.com Editors
• Website Name: The Biography.com website
• Url: https://www.biography.com/authors-writers/susan-sontag
• Access Date:
• Publisher: A&E; Television Networks
• Last Updated: May 26, 2022
• Original Published Date: April 2, 2014
• Literature was the passport to enter a larger life; that is the zone of freedom.
• I did have the idea that I’d like to have several lives, and it’s very hard to have several lives and then have a husband. … [S]omewhere along the line, one has to choose between the Life and the Project.
• If literature has engaged me as a project, it is as an extension of my sympathies to other selves, other domains, other dreams, other territories of concern.
• It never occurred to me that I would want to marry someone who didn't like someone who read a lot of books.

Watch Next .css-16toot1:after{background-color:#262626;color:#fff;margin-left:1.8rem;margin-top:1.25rem;width:1.5rem;height:0.063rem;content:'';display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;}

Womens Rights Activists

Tammy Duckworth

Christine de Pisan

Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz

Elizabeth Cady Stanton

Betty Friedan

Hillary Clinton

Gloria Steinem

30 Civil Rights Leaders of the Past and Present

Harriet Tubman

Malala Yousafzai

Queen Rania

Susan Sontag

Susan Sontag (16 January 1933 – 28 December 2004) was an American writer and filmmaker, novelist, writer of screenplays, professor, literary icon, and political activist.

• 1.2 Short fiction
• 1.3 Monographs
• 1.4 Essay collections, lectures
• 1.5 Film books
• 1.7 Diaries
• 1.8 Edited books
• 1.9 Articles, papers, chapters, reviews
• 1.10 Bibliographies
• 2 Interviews
• 3 Films and Recordings
• 5 Documentaries

Works [ edit ]

Novels [ edit ]

• Il benefattore , trans. Ettore Capriolo, Milan: Mondadori, 1965, 376 pp. (Italian)
• Le bienfaiteur , trans. Guy Durand and Gérard Durand, Paris: Seuil, 1965, 287 pp. (French)
• Der Wohltäter , trans. Louise Eisler-Fischer, Reinbek bei Hamburg: Rowohlt, 1966, 286 pp.; Frankfurt am Main: Fischer, 1993. 286 pp (German)
• De weldoener , trans. Caspar Hendriks, Antwerp and Utrecht: Bruna, 1968. 272 pp. (Dutch)
• Välgöraren , trans. Margareta Ullberg, Stockholm: Norstedt, 1968, 277 pp. (Swedish)
• El benefactor , Barcelona: Lumen, 1974. 297 pp. (Spanish)
• Välgöraren: Roman , trans. Margareta Ullberg, Uppsala: Bromberg, 1980. 277 pp. (Swedish)
• O benfeitor , trans. Ana Maria Capovilla, Porto Alegre: L&PM, 1989 [1990], 265 pp. (Brazilian Portuguese)
• Dødens redskab , trans. Birte Svensson [and Austin Grandjean], Copenhagen: Gyldendal, 1968, 308 pp. (Danish)
• Estuche de muerte , trans. Roberto Ruiz, Mexico, D.F.: Joaguín Mortiz, 1969, 373 pp. (Spanish)
• Sista hjälpen , trans. Olov Jonason, Stockholm: Norstedt, 1969, 315 pp.; Uppsala: Bromberg, 1980, 315 pp. (Swedish)
• Derniers recours , trans. Anne Minkowski, Paris: Seuil, 1970, 333 pp. (French)
• Morte em questão , trans. Alvaro Cabral and Sérgio Pachá, Rio de Janeiro: Expressão e Cultura, 1970, 358 pp. (Brazilian Portuguese)
• Shi no sōgu , trans. Kazue Saitō, Tokyo: Hayakawa Shobō & Co., 1970, 374 pp. (Japanese)
• Il kit della morte , trans. Bruno Fonzi, Turin: Einaudi, 1973, 304 pp. (Italian)
• Todesstation: Roman , trans. Jörg Trobitius, Munich: Hanser, 1985. 373 pp.; Munich: Deutscher Taschenbuch, 1987, 373 pp. (German)
• Musta aurinko , trans. Marja Haapio, Helsinki: Kirjayhtymä, 1987, 390 pp. (Finnish)
• Halálkészlet , trans. Zsófia László, Budapest: Európa Köngvkiadó, 1989. 368 pp. (Hungarian)
• Zestaw do śmierci , trans. Anna Kołyszko, Warsaw: Państwowy Instytut Wydawniczy, 1989, 367 pp. (Polish)
• A vulkán szerelmese , trans. József Szili, Kiadó: Holnap, 1993, 386 pp. (Hungarian)
• Der Liebhaber des Vulkans: Roman , trans. Isabell Lorenz, Munich: Hanser, 1993. 548 pp. (German)
• De vulkaanminnaar , trans. Heleen ten Holt, Baarn: Uitgeverij Anthos, 1993, 431 pp. (Dutch)
• Manden der elskede vulkaner , trans. Kirsten Jørgensen, Copenhagen: Gyldendal, 1993, 407 pp. (Danish)
• Mannen som elsket vulkaner: En roman , trans. Ingrid Haug, Oslo: Cappelens, 1993, 410 pp. (Norwegian)
• O amante do vulcão , trans. Isa Mara Lando, Sao Paolo: Companhia das Letras, 1993. 422 pp. (Brazilian Portuguese)
• Tulivuoren rakastaja , trans. Seppo Loponen, Helsinki: Kunstannusosakeyhtiö Otava, 1993, 432 pp. (Finnish)
• En América , trans. Jordi Fibla, Barcelona: Alfaguara, 2002. (Spanish)

Short fiction [ edit ]

• "Doble, triple...", Revista de occidente (Madrid), 2d ser., 16 (Jan.–Feb.–Mar. 1967), pp. 334–345; rep. in Las mejores historias siniestras , ed. Laurette Naomi Pizer, Barcelona: Brugera, 1968, pp. 421-434. (Spanish)
• "Kukla", trans. S. Tartakovsky, Literaturnaya gazeta (Moscow) no. 39 (1980), p. 15. (Russian)
• "A bábu", trans. Éva Lendvay, Nagyvilág (Budapest) 25 (Dec. 1980), pp. 147–152. (Hungarian)
• "Dvojník", trans. Ivana Doležalová, Světová literatura (Prague) No. 6 (1985), pp. 16–20. (Czech)
• "Manekin", trans. Anna Kołyszko, Literature, na świecie (Warsaw) No. 10 (1988), pp. 166–181. (Polish)
• "Ha-golem", trans. Moshe Ron, in: Mah ha-sipur shelkha: Sipurim ketsarim Amerika’iyim mi-shenot ha-60 veha-70 , ed. Moshe Ron, Tel Aviv: Am Oved, 1993, pp. 101-110. (Hebrew)
• "Man with a Pain", Harper’s , Apr. 1964, pp. 72–75.
• "The Will and the Way", Partisan Review 32 (Summer 1965), pp. 373–396.
• "Projet d’un voyage en Chine", trans. Guy Durand, Tel quel (Paris) no. 54 (Summer 1973), pp. 68–84. (French)
• "Projekt einer Reise nach China", trans. Marianne Frisch, Literaturmagazin (Hamburg) no. 10 (1979), pp. 270–92. (German)
• "Projekt návštěvy Číny", Revolver revue (Prague) no. 6 (1986), 11 pp. (Czech)
• "Plan podróy do Chin", trans. Anna Kołyszko, Literatura na świecie (Warsaw) no. 1 (1987), pp. 180–211. (Polish)
• "Enquête", trans. Claire Malroux, Les lettres nouvelles (Paris), 5 Dec. 1975, pp. 122–141. (French)
• "Kibeszámoló", trans. Ferenc Temesi, Nagyvilág (Budapest) 21 (Dec. 1976), pp. 163–174. (Hungarian)
• "Hva jeg gjør", trans. Mona Lange, Gyldendals aktuelle magazin (Oslo) no. 2 (1979), p. 13. (Norwegian)
• "Lagebesprechung", trans. Marianne Frisch, Merkur (Stuttgart) no. 33 (Jan. 1979), pp. 48–62. (German)
• "Odszyfrowywanie", trans. Hanna Rowińska, in: Gabinet Luster: Krótka proza amerykańaska 1961–1977 , ed. Zbigniew Lewicki, 387–411. Warsaw: Czytelnik, 1980, pp. 387-411. (Czech)
• "Zapiski (Raskaz)", trans. Hristina Kochemidova, S’vremennik No. 4 (1980), pp 365–78. (Bulgarian)
• "Doctor Jekyll", Partisan Review 41 (Winter 1974): pp 539–552, pp 586–603.
• "Baobao", trans. Wu Yin, Waiguo wenyi (Shanghai) no. 5 (Oct. 1982), pp 5–43. (Chinese)
• "Náš maličký", trans. Ivana Doležalová, Světová literatura (Prague), no. 6 (1985), pp 21–41. (Czech)
• "Voyage désorganisé: Une nouvelle inédite de Susan Sontag", trans. Robert Louit, Magazine littéraire (Paris), no. 139 (July–Aug. 1978), pp 8–11. (French)
• "Ohne Reiseführung", trans. Marianne Frisch, Zeit Magazin (Hamburg), no. 7 (9 Feb. 1979), pp 32, 34, 37–8, 40. (German)
• "Rondreis zonder gids", trans. Carol Limonard, in: Modern Amerikaanse verhalen , ed. Frans Kellendonk and Carol Limonard, Amsterdam: Van Gennep, 1982, pp 172–182. (Dutch)
• "Meiyou xiangdao de youlan", trans. Wu Yin, Waiguo Wenyi (Shanghai), no. 5 (Oct. 1982), pp 43–57. (Chinese)
• "Descripción (de una descripción)", trans. Margarita de Orellana, Vuelta (Mexico, D.F.), 8.96 (Nov. 1984), pp 19–20. (Spanish)
• "Opis (opisa)", trans. Danila Kiša [Danilo Kiš], Putevi (Banja Luka), 32.4 (July–Aug. 1986), pp 90–5. (Serbo-Croatian)
• "Description (of a Description)", TLE: Theorie Littérature enseignement (Paris), No. 7 (1989), pp 9–12. (French)
• "Description d’une description", [trans. Geneviève Moore.], Lettre internationale (Paris), No. 26 (Autumn 1990), pp 23–4. (French)
• "Popis popiso", trans. Alena Jindrová-Spilarová, Spisovatelé (Prague), No. 7 (1992), p 41. (Czech)
• "La escena de la carta", Letra internacional , No. 7, (Autumn 1987), pp 5–11. (Spanish)
• "A levél-jelenet", trans. László T. András, Nagyvilág (Budapest), No. 33 (June 1988), pp 787–800. (Hungarian)
• "The Way We Live Now", New Yorker , 24 Nov. 1986, pp. 42–51.
• "A Parsifal", Antaeus , No. 67 (Fall 1991), pp 180–185.
• "The View from the Ark", in: Violent Legacies: Three Cantos , by Richard Misrach, New York: Aperture, 1992, pp 9-12.

Monographs [ edit ]

• Viagem a Hanoi , trans. Alvaro Cabral, Rio de Janeiro: Expressão e Cultura, 1968, 161 pp. (Brazilian Portuguese)
• Hanoi de kangaeta koto , trans. Chūji Kunitaka, Tokyo: Shōbunsha, 1969, 152 pp. (Japanese)
• Matka Hanoihin , trans. Ritva Turunen, Hämeenlinna: A.A. Karisto, 1969, 112 pp. (Finnish)
• Reise nach Hanoi , trans. Anne Uhde, Reinbek bei Hamburg: Rowohlt, 1969, 86 pp. (German)
• Reis naar Hanoi , trans. Guido Prinsen, Antwerp and Utrecht: Bruna, 1969, 88 pp. (Dutch)
• Rejse til Hanoi , trans. Anne Marie Bjerg, Copenhagen: Spektrums, 1969, 108 pp. (Danish)
• Resa till Hanoi , trans. Erik Sandin, Stockholm: Pan, Norstedt, 1969, 82 pp. (Swedish)
• Viaggio a Hanoi , trans. Ettore Capriolo, Milan: V. Bompiani, 1969. 124 pp. (Italian)
• Viaje a Hanoi , trans. Louis Guillermo Piazza, Mexico, D.F.: Joaquín Mortiz, 1969, 91 pp. (Spanish)
• Voyage à Hanoi , trans. Gérard Durand, Paris: Seuil, 1969, 127 pp. (French)

• Sulla fotografia: Realtà e immagine nella nostra società , trans. Ettore Capriolo, Turin: Einaudi, 1978, 179 pp. (Italian)
• Über Fotografie , trans. Mark W. Rien and Gertrud Baruch, Munich: Hanser, 1978, 194 pp; Frankfurt am Main: Fischer-Taschenbuch, 1980, 201 pp; Frankfurt am Main: Büchergilde Gutenberg, 1990, 194 pp. (German)
• Ha-illumkere’i ha-tequfa , trans. Yoram Bronovsky, Tel Aviv: Am Oved, 1979, 197 pp. (Hebrew)
• La photographie , trans. Gérard-Henri Durand and Guy Durand, Paris: Seuil, 1979, 220 pp. (French)
• Over fotografie , trans. Henny Scheepmaker, Utrecht and Aartselaar: Bruna, 1979, 160 pp. (Finnish)
• Shashinron , trans. Kōjin Kondō, Tokyo: Shōbunsha, 1979, 221 pp. (Japanese)
• Sobre la fotografía , trans. Carlos Gardini, Buenos Aires: Sudamericana, 1980; 1981, 217 pp, PDF ; Barcelona: Edhasa, 1981, 217 pp. (Spanish)
• A fényképezésröl: Tanulmány , trans. Anna Nemes, Budapest: Európa Könyvkiadó, 1981, 239 pp. (Hungarian)
• Ensaios sobre fotografia , trans. Joaquim Paiva, Rio de Janeiro: Arbor, 1981, 198 pp; 2nd ed. as Ensaios sobre a fotografia , Rio de Janeiro: Arbor, 1983. (Brazilian Portuguese)
• Om fotografi , trans. Boo Cassel, Stockholm: Norstedts, 1981, 229 pp.; Stockholm: Natur och kultur, 2001, 211 pp. (Swedish)
• Eseji o fotografiji , trans. Filip Filipović, Belgrad: Radionica SIC, 1982, 211 pp. (Serbo-Croatian)
• Sur la photographie , trans. Philippe Blanchard, Paris: Union générele d’éditions, 1983; 1993, 239 pp.; Paris: Christian Bourgois, 1998. (French)
• Valokuvauksesta , trans. Kanerva Cederström and Pekka Virtanen, Helsinki: Love kirjat, 1984, 191 pp. (Finnish)
• Fotografi: Essays om billede og virkelighed , trans. Ole Vesterholt, Copenhagen: Fremad, 1985, 212 pp. (Danish)
• O fotografii , trans. Sławomir Magala, Warsaw: Wydawnictwa Artystyczne i Filmowe, 1986, 200 pp, PDF ; Kraków: Karakter, 2009, 256 pp. [1] (Polish)
• Ensaios sobre fotografia , trans. José Afonso Furtado, Lisbon: Publicações Dom Quixote, 1986, 178 pp. (Portuguese)
• Fotograf üzerine , trans. Reha Akcakaya, Istanbul: Altikirkbes, 1993. (Turkish)
• Despre fotografie , trans. Delia Zahareanu, essay Erwin Kessler, Bucharest: Vellant, 2014, 231 pp, ch 1 , ch 2 , ch 3 , ch 4 , ch 5 , ch 6 , ch 7 , ch 8 , PDF , IA , ARG . (Romanian)

• Krankheit als Metapher , trans. Karin Kersten and Caroline Neubaur, Munich: Hanser, 1978, 95 pp; Frankfurt am Main: Fischer-Taschenbuch, 1981. 103 pp. (German)
• Falske forestillinger om sygdomme: Fremkaldt af forkert sprogbrug , trans. Kirsten Jørgensen, Copenhagen: Gyldendal, 1979, 97 pp. (Danish)
• La maladie comme metaphor , trans. Marie-France de Paloméra, Paris: Seuil, 1979, 105 pp. (French)
• Malattia come metafora , trans. E. Capriolo, Turin: Einaudi, 1979, v+69 pp. (Italian)
• Sykdom som metafor , trans. Grethe Schøning, Oslo: Gyldendal [Norsk Forlag], 1979, 80 pp. (Norwegian)
• Ha-mala kemetafora , trans. Yehuda Landau, Tel-Aviv: Am Oved, 1980, 82 pp. (Hebrew)
• La enfermedad y sus metáforas , trans. Mario Muchnik, Barcelona: Muchnik, 1980; 1981; 1984. 130 pp. (Spanish)
• Ziekte als spookbeeld , trans. Gerard Grasman, Utrecht [and Antwerp]: Bruna, 1980, 87 pp. (Dutch)
• Sjukdom som metafor , trans. Britt Arenander, Stockholm: Bromberg, 1981, 127 pp. (Swedish)
• In’yu to shite no yamai , trans. Takao Tomiyama, Tokyo: Misuzu shobō, 1982, 157 pp. (Japanese)
• A betegség mint metafora , trans. László Lugosi, Budapest: Európa, 1983, 102 pp. (Hungarian)
• Bolest kao metafora , trans. Zoran Minderović, Belgrade: Pecat, 1983, 171 pp. (Serbo-Croatian)
• A Doença como Metáfora , trans. Márcio Ramalho, Rio de Janeiro: Graal: 1984, 108 pp, PDF , IA . (Brazilian Portuguese)
• Bir metafor olarak hastalik , trans. Ismail Murat, Istanbul: Bilim/Felsefe/Sanat, 1988. (Turkish)
• Boala ca metaforă. SIDA şi metaforele sale , trans., pref. & chronology Aurel Sasu, Cluj-Napoca: Dacia, 1995, IA , ARG . (Romanian)
• Boala ca metaforă. SIDA şi metaforele sale , trans. Bogdan Lepădatu, Bucharest: Vellant, 2015. (Romanian)

• AIDS och dess metaforer , trans. Berit Skogsberg, Stockholm: Bromberg, 1988, 110 pp. (Swedish)
• Aids en zijn beeldspraken , trans. A.Daalder-Neukircher, Baarn: Anthos, 1989, 110 pp. (Dutch)
• AIDS e suas metáforas , trans. Paolo Henriques Britto, São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 1989, 111 pp. (Brazilian Portuguese)
• AIDS og dens metaforer , trans. John Theodor Thomsen, Århus: Klim, 1989, 100 pp. (Danish)
• Aids und seine Metaphern , trans. Holger Fliessbach, Munich: Hanser, 1989, 100 pp. (German)
• El SIDA y sus metáforas , trans. Mario Muchnik, Barcelona: Muchnik, 1989, 103 pp. (Spanish)
• L’aids e le sue metafore , trans. Carmen Novella, Turin: Einaudi, 1989, 96 pp. (Italian)
• Le sida et ses métaphores , trans. Brice Matthieussent, Paris: Christian Bourgeois, 1989, 123 pp. (French)
• Az AIDS és metaforái , trans. Zsuzsa Rakovzky, Budapest: Európa Könyvkiadó, 1990. (Hungarian)
• Eizu to sono in’yu , trans. Takao Tomiyama, Tokyo: Misuzu shobō, 1990, 152 pp. (Japanese)
• La Enfermedad y Sus Metaforas y el Sida y Sus Metaforas , Barcelona: Taurus, 2003, PDF . (Spanish)
• Sairaus vertauskuvana Aids ja sen vertauskuvat , trans. Osmo Saarinen, Helsinki: Love-kirjat, 1991. (Finnish)
• In’yu to shite no yamai eizu to sono in’yu , trans. Takao Tomiyama, Tokyo: Misuzu shobō, 1992. 304 pp. (Japanese)
• Malattia come metafora, Aids e cancro , trans. Ettore Capriolo and Carmen Novella, Turin: Einaudi Contemporanea, 1992. (Italian)
• La maladie comme métaphore et Le sida et ses métaphores , trans. Marie-France de Paloméra and Brice Matthieussent, Paris: Christian Bourgois, 1993. 235 pp. (French)
• Ziekte als metafoor; AIDS en zijn metaforen , trans. Gerard Grasman and A. Daalder-Neukircher, Baarn: Anthos, 1993, 218 pp. (Dutch)

• Ante el dolor de los demás , trans. Aurelio Major, Madrid, 2004, ARG . (Spanish)
• Widok cudzego cierpienia , trans. Sławomir Magala, Kraków: Karakter, 2010, 160 pp. [2] (Polish)
• Privind la suferinţa celuilalt , trans. Laura Cruceru, Bucharest: Humanitas, 2011, 128 pp, PDF , IA , ARG . (Romanian)

Essay collections, lectures [ edit ]

• Contro l’interpretazione , trans. Ettore Capriolo, Milan: Mondadori, 1967, 399 pp. (Italian)
• Kunst und Antikunst: 24 literarische Analysen , trans. Mark W. Rien, Reinbek bei Hamburg: Rowohlt, 1968, 315 pp.; Munich: Hanser, 1980, 315 pp.; Frankfurt am Main: Fischer-Taschenbuch-Verlag, 1982,374 pp. (German)
• L’oeuvre parle , trans. Guy Durand, Paris: Seuil, 1968, 340 pp. (French)
• Contra la interpretation , trans. Javier González-Pueyo, Barcelona: Seix Barral, 1969, 358 pp. (Spanish)
• Konst och antikonst , trans. Erik Sandin, Stockholm: Pan, Norstedt, 1969, 259 pp. (Swedish)
• Tegen interpretatie: Essays , trans. P.H.H. Hawinkels, Antwerp and Utrecht: Bruna, 1969, 239 pp. (Dutch)
• Han-kaishaku , trans. Yasunari Takahashi et al., Tokyo: Takeuchi shoten, 1971, 360 pp. (Japanese)
• Interpretazioni tendenziose: Dodici temi culturali , trans. Ettore Capriolo, Turin: Einaudi, 1975, vii+337 pp. (Italian)
• Contra la interpretación y otros ensayos , trans. Horacio Vásquez Rial, Filmography by Homero Alsina Thevenet, Barcelona: Seix Barral, 1984, 342 pp. (Spanish)
• Contra a interpretação , trans. Ana Maria Capovilla, Porto Alegre, Brazil: L&PM Editores, 1986, 350 pp. (Portuguese)
• Przeciw interpretacji i inne eseje , trans. Małgorzata Pasicka, Anna Skucińska and Dariusz Żukowski, Kraków: Karakter, 2012, 460 pp. [3] (Polish)
• Împotriva interpretării , trans. Loreta Isac, Bucharest: Vellant, 2016, 360 p. [4] (Romanian)
• Stilovi radikalne volge , trans. Mario Susko, Zagreb: Izabranih Eseja, 1971. (Serbo-Croatian)
• Radikaruna ishi no sutairu , trans. Kyōichi Kawaguchi, Tokyo: Shōbunsha, 1974, 227 pp. (Japanese)
• Interpretation tendenziose: Dodici temi culturali , trans. Ettore Capriolo, Turin: Einaudi, 1975, vii+337 pp. (Italian)
• Estilos radicales: Ensayos , trans. Eduardo Goligorsky, Barcelona: Muchnik Editores, 1984; 1985, 292 pp. (Spanish)
• A vontade radical: Estilos , trans. João Roberto Martins Filho, São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 1987, 262 pp. (Portuguese)
• Ich, etcetera: Erzählungen , trans. Marianne Frisch, Munich: Hanser, 1979, 258 pp.; Frankfurt am Main: Fischer-Taschenbuch-Verlag, 1982, 232 pp. (German)
• Io, eccetera , trans. Stefania Bertola. Turin: Einaudi, 1980, 249 pp. (Italian)
• Jag, etc. , trans. Harriet Alfons, Uppsala: Bromberg, 1980, 327 pp. (Swedish)
• Watashi etosetora , trans. Akio Namekata, Tokyo: Shinchōsha, 1981, 274 pp. (Japanese)
• Moi, etcetera , trans. Marie-France de Paloméra, Paris: Seuil, 1983, 283 pp. (French)
• Yo, etcétera , trans. Eduardo Goligorsky, Barcelona: Seix Barral, 1983, 278 pp. (Spanish)
• Ik, etcetera , trans. J.J. de Wit, Weesp: Agathon, 1985,323 pp. (Dutch)
• Ja, i tako dalje , trans. Mladen Jovanovic, Nis: Gradina, 1985, 53 pp. (Serbo-Croatian)
• Ben, vesaire , trans. Gökcin Taskin, Istanbul: Can Yayinlari, 1988. (Turkish)
• I Saturnus tecken , trans. Eva Liljegren, Stockholm: Bromberg, 1981, 218 pp. (Swedish)
• Bajo el signo de Saturno , trans. Juan Utrilla Trejo, Mexico, D.F.: Lasser Press Mexicana, 1981, 195 pp; Barcelona: Edhasa, 1987, 226 pp. (Spanish)
• Im Zeichen des Saturn , trans. Werner Fuld et al., Munich: Hanser, 1981, 203 pp; Frankfurt am Main: Fischer-Taschenbuch-Verlag, 1983, 204 pp. (German)
• Dosei no shirushi no moto ni , trans. Takao Tomiyama, Tokyo: Shōbunsha, 1982, 1983 240 pp. (Japanese)
• Sotto il segno di Saturno , trans. Stefania Bertola, Turin: Giulio Einaudi, 1982, 165 pp. (Italian)
• In het teken van Saturnus , trans. David Brisk, Weesp: Uitgeverij Villa, 1984, 267 pp. (Dutch)
• Sous le signe de Saturne , trans. Philippe Blanchard et al., Paris: Seuil, 1985, 183 pp. (French)
• Sob o signo de Saturno , trans. Ana Maria Capovilla and Albino Poli, Jr., Porto Alegre: L&PM, 1986, 152 pp. (Brazilian Portuguese)
• Pod znakiem Saturna , trans. Dariusz Żukowski, Kraków: Karakter, 2014. [5] (Polish)
• A Susan Sontag Reader , intro. Elizabeth Hardwick, New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1982, xv+446 pp.
• Geist als Leidenschaft: Ausgewählte Essays zur modernen Kunst und Kultur , trans. Gertrud Baruch, Werner Fuld, and Mark W. Rien, ed. & afterw. Eva Manske, Leipzig: Gustav Kiepenheuer, 1989, 297 pp. (German)
• Tradities van het nieuwe of: Moeten wij modern zijn? , trans. René Kurpershoek, Amsterdam: Uitgeverij Bert Bakker, 1990, 49 pp. Lecture held in Leiden, the Netherlands, in December 1989. (Dutch)
• Where the Stress Falls: Essays , New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2001, 347 pp, ARG/epub .
• Ao Mesmo Tempo , trans. Rubens Figueiredo, Sao Paolo: Companhia das Letras, 2012, PDF . [6] (Brazilian Portuguese)

Film books [ edit ]

• Pornografien som forestillingsverden , trans. Aase Rørvik, Oslo: J.W. Cappelens, 1971, 59 pp.; 2d ed., 1991, 63 pp. (Norwegian)
• A pusztulás képei , edited by Levente Osztovits, trans. Árpád Göncz et al., after. István Bart, Budapest: Európa Könyvkiadó, 1972, 333 pp. [A collection of essays] (Hungarian)
• Brother Carl , New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux; Toronto: Doubleday Canada, 1974, xvi+174 pp.

Plays [ edit ]

• So leben wir jetzt , trans. Karin Graf, Zurich: Parkett/ Der Alltagg, 1991. (German)
• "A Parsifal", in Trevor Fairbrother, Robert Wilson’s Vision , Boston: Museum of Fine Arts, and New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1991, pp 19-27.
• Alice a letto , trans. Dauide Tortorella, Milan: Leonardo Mondadori Editore, 1991. (Italian)
• Alice in Bed: A Play in Eight Scenes , New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1993; Harper Collins Canada, 1993, 117 pp.
• Sanatci: Ornek bir cilekes , trans. Yurdanur Salman, Muge Gursoy, Zafer Aracagok, Istanbul: MY [Metis Yayinlari], 1991. (Turkish)

Diaries [ edit ]

• Diários (1947-1963) , trans. Rubens Figueiredo, Sao Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 2009. [7] (Brazilian Portuguese)
• Odrodzona. Dzienniki, tom 1, 1947–1963 , trans. Dariusz Żukowski, Kraków: Karakter, 2012, 384 pp. [8] (Polish)
• Jak świadomość związana jest z ciałem. Dzienniki, t. 2 , trans. Dariusz Żukowski, Kraków: Karakter, 2013, 592 pp. [9] (Polish)
• Ich schreibe, um herauszufinden, was ich denke: Tagebücher 1964-1980 , trans. Kathrin Razum, Carl Hanser, 2013. (German)
• Diários II: (1964-1980) , trans. Rubens Figueiredo, Sao Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 2016, EPUB , ARG . [10] . (Brazilian Portuguese)

Edited books [ edit ]

• A la rencontre d’Artaud , trans. Gérard H.Durand, Paris: Christian Bourgois, 1976, 123 pp. (French)
• Antonan Aruto-ron , trans. Tsutomu Iwasaki, Kōbe: Kōbe Books, 1976, 105 pp. (Japanese)
• Approximation a Artaud , trans. Francesc Parcerisas, Barcelona: Lumen, 1976, 68 pp. (Spanish)
• Lihan estetiikka: Teatteri Artaud’n mukaan , trans. Riikka Stewen, Helsinki: Kustannus Oy Odessa, 1986, 94 pp. (Finnish)
• L’écriture même: A propos de Barthes , trans. Philippe Blanchard and Susan Sontag, Paris: Christian Bourgois, 1982, 62 pp. (French)
• Al-kitaba bid-datbi-sadad Barthes , trans. Mohammed Souirti, Casablanca: Afrique-Orient, 1987, 54 pp. (Arabic)

Articles, papers, chapters, reviews [ edit ]

• Review of H.J.Kaplan, "The Plenipotentiaries", Chicago Review 5.1 (Winter 1950), pp. 49–50.
• "History in the Drama", Supplement (Columbia Daily Spectator) , 18 Nov. 1960, pp. 3–4, 8. Review.
• "Of Freud and the New Resurrection of the Flesh", Supplement (Columbia Daily Spectator) , 28 Apr. 1961, pp. 3–4.
• "Some Notes on Antonioni and Others", Supplement (Columbia Daily Spectator) , 27 Oct. 1961, pp. 3–5. Published under the pseudonym of "Calvin Koff".
• "Demons and Dreams", Partisan Review 29 (Summer 1962), pp. 460–463.
• "Is the Reader Necessary?", Partisan Review 30 (Summer 1963), pp. 260–268.
• "A Hero of Our Time", New York Review of Books , 28 Nov. 1963, pp. 6–8. Parts of this article becomes a new text "The Anthropologist as Hero" (1963), published in Claude Lévi-Strauss, The Anthropologist as Hero , ed. E. Nelson Hayes and Tanya Hayes, Cambridge: M.I.T. Press, 1970, pp. 184–96; repr. in Against Interpretation , London: Vintage, 1994, pp. 69-81. Review
• "Spiritual Style in the Films of Robert Bresson", Seventh Art 2.3 (Summer 1964) pp. 2–7, 23–5. excerpts published in: Contemporary Literary Criticism , Vol. 16, ed. Sharon R.Gunton, Detroit: Gale Research, 1981, pp. 106-108.
• "Going to Theater", Partisan Review 31 (Winter 1963), pp. 95–102.
• "Going to Theater (and the Movies)", Partisan Review 31 (Spring 1964), pp. 284–93.
• "Gedanken zu Hochhuths 'Der Stellvertreter'", trans. Mark W.Rien., in: Rolf Hochhuth: Eingriff in die Zeitgeschichte , ed. Walter Hinck, Reinbek bei Hamburg: Rowohlt Verlag, 1981, pp. 107-116. (German)
• "Going to Theater, Etc.", Partisan Review 31 (Summer 1964), pp. 389–99.
• "Camp", trans. Torsten Manns, Chaplin (Stockholm), No. 68 (1966), pp. 336–343. (Swedish)
• "Notas sobre 'Camp'", Revista de accidente (Madrid), 2d sen, 14 (July, Aug., Sept. 1966), pp. 310–27. (Spanish)
• "Anmerkungen zu 'Camp'". trans. Mark W. Rien, Akzente (Munich) 13 (Dec. 1966), pp. 501–521; repr. in Falsche Dokumente: Postmoderne Texte aus den USA , Leipzig: Reclam Verlag, 1993, pp. 109-130. (German)
• "La sensibilité 'camp'", in Les U.S.A. à la recherche de leur identité: Rencontres avec 40 écrivains américans , ed. Pierre Dommergues, Paris: Bernard Grasset, 1967, pp. 88–95. (French)
• "'Kyanpu' towa nanika", Paideia , No. 5 (1969), pp. 103–21. (Japanese)
• "Notes on 'Camp'", in "Les États-Unis d’aujourd’hui par les textes", ed. Pierre Dommergues, Marianne Debousy, and Hélène Cixous, Paris: Librairie Armand Colin, 1969, pp. 188–192. (French)
• "Notatki o kampie", trans. Wanda Wertenstein, Literatura na świecie (Warsaw) No. 9 (1979), pp. 307–23. (Polish)
• "On Godard’s 'Vivre Sa Vie'", Moviegoer , no. 2 (Summer-Autumn 1964), pp. 2–10; repr. in. Jean-Luc Godard, ed. Toby Mussman, New York: E.P. Dutton & Co., 1968, pp. 87-99.
• "Imod fortolkning", trans. Erik Wiedemann, Vindrosen (Copenhagen) No. 4 (Aug. 1966), pp. 13–23. (Danish)
• "Contrainterpretación", Mundo nuevo (Paris) No. 7 (Jan. 1967), pp. 75–80. (Spanish)
• "Przeciw interpretacji", trans. Maria Olejniczak, Literatura na świecie (Warsaw) no. 9 (1979), pp. 292–305. (Polish)
• "Pret interpretāciju", trans. Sandra Rutmane, Kentaurs XXI (Riga) no. 2 (1992), pp. 66–75. (Latvian)
• "Protiv interpretatsii", trans. V. Golysheva, Inostrannaia literatura (Moscow) No. 1 (1992), pp. 212–216. (Russian)
• "Marat-Sade-Artaud", trans. Ettore Capriolo, Teatro Milano , no. 1 (Spring 1967). (Italian)
• "En kultur och den nya sensibiliteten", trans. Leif Zern, BLM (Stockholm) nr. 35 (Oct. 1966), pp. 609–613. (Swedish)
• "Kultura a nový způsob vnímání", trans. Ivana Doležalová, Světová literatura (Prague) no. 6 (1985), pp. 41–46. (Czech)
• "O stilu", trans. Vesna Gaspari, Delo (Belgrade) no. 30 (Oct. 1984), pp. 75–97. (Serbo-Croatian)
• "Za Stila", trans. Hristina Kochemidova, S’vremennik , No. 1 (1989), pp. 360–73. (Bulgarian)
• "Tuhon fantasiat", trans. Pentti Lumirae, in: Uuteen elokuvaan , ed. Peter Von Bagh, Porvoo: Werner Söderström Osakeyhtiö, 1967, pp. 49-65.
• "Obraz zagłady", trans. Maja Gottesman, Kultura (Warsaw) no. 27 (2 July 1978), p. 14. (Polish)
• "Burroughs y el futuro de la novela", Mundo nuevo (Paris) no. 23 (May 1968), pp. 27–33. (Spanish)
• "Film and Theatre", The Tulane Drama Review 11:1 (Autumn 1966), pp 24-37, PDF ; repr. in Perspectives on the Study of Film , ed. John Stuart Katz, Boston: Little, Brown, & Co., 1971, pp. 73-90.
• "Carta del congreso del Pen Club", Dialogos (Mexico), Jan.–Feb. 1966, pp 30–32. (Spanish)
• "What’s Happening to America (A Symposium)", Partisan Review 34 (Winter 1967), pp 13–82.
• "La imagination pornográfica", Revista de Occidente (Madrid), 2d ser., 19 (Oct. 1967), pp 14–32. (Spanish)
• "L’immaginazione pornografica", trans. Ettore Capriolo, Paragone (Florence), n.s., No. 34 (Dec. 1967), pp 37–73. (Italian)
• "De pornografishe verbeelding", trans. Theodoor van Vliet, RAAM (Utrecht) No. 41 (Jan. 1968), pp 32–57. (Danish)
• "Die pornographische Phantasie I.", trans. Mark W.Rien, Akzente (Munich) 15 (Feb. 1968), pp 77–95. (German)
• "Die pornographische Phantasie II.", trans. Mark W.Rien, Akzente (Munich) 15 (Apr. 1968), pp 169–90. (German)
• "Pornografin som litteratur", trans. Erik Sandin, BLM (Stockholm) 37 (Apr. 1968), pp 252–69. (Swedish)
• "Wyobraźnia pornograficzna", trans. Ignacy Sieradzki, Teksty (Warsaw) No. 2 (1974), pp 36–58. (Polish)
• "Sade y Bataille", trans. Rafael Vargas, Revista de la Universidad de Mexico , no. 32.3–4 (Nov.-Dec. 1977), pp 86–8. (Spanish)
• "La imaginació pornogràfica", trans. Enric Sullà, Els marges (Barcelona) No. 21 (1981), pp 3–25. (Spanish)
• "Pornografin som litteratur", trans. Erik Sandin, In : Georges Bataille, Ögats historia , Stockholm: Alba, 1983, pp 87-140. (Swedish)
• "Ima li pornografsko v’obrazhenie?", trans. Dimit’r Zlatarev, ABV , No. 51 (Dec. 19, 1989), p. 8. Only paragraphs excerpted (Bulgarian)
• "Pornografická fantasie", trans. Alena Smutná, Vokno , No. 22 (1991), pp 76–82. (Czech)
• "Pornografická fantasie: II. část", trans. Alena Smutná, Vokno , No. 23 (1991), pp 83–6. (Czech)
• "Persona: The Film in Depth", In: Ingmar Bergman: Essays in Criticism , ed. Stuart M. Kaminsky, New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1975, pp 253-69; repr. in: Great Film Directors , ed. Leo Braudy and Morris Dickstein, 78–86, New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1978, pp 78-86; repr. in: Contemporary Literary Criticism , Vol. 16, ed. Sharon R. Gunton, Detroit: Gale Research, 1981, pp 56-7. Excerpts.
• "Tolscha filma", trans. Nikolai Paltsev, Iskusstvo kino (Moscow) No. 8 (1991), pp 150–5. (Russian)
• ¡Viva Che!: Contributions in Tribute to Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara , ed. Marianne Alexandre, London: Lorrimer, 1968, pp 106-10. Untitled contribution.
• "Chi è Jean Luc Godard?: Due o tre cose che so di lui", La fiera letteraria (Rome), 28 Nov. 1968, pp 16–8. (Italian)
• "Chi è Jean Luc Godard?: Flaubert e Proust non sanno raccontare", La fiera letteraria (Rome), 5 Dec. 1968, pp 16–8. (Italian)
• "Chi è Jean Luc Godard?: Tutto si svolge nel presente", La fiera letteraria (Rome), 12 Dec. 1968, pp 19–20. (Italian)
• "El cine de Godard", trans. Edgardo Cozarinsky, Sur (Buenos Aires) Nos. 316–317 (Jan.–Apr. 1969), pp 125–41. (Spanish)
• "Mott ett nytt kulterbegrepp", trans. Lars Helander, BLM (Stockholm) 37 (May–June 1968), pp 351–3. (Swedish)
• "Trip to Hanoi: Notes on the Enemy Camp", Esquire, Dec. 1968, 131–41, 287–90; repr. as "Trip to Hanoi", In: Journeys: Autobiographical Writings by Women , ed. Mary Grimley Mason and Carol Hurd Green, Boston: G.K.Hall & Co., 1979, pp. 225-8.
• "Enkelegedachten over de juste manier om van de Cubaanse revolutie te houden (1): De Cubanen zijn minder erotisch geworden", Vrij Nederland (Amsterdam), 19 July 1969, p 13. (Swedish)
• "Carta de Suecia", Revista de occidente (Madrid), 2d ser., 28 (Feb. 1970), pp 169–212. (Spanish)
• "Ein Brief aus Schweden", trans. Ellen Lindemann, Monat (Hamburg), Apr. 1970, pp 62–81. (German)
• "Ein Brief aus Schweden (II.)", trans. Ellen Lindemann, Monat (Hamburg), May 1970, pp 98–106. (German)
• "Primitivism", In: Encyclopaedia Britannica , Vol. 18, Chicago: Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1970, pp 531-2. Article where she distinguishes "chronological" from "cultural" primitivism.
• "Réflections sur la libération des femmes (réponses à un questionnaire)", trans. Gérard Durand, Les temps modernes , no. 29 (Dec. 1972), pp 907–44.
• "The Third World of Women", Partisan Review 40 (Summer 1973), pp 181–206.
• "Manner als Kolonialherren Frauen als Eingeborene: Zur Struktur des Sexismus", trans. Alice Schwarzer, Neues Forum (Vienna), Mar. 1973, pp 31–3. (German)
• "Entrevista a Susan Sontag", In: El feminismo: Nuevos conceptos , ed. Ana Fernández et al., Medellín, Colombia: Ediciones Hombre Nuevo, n.d. [1975?], pp. 17-56. (Spanish)
• "En memoria de Paul Goodman", trans. Flora Botton Burlá, Plural (Mexico, D.F) 2.6 (Feb. 1973), pp 10–1. (Spanish)
• "The Double Standard of Aging", Saturday Review , 23 Sept. 1972, pp 29–38.
• "Have You Lied About Your Age Today?", Nova (London), Sept. 1973, pp 40–8.
• "Las mujeres: Un doble patrón para envejecer", trans. Sara Sefchovich, Fem. (Mexico, D.F.) 6.24 (Aug.–Sept. 1982), pp 10–20. (Spanish)
• "Puraton no doukutsude", trans. K. Kondou, Trends 45 (1979), pp 8–14. (Japanese)
• "Susan Sontag: Un traité sur la ‘philosophie’ de la photo", Photo (Paris), No. 142 (July 1979), pp 100–2, 104 and Photo (Paris), No. 143 (Aug. 1979), pp 17–9, 112–4. (French)
• "La photographie", trans. Gérard-Henri Durand and Guy Durand, Lire magazine (Paris), No. 49 (Sept. 1979), pp 117–26. (French)
• "Att fotografera", trans. Lena Johannesson, In: Folklig och kommersiell konst: En antologi , ed. Bengt Jacobsson et al., Stockholm: Norstedt, 1980, pp 142-50. (Swedish)
• "O fotografii", trans. Sławomir Magala, Odra (Warsaw) No. 7–8 (July–Aug. 1981), pp 36–9. (Polish)
• "Narkomani obrazu", trans. Sławomir Magala, Fotografia (Warsaw) No. 2 (1983), pp 1–3. Excerpts. (Polish)
• "Sobre la fotografia", APSI (Santiago) No. 281 (1988), p xiv. (Spanish)
• "Amerika im Spiegel von Photographien, dunkel", trans. Hans-Horst Henschen, Akzente (Munich) 23 (Dec. 1976), pp 556–75. (German)
• "Ameryka wyłania się z wolna zza fotograffi", trans. Sławomir Magala, Miesięcznik literacki (Warsaw), No. 9 (Sept. 1983), pp 79–88. (Polish)
• "Shooting America", Annotated as "Melancholy Objects", New York Review of Books , volume 21, No. 6 (18 April 1974), pp 17–24, HTML ; repr. as ch 5 in On Photography , 1977, pp 51-82; reprint in Time magazine, 26 Dec. 1977, p. 66. Excerpt; reprint In: Jonathan Green, American Photography: A Critical History 1945 to the Present , New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1984, p. 192.
• "People Are Talking about…(“Susan Sontag Tells How It Feels to Make a Movie”)", Vogue magazine, July 1974, No. 84, pp 118–9.
• with David Rieff, "Notes on Optimism", Vogue magazine, Jan. 1975, No. 100, p 148, p 154.
• "Verzückt von den Primitiven: Leni Riefenstahl und die bleibende Faszination faschistischer Kunst", trans. Mark W. Rien, Die Zeit (Hamburg), 2 May 1975, pp 17–8. Excerpts. (German)
• "Verzückt von den Primitiven (II): Der Ekstase der Gemeinschaft: Leni Riefenstahl oder die anhaltende Faszination faschistischer Kunst", rtans. (Ger.) Mark W. Rien, Die Zeit (Hamburg), 9 May 1975, pp 22–3. Excerpts. (German)
• "La fascinación del fascismo", Nueva politica (Mexico, D.F.), No. 1 (Jan.–Mar. 1976), pp 261–81. (Spanish)
• "Fascination du fascisme", trans. Robert Louit, Magazine littéraire (Paris), No. 120 (Jan. 1977), pp 70–4. (French)
• "Fascynujący faszyzm", trans. Sławomir Magala, Pismo literacko-artystyczne (Krakow), No. 4 (1984), pp 142–9. Excerpts. (Polish)
• "Magicheskij fascism", trans. N. Tzirkin, Iskusstvo kino (Moscow), No. 6 (1991), pp 50–7. (Russian)
• "Fascinující fašismus", trans. Martin Weiss, Revolver revue (Prague), No. 20 (1992), pp 192–217. (Czech)
• "Heroizm widzenia", trans. Sławomir Magala, Fotografia (Warsaw) No. 1 (1982), pp 1–3. (Polish)
• "Photography Unlimited", The New York Review of Books , volume 24, No. 11 (23 June 1977), pp 26– 31; repr. as "The Image-World", ch 6 in Sontag, On Photography , 1977; 1978, pp. 153-180, PDF . Review
• "A Note on Bunraku", The Threepenny Review 16 (1984).
• "Ein Raum ohne Zweitracht", Zeit Magazin (Hamburg), 25 Dec. 1987, pp 10, 12, 38–9. (German)
• "De genoegens van het beeld", trans. Bab Westerveld, In Gezicht op het Mauritshuis: Poëtische visies op een uitzonderlijk museum , ed. H.R. Hoetink, The Hague: Meulenhoff/Landshoff, 1989, pp 130-9. (Danish)
• "Ein Raum ohne Zwietracht", In: Zeit-Museum der 100 Bilder , ed. Fritz J. Raddatz, Frankfurt am Main: Insel Verlag, 1989, pp 32-42. (German)
• "In Conclusion...", East-West Film Journal 2:1 (December 1987), pp 93-106.
• "Los fluidos de Wagner", trans. Jorge Ortiz Barili, La Natión (Buenos Aires), 24 Jan. 1988, sec. 4a, pp 1–2. (Spanish)
• "Los fluidos en Wagner", trans. Raúl Ortiz, Vuelta (Mexico, D.F.) 12.141 (Aug. 1988), pp 22–7. (Spanish)
• "Wagner’s Fluids", In: Les Symbolistes et Richard Wagner/Die Symbolisten und Richard Wagner , ed. Wolfgang Storch and Josef Mackert, Berlin: Edition Hentrich, 1991, pp 89-94. (English) / (German)
• "Wagner und das Flüssige", trans. Guntram Weber, In: Die Symbolisten und Richard Wagner: Übersetzung der fremdsprachigen Texte , Berlin: Edition Hentrich, 1991, pp 20-4. (German)
• "Wagners Flüssigkeiten: Neuschöpfung des Erhabenen—Letalität des Lyrischen", trans. Martin Hielscher, Lettre international (Berlin) No. 21 (Summer 1993), pp 77–80. (German)
• "Pilgrimsfard", trans. (Swed.) Jan Söderqvist, Allt om böcker [Stockholm?], No. 4 (1988), pp 10–4, 56–60. (Swedish)
• "Tōmasu Man ni atta hi: Watashi no sekai bungaku nyūmon", trans. Takao Tomiyama, Subaru (Tokyo), 10, 4 (Apr. 1988), pp 134–51. (Japanese)
• "Pellegrinaggio", Lettera internationale (Rome), 4.17 (Summer/July–Aug., 1988), pp 27–33. (Italian)
• "Peregrinatión", trans. C. Scavino, El País Semanal (Madrid), 18 Sept. 1988, pp 2–15. (Spanish)
• "Wallfahrt", trans. Wulf Teichmann, Akzente (Munich), No. 6 (Dec. 1988), pp 523–46. (German)
• "Na poklonenie", trans. Nevyana Nikolova, Panorama , No. 2 (1989), pp 31–46. (Bulgarian)
• "Peregrinación", trans. Jesús Cabanillas, El Paseante (Madrid), No. 13 (1989), pp 40–51. (Spanish)
• "Wallfahrt", trans. Wulf Teichmann, Neue deutsche Literatur (Berlin), 37.4 (Apr. 1989), pp 149–70. (German)
• "Zarándokút", trans. Mária Borbás, Nagyvilág (Budapest), 34 (Dec. 1989), pp 1760–76. (Hungarian)
• "Pielgrzymka", trans. Teresa Truszkowska, Zeszyty literackie (Paris), No. 34 (Spring 1991), pp 31–50. (Polish)
• "Pèlerinage", trans. Dominique Rueff, La règle du jeu (Paris), Aug. 1991, pp 96–123. (French)
• "Noch eine Elegie", trans. Marianne Frisch, In: Literaturmagazin (Hamburg), No. 22 (1988), pp 131–6. (German)
• "Elegie auf Europa: Gegenwart und Zukunft einer Idee", Frankfurter Allgemeine , 28 May 1988, p 27. (German)
• "Susan Sontag om Europa som idé: Det borde vara fullständigt misskrediterat", trans. Maria Ekman, Dagens Nyheter (Stockholm), 30 Nov. 1988, “Kultur” sec., 4. (Swedish)
• "La noción de Europa (una elegía más)", trans. Jorge Ortiz Barili, La Nación (Buenos Aires), 11 Dec. 1988, sec. 4a, pp 1–2. (Spanish)
• "L’idée d’Europe (une élégie de plus)", trans. Anne Dominique Balmès, Les temps modernes , no. 44 (Jan. 1989), pp 77–82. (French)
• "Jeszcze jedna elegia", trans. Jan Zieliński, Res Publica (Warsaw), 3.6 (June 1989), pp 6–8. (Polish)
• "Europa: Noch ein Elegie", In: Im Osten erwacht die Geschichte: Essays zur Revolution in Mittel- und Osteuropa , ed. Frank Schirrmacher, Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1990, pp 13–8. (German)
• "Evropa: Još jedna elegija", trans. Ranko Sladojević, Radio-Sarajevo-treći program (Sarajevo), No. 68–69 (1990), pp 297–9. (Serbo-Croatian)
• "Aids—sjukdomen ingen vill ha men samhället behöver", trans. Berit Skogsberg, Dagens Nyheter (Stockholm), 23 Oct. 1988, pp 42–3. (Swedish)
• "Metafory AIDS", trans. Mieczysław Orski, Odra (Warsaw), No. 4 (1989), pp 24–9. (Polish)
• "AIDS v metaforách", [trans. Alena Jindrová-Spilarová], Lettre internationale (Prague), No. 2 (Spring 1991), pp 34–41. (Czech)
• "AIDS i njegove metafore", trans. Senada Kreso, Odjek (Sarajevo), July 1993, pp 4–5. (Serbo-Croatian)
• "Godot in Sarajevo: Eine Theaterinszenierung unter dem Belagerungszustand", Lettre international (Berlin) (Winter 1993), pp 4–9. (German)
• "Beckett en Bosnie (1): En attendant Godot à Sarajevo", trans. Pierre Alien, Libération (Paris), 2 Nov. 1993, pp 39–40. (French)
• "Beckett en Bosnie (2): Auditions à Sarajevo", trans. Pierre Alien, Libération (Paris), 3 Nov. 1993, p 48. (French)
• "Beckett en Bosnie (3): Un détour par la bougie la plus proche", trans. Pierre Allen, Libération (Paris), 4 Nov. 1993, p 42. (French)
• "Beckett en Bosnie (4): Pas de corde pour Pozzo", trans. Pierre Allen, Libération (Paris), 5 Nov. 1993, p. 37. (French)
• "Beckett en Bosnie (fin): L’endroit le plus réel du monde", trans. Pierre Allen, Libération (Paris), 5–7 Nov. 1993, p 33. (French)
• "Godot arriva a Sarajevo", trans. Rosa Rita D’Acquarica, La rivista dei libri (Milan), No. 3.12 (Dec. 1993): supplement pp 1–7. (Italian)
• "The Decay of Cinema" , New York Times , 1996.
• "Why are we in Kosovo?" , New York Times Magazine , 2 May 1999.
• "A Photograph is not an Opinion. Or is it?" , Women exposition by Leibovitz, Corcoran Gallery in Washington, DC, 1999. 1999, catalogue ”essay”, [11] .
• "Pop, the Aesthetics of Silence, and the New Sensibility" (chapter 7), in Sylvia Harrison, Pop art and the origins of post-modernism , Cambridge University Press, 2001, pp 171-207, PDF , IA .
• "Looking at War" , The New Yorker , 9 Dec 2002, pp 82-98.
• "Regarding the torture of others" , New York Times , 23 May 2004, p 24, HTML .
• "At the same time... (the novelist and moral reasoning)" , English Studies in Africa 48:1 (2005), pp 5-17.
• "An argument about beauty" , Dædalus (Fall 2005), pp 208-213.

Bibliographies [ edit ]

• Leland A. Poague, Kathy A. Parsons, Susan Sontag: An Annotated Bibliography, 1948-1992 , Garland Publishing, 2000, 445 pp.
• in Chris Murray (ed.), Key Writers on Art: The Twentieth Century , Routledge, 2002.

Interviews [ edit ]

• Evans Chan, "Against Postmodernism, etcetera--A Conversation with Susan Sontag" , Postmodern Culture , 2001
• "Art and Consciousness" (Susan Sontag interviewed by Bonnie Marranca and Gautam Dasgupta), Performing Arts Journal", 80 (2005):1–9.
• Myśl to forma odczuwania , trans. Dariusz Żukowski, Kraków: Karakter, 2014, 160 pp. [12] (Polish)

Films and Recordings [ edit ]

• The Original Read-In for Peace in Vietnam , compiled by Rosalind Wells and Louis Menashe, Broadside Records, 1967. L.P. record.
• Duett för kannibaler / Duet for Cannibals , Feature Film, Black and White, English Subtitles, 106 minutes. Writer/Director: Susan Sontag, Producer: Göran Lindgren, Produced by Sandrew Film & Teater AB, Sweden, 1969.
• "Spotlight on Susan Sontag: A ‘Modern’ Critic Discusses Literature and the Ascendancy of Films", 56 minutes. with Edwin Newman, Motivational Programming Corp., Tucson, AZ, 1969 [1970]. Audiocassette.
• "Ideas and Visions", Two Audiocassettes, 118 minutes, Round table discussion with Murray Bookchin, Ti-Grace Atkinson, Allen Ginsberg, Susan Sontag. Los Angeles: Pacifica Tape Library, 1970 [or 1977]. (Held in the California Polytechnic State University library).
• Brother Carl . Feature Film, Black and White, 97 minutes. Writer/Director: Susan Sontag, Executive Producer: Göran Lindgren, Production Manager: Peter Hald, Produced by Sandrew Film & Teater AB and Svenska Filminstitutet, Sweden, 1971.
• Susan Sontag , Audiocassette, 59 minutes. [Canadian Broadcasting Corp. "Ideas" program. With: David McPherson.] Center for Cassette Studies, North Hollywood, CA. n.d. [cca. 1971].
• Promised Lands , Documentary Film, Color, 87 minutes. Writer/Director: Susan Sontag, Assistant Director: David Rieff, New Yorker Films, New York, 1974.
• Marxism Today , Audiocassette, 55 minutes. With: Susan Sontag, Michael Harrington, Robert Nesbitt. Center for Cassette Studies, 1975.
• Agnes Varda and Susan Sontag: Lions and Cannibals , Videocassette, Color, 27 minutes. Host: Jim McAndrew, for "Camera Three", Producer/Director: Merrill Brockway, Writer: Stephan Chodorov. With: Susan Sontag, Agnès Varda, Jack Kroll. Creative Arts Television Archive, Kent, CT, 1977.
• Illness as Metaphor: Susan Sontag Discusses Her Latest Book , Audiocassette, 60 minutes. With Heywood Hale Broun. Center for Cassette Studies, North Hollywood, CA, n.d. [cca. 1978].
• In Dark Places: Remembering the Holocaust , Documentary Film, Color, 58 minutes. Director: Gina Blumenfeld, Editing: Sara Fishko, Cinematography: Affonso Beato, Fred Goodich, Judy Irola. With: Armand Volkas, Glenn Benest, Alan Kanter, Lisa Kanter, Peter Mann, Anna Mindess, Dev Rosenblatt, Andy Rothstein (The New Artef Players). Phoenix Films, 1978.
• Susan Sontag on Photography , Audiocassette, 59 minutes. Washington, D.C.: National Public Radio, Options II, 1978.
• Debriefing: A Reading by Susan Sontag , Stereo L.P., 36 minutes. Tanam Press, New York, 1979.
• La Spirale / Spiral , Videocassette Documentary, 145 minutes. Directors: Armand Matellart, Jacqueline Meppiel, Valérie Mayoux, with Chris Marker , Silvio Tendler, Pierre Flament. With: Susan Sontag and Donald Sutherland. A Les Films Molière release of a Films Molière-Reggane Films-Seuil Audiovisuel production, Paris, 1975. Released on video by Idera, Vancouver, BC. n.d. [1979].
• Town Bloody Hall , Documentary Film, Color, 88 minutes. Directors: D.A. Pennebaker, Chris Hegedus, Producer: D.A. Pennebaker, Associate, Producer: Shirley Broughton. With: Norman Mailer, Germaine Greer, Diana Trilling, Jacqueline Ceballos, Jill Johnston [and Susan Sontag, in the audience]. Produced by Pennebaker Inc., 1980.
• Writer’s Workshop: Susan Sontag , Videocassette, Color, 29 minutes. Executive Producer: Tom Stepp, Producer: William Price Fox, Director: Dave Smalley, Host: George Plimpton. University of South Carolina/South Carolina ETV Network, 1982.
• On Paul Goodman , Audiocassette, 29 minutes. Interviewer and Executive Editor: David Ray. New Letters on the Air: Contemporary Writers on Radio, Univerity of Missouri, Kansas City, Oct. 1982.
• Shadows from Light , Documentary Film, 60 minutes. Director: Stephen Dwoskin, Narrator: Susan Sontag. BBC Channel 4. [cca. 1983].
• Unguided Tour , Feature Film, Color, 72 minutes. Writer/Director (from her short story): Susan Sontag, Producer: Giovannella Zannoni. Produced by Lunga Cittata Cooperative, RAI channel 3, [Italy] 1983.

Literature [ edit ]

Essays [ edit ].

• Toback, James, "Whatever You'd Like Susan Sontag to Think, She doesn't", Esquire 70 (1968), pp 58-61.
• Sohnya Sayres, "Susan Sontag and the Practice of Modernism" , American Literary History 1:3 (Autumn 1989), pp 593-611.
• Steven Drukman, "Notes on Fornes (with Apologies to Susan Sontag)", American Theatre 17:7 (2000), p 36.
• Barbara Clow, "Who's Afraid of Susan Sontag? or, the Myths and Metaphors of Cancer Reconsidered" , Social History of Medicine 14:2 (2001), pp 293-312.
• Sarah Parsons, "Sontag’s Lament: Emotion, Ethics, and Photography" , Photography & Culture 2:3 (Nov 2009), pp 289-302.

Books [ edit ]

• David Rieff, Swimming in a Sea of Death: A Son's Memoir , London: Granta, 2009.
• Phillip Lopate, Notes on Sontag , Princeton University Press, 2009, PDF , ARG .
• Daniel Schreiber, Susan Sontag. A Biography , trans. David Dollenmayer, Chicago: Northwestern University Press, 2014. [14]
• Jerome Boyd Maunsell, Susan Sontag , London: Reaktion Books, 2014, ARG .
• Sigrid Nunez, Sempre Susan: A Memoir of Susan Sontag , Atlas & Co., 2014, 144 pp.

Documentaries [ edit ]

• Regarding Susan Sontag , dir. Nancy D. Kates, 100 min, 2014. [15] , [16]

Links [ edit ]

• http://www.gettyimages.no/editorial/susan-sontag-pictures?page=2
• http://www.susansontag.com/SusanSontag/archive.shtml
• http://unitproj.library.ucla.edu/special/sontag/sontag.htm
• http://edulibs.org/susan-sontag/

• Featured articles

Navigation menu

Personal tools.

• Not logged in
• Contributions
• Create account
• Recent changes
• Recent files
• Batch upload
• What links here
• Related changes
• Special pages
• Printable version
• Permanent link
• Page information
• Browse bases
• This page was last edited on 25 May 2022, at 23:54.
• Privacy policy
• About Monoskop
• Disclaimers

• History & Society
• Science & Tech
• Biographies
• Animals & Nature
• Geography & Travel
• Arts & Culture
• Games & Quizzes
• On This Day
• One Good Fact
• New Articles
• Lifestyles & Social Issues
• Philosophy & Religion
• Politics, Law & Government
• World History
• Health & Medicine
• Browse Biographies
• Birds, Reptiles & Other Vertebrates
• Bugs, Mollusks & Other Invertebrates
• Environment
• Fossils & Geologic Time
• Entertainment & Pop Culture
• Sports & Recreation
• Visual Arts
• Demystified
• Image Galleries
• Infographics
• Top Questions
• Britannica Kids
• Saving Earth
• Space Next 50
• Student Center

• When did American literature begin?
• Who are some important authors of American literature?
• What are the periods of American literature?

Susan Sontag

Our editors will review what you’ve submitted and determine whether to revise the article.

• Jewish Women's Archive - Biography of Susan Sontag
• Los Angeles Times - Obituary of Author Susan Sontag
• National Endowment for the Humanities - Susan Sontag, Essayist and So Much Else
• Amercian Society of Authors and Writers - Biography of Susan Sontag
• Susan Sontag - Student Encyclopedia (Ages 11 and up)

Susan Sontag (born January 16, 1933, New York , New York, U.S.—died December 28, 2004, New York) was an American intellectual and writer best known for her essays on modern culture .

Sontag (who adopted her stepfather’s name) was reared in Tucson , Arizona, and in Los Angeles. She attended the University of California at Berkeley for one year and then transferred to the University of Chicago , from which she graduated in 1951. She studied English literature (M.A., 1954) and philosophy (M.A., 1955) at Harvard University and taught philosophy at several colleges and universities before the publication of her first novel , The Benefactor (1963). During the early 1960s she also wrote a number of essays and reviews, most of which were published in such periodicals as The New York Review of Books , Commentary , and Partisan Review . Some of these short pieces were collected in Against Interpretation, and Other Essays (1966). Her second novel, Death Kit (1967), was followed by another collection of essays, Styles of Radical Will (1969). Her later critical works included On Photography (1977), Illness as Metaphor (1978), Under the Sign of Saturn (1980), and AIDS and Its Metaphors (1989). She also wrote the historical novels The Volcano Lover: A Romance (1992) and In America (2000).

Sontag’s essays are characterized by a serious philosophical approach to various aspects and personalities of modern culture. She first came to national attention in 1964 with an essay entitled “ Notes on ‘Camp,’ ” in which she discussed the attributes of taste within the gay community . She also wrote on such subjects as theatre and film and such figures as writer Nathalie Sarraute , director Robert Bresson , and painter Francis Bacon . In addition to criticism and fiction , she wrote screenplays and edited selected writings of Roland Barthes and Antonin Artaud . Some of her later writings and speeches were collected in At the Same Time: Essays and Speeches (2007).

Against Interpretation and Other Essays

By: Susan Sontag

• Narrated by: Tavia Gilbert
• Length: 12 hrs and 6 mins
• 4.4 out of 5 stars 4.4 (100 ratings)

Failed to add items

Add to cart failed., add to wish list failed., remove from wishlist failed., adding to library failed, follow podcast failed, unfollow podcast failed.

$7.95 a month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy for $15.56

No default payment method selected.

We are sorry. we are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method, listeners also enjoyed....

On Photography

• Narrated by: Jennifer Van Dyck
• Length: 6 hrs and 12 mins
• Overall 4.5 out of 5 stars 259
• Performance 4.5 out of 5 stars 218
• Story 4.5 out of 5 stars 213

First published in 1973, this is a study of the force of photographic images, which are continually inserted between experience and reality. When anything can be photographed, and photography has destroyed the boundaries and definitions of art, a viewer can approach a photograph freely, with no expectations of discovering what it means. This collection of six lucid and invigorating essays, with the most famous being "In Plato's Cave", make up a deep exploration of how the image has affected society.

• 4 out of 5 stars

I'm Glad I Bought, Despite Some Negative Reviews

• By DEF on 10-18-13

Illness as Metaphor and AIDS and Its Metaphors

• Length: 4 hrs and 37 mins
• Overall 4.5 out of 5 stars 127
• Performance 4.5 out of 5 stars 108
• Story 4.5 out of 5 stars 109

In 1978 Susan Sontag wrote Illness as Metaphor , a classic work described by Newsweek as “one of the most liberating books of its time”. A cancer patient herself when she was writing the book, Sontag shows how the metaphors and myths surrounding certain illnesses, especially cancer, add greatly to the suffering of patients and often inhibit them from seeking proper treatment.

• 5 out of 5 stars
• By andrew on 09-07-18

Regarding the Pain of Others

• Length: 2 hrs and 51 mins
• Overall 4.5 out of 5 stars 237
• Performance 4.5 out of 5 stars 199
• Story 4.5 out of 5 stars 201

How does the spectacle of the sufferings of others affect us? Are viewers inured - or incited - to violence by the depiction of cruelty? Susan Sontag here takes a fresh look at the representation of atrocity - from Goya's The Disasters of War to photographs of the American Civil War, lynchings of Blacks in the South, and the Nazi death camps, and to more contemporary horrific images of Bosnia, Sierra Leone, Rwanda, Israel, and Palestine, as well as New York City on September 11, 2001.

• 2 out of 5 stars

Terrible recording

• By Vandra on 02-16-12

As Consciousness Is Harnessed to Flesh

• Journals and Notebooks, 1964-1980
• Length: 13 hrs and 53 mins
• Overall 4 out of 5 stars 18
• Performance 4 out of 5 stars 17
• Story 4 out of 5 stars 17

This, the second of three volumes of Susan Sontag’s journals and notebooks, begins where the first volume left off, in the middle of the 1960s. It traces and documents Sontag’s evolution from fledgling participant in the artistic and intellectual world of New York City to world-renowned critic and dominant force in the world of ideas with the publication of the groundbreaking Against Interpretation in 1966.

Under the Sign of Saturn

• Length: 6 hrs and 9 mins
• Overall 4.5 out of 5 stars 34
• Performance 4.5 out of 5 stars 31
• Story 4.5 out of 5 stars 31

Sontag's most important critical writings from 1972 to 1980 are collected in Under the Sign of Saturn . One of America's leading essayists, Sontag's writings are commentaries on the relation between moral and aesthetic ideas, discussing the works of Antonin Artaud, Leni Riefenstahl, Elias Canetti, Walter Benjamin, and others. The collection includes a variety of her well-known essays. Sontag's writings are famously full of intellectual range and depth, and are at turns exhilarating, ominous, disturbing, and beautiful.

Great essays and a great reading performance

• By Jaded Buddha on 03-29-18

Illuminations

• Essays and Reflections
• By: Walter Benjamin, Hannah Arendt
• Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki
• Length: 10 hrs and 12 mins
• Overall 5 out of 5 stars 29
• Performance 5 out of 5 stars 24
• Story 5 out of 5 stars 23

Walter Benjamin was an icon of criticism, renowned for his insight on art, literature, and philosophy. This volume includes his views on Kafka, with whom he felt a close personal affinity; his studies on Baudelaire and Proust; and his essays on Leskov and Brecht’s epic theater. Illuminations also includes his penetrating study “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction”, an enlightening discussion of translation as a literary mode, and his theses on the philosophy of history.

• By Anonymous User on 12-08-21

By: Walter Benjamin , and others

• Journals and Notebooks, 1947-1963
• Length: 8 hrs and 35 mins
• Overall 4 out of 5 stars 32
• Performance 4.5 out of 5 stars 30
• Story 4 out of 5 stars 29

"I intend to do everything...I shall anticipate pleasure everywhere and find it too, for it is everywhere! I shall involve myself wholly...everything matters!" This first selection from Susan Sontag's diaries (from 1947-1963) takes us from early adolescence through to when Sontag was in her early 30s. It is an astonishingly affecting and honest self-portrait which is also a fascinating, revealing account of an artist and critic being born. We see Sontag honing her skills and fashioning herself, by a supreme act of will, into an intellectual force.

• 3 out of 5 stars

Performed well. But...

• By S. BAKER on 05-17-15

The Iliad & The Odyssey

• Narrated by: John Lescault
• Length: 28 hrs and 37 mins
• Overall 4 out of 5 stars 912
• Performance 4 out of 5 stars 532
• Story 4 out of 5 stars 533

Little is known about the Ancient Greek oral poet Homer, the supposed 8th century BC author of the world-read Iliad and his later masterpiece, The Odyssey . These classic epics provided the basis for Greek education and culture throughout the classical age and formed the backbone of humane education through the birth of the Roman Empire and the spread of Christianity.

Worth the price, worth the time

• By Sam on 12-31-04

• Her Life and Work

By: Benjamin Moser

• Length: 22 hrs and 4 mins
• Overall 4 out of 5 stars 108
• Performance 4 out of 5 stars 86
• Story 4.5 out of 5 stars 85

No writer is as emblematic of the American 20th century as Susan Sontag. Mythologized and misunderstood, lauded and loathed, a girl from the suburbs who became a proud symbol of cosmopolitanism, Sontag left a legacy of writing on art and politics, feminism and homosexuality, celebrity and style, medicine and drugs, radicalism and Fascism and Freudianism and Communism and Americanism, that forms an indispensable key to modern culture.

Cloying voice

• By Suzanne on 11-02-19

The Art of Cruelty

• A Reckoning

By: Maggie Nelson

• Length: 8 hrs and 49 mins
• Overall 4.5 out of 5 stars 92
• Performance 4.5 out of 5 stars 80
• Story 4.5 out of 5 stars 80

Today both reality and entertainment crowd our fields of vision with brutal imagery. The pervasiveness of images of torture, horror, and war has all but demolished the 20th-century hope that such imagery might shock us into a less alienated state, or aid in the creation of a just social order. What to do now? When to look, when to turn away? Genre-busting author Maggie Nelson brilliantly navigates this contemporary predicament, with an eye to the question of whether or not focusing on representations of cruelty makes us cruel.

Wonderful book, mediocre narration

• By Melina on 11-14-17

• Four Songs of Care and Constraint
• Narrated by: Gabra Zackman
• Length: 10 hrs and 5 mins
• Overall 4.5 out of 5 stars 73
• Performance 5 out of 5 stars 56
• Story 5 out of 5 stars 55

So often deployed as a jingoistic, even menacing rallying cry, or limited by a focus on passing moments of liberation, the rhetoric of freedom both rouses and repels. Does it remain key to our autonomy, justice, and well-being, or is freedom's long star turn coming to a close? Does a continued obsession with the term enliven and emancipate, or reflect a deepening nihilism (or both)? On Freedom examines such questions by tracing the concept's complexities in four distinct realms: art, sex, drugs, and climate.

• By Kristi Strong on 12-14-21

The Second Sex

• By: Simone de Beauvoir, Constance Borde, Sheila Malovany-Chevallier
• Narrated by: Ellen Archer, Judith Thurman
• Length: 39 hrs and 9 mins
• Overall 4.5 out of 5 stars 187
• Performance 4.5 out of 5 stars 153
• Story 4.5 out of 5 stars 153

Simone de Beauvoir’s essential masterwork is a powerful analysis of the Western notion of "woman", and a revolutionary exploration of inequality and otherness. This unabridged edition of the text reinstates significant portions of the original French text that were cut in the first English translation, and is now available on audio for the very first time. Vital and groundbreaking, Beauvoir’s pioneering and impressive text remains as pertinent today as when it was first published, and will continue to provoke and inspire generations of men and women to come.

Great book, performance lacking

• By Anne Infeld on 10-30-20

By: Simone de Beauvoir , and others

Society of the Spectacle

By: Guy Debord

• Narrated by: Bruce T Harvey
• Length: 3 hrs and 43 mins
• Overall 4.5 out of 5 stars 164
• Performance 4.5 out of 5 stars 141
• Story 4.5 out of 5 stars 138

This is the "Das Kapital" of the 20th century - an essential text, and the main theoretical work of the Situationists. Few works of political and cultural theory have been as enduringly provocative. From its publication amid the social upheavals of the 1960s up to the present, the volatile theses of this book have decisively transformed debates on the shape of modernity, capitalism, and everyday life in the 21st century. This is the original translation by Fredy Perlman, kept in print continuously for the last 50 years, keeping the flame of personal and collective autonomy alive.

• By Rachel on 08-28-19

Orientalism

By: Edward Said

• Narrated by: Peter Ganim
• Length: 19 hrs and 2 mins
• Overall 4.5 out of 5 stars 596
• Performance 4.5 out of 5 stars 482
• Story 4.5 out of 5 stars 483

This landmark book, first published in 1978, remains one of the most influential books in the Social Sciences, particularly Ethnic Studies and Postcolonialism. Said is best known for describing and critiquing "Orientalism", which he perceived as a constellation of false assumptions underlying Western attitudes toward the East. In Orientalism Said claimed a "subtle and persistent Eurocentric prejudice against Arabo-Islamic peoples and their culture."

We're lucky to have this on audio

• By Delano on 02-27-13

The Source of Self-Regard

• Selected Essays, Speeches, and Meditations

By: Toni Morrison

• Narrated by: Bahni Turpin
• Length: 16 hrs and 2 mins
• Overall 4.5 out of 5 stars 186
• Performance 4.5 out of 5 stars 149
• Story 4.5 out of 5 stars 143

Arguably the most celebrated and revered writer of our time now gives us a new nonfiction collection - a rich gathering of her essays, speeches, and meditations on society, culture, and art, spanning four decades.

Refreshing thoughts

• By Amazon Customer on 04-02-19

Art Is Life

• Icons and Iconoclasts, Visionaries and Vigilantes, and Flashes of Hope in the Night

By: Jerry Saltz

• Narrated by: Jerry Saltz, Mark Bramhall
• Length: 16 hrs and 1 min
• Overall 4.5 out of 5 stars 87
• Performance 4.5 out of 5 stars 71
• Story 4.5 out of 5 stars 71

Jerry Saltz is one of our most-watched writers about art and artists and a passionate champion of the importance of art in our shared cultural life. Since the 1990s he has been an indispensable cultural voice: Witty and provocative, he has attracted contemporary listeners to fine art as few critics have.

• 1 out of 5 stars

WRONG for audio program

• By Karen Lehrer on 11-07-22

Awaiting God

• A New Translation of Attente De Dieu and Lettre a Un Religieux

By: Simone Weil

• Narrated by: Rosemary Benson
• Length: 8 hrs and 28 mins
• Overall 4.5 out of 5 stars 55
• Performance 4.5 out of 5 stars 45
• Story 4.5 out of 5 stars 45

These works are considered Weil's primary essays and letters. In addition, Simone Weil's niece has contributed an introductory article entitled, 'Simone Weil and the Rabbi's: Compassion and Tsedekah,' which puts Weil's relationship with Jewish thought into perspective. She includes source material from the Rabbis that put Weil (however reluctantly) in line with rabbinical thought throughout her major themes. The book is the ideal English introduction to the works and thought of Simone Weil.

You Speak Weil - And Do Not Know So

• By D_r_D_a_n on 11-01-16

The Queer Art of Failure

By: Jack Halberstam

• Narrated by: Paul Boehmer
• Length: 10 hrs and 1 min
• Overall 4.5 out of 5 stars 75
• Performance 4.5 out of 5 stars 59
• Story 4.5 out of 5 stars 60

The Queer Art of Failure is about finding alternatives - to conventional understandings of success in a heteronormative, capitalist society; to academic disciplines that confirm what is already known according to approved methods of knowing; and to cultural criticism that claims to break new ground but cleaves to conventional archives.

More Disturbing/Fatalistic than Interesting

• By Oliver Kimsey on 05-16-21

Publisher's summary

Against Interpretation was Susan Sontag's first collection of essays and is a modern classic.

Originally published in 1966, it has never gone out of print and has influenced generations of readers all over the world.

It includes the famous essays "Notes on Camp" and "Against Interpretation," as well as, her impassioned discussions of Sartre, Camus, Simone Weil, Godard, Beckett, Levi-Strauss, science-fiction movies, psychoanalysis, and contemporary religious thought.

• Unabridged Audiobook
• Categories: Literature & Fiction

Related to this topic

The Western Canon

• The Books and School of the Ages

By: Harold Bloom

• Narrated by: James Armstrong
• Overall 4 out of 5 stars 232
• Performance 4 out of 5 stars 135
• Story 4.5 out of 5 stars 137

Harold Bloom explores our Western literary tradition by concentrating on the works of twenty-six authors central to the Canon. He argues against ideology in literary criticism; he laments the loss of intellectual and aesthetic standards; he deplores multiculturalism, Marxism, feminism, neoconservatism, Afrocentrism, and the New Historicism. Insisting instead upon "the autonomy of aesthetic," Bloom places Shakespeare at the center of the Western Canon.....

A personal and opinionated book on the Canon

• By Steffen on 07-23-12

The Romantic Manifesto

• A Philosophy of Literature

By: Ayn Rand

• Narrated by: Bernadette Dunne
• Length: 7 hrs and 21 mins
• Overall 4.5 out of 5 stars 272
• Performance 4.5 out of 5 stars 173
• Story 4.5 out of 5 stars 169

In this beautifully written and brilliantly reasoned collection of essays, Ayn Rand throws new light on the nature of art and its purpose in human life. Once again, she demonstrates her bold originality and her refusal to let conventional ideas define her sense of the truth. Rand eloquently asserts that one cannot create art without infusing it with one's own value judgments and personal philosophy - even an attempt to withhold moral overtones only results in a deterministic or naturalistic message.

Essential AYN

• By Mica on 07-15-08

The Art of the Novel

• By: Milan Kundera, Linda Asher - translator
• Narrated by: Graeme Malcolm
• Length: 4 hrs and 31 mins
• Overall 4.5 out of 5 stars 36
• Performance 4.5 out of 5 stars 32
• Story 4.5 out of 5 stars 32

Kundera brilliantly examines the work of such important and diverse figures as Rabelais, Cervantes, Sterne, Diderot, Flaubert, Tolstoy, and Musil. He is especially penetrating on Hermann Broch, and his exploration of the world of Kafka's novels vividly reveals the comic terror of Kafka's bureaucratized universe. Kundera's discussion of his own work includes his views on the role of historical events in fiction, the meaning of action, and the creation of character in the postpsychological novel.

Informative and Inspiring

• By Mo on 11-27-21

By: Milan Kundera , and others

Cultural Amnesia

• Notes in the Margin of My Time

By: Clive James

• Narrated by: Clive James
• Length: 6 hrs and 16 mins
• Overall 4 out of 5 stars 149
• Performance 4.5 out of 5 stars 104
• Story 4.5 out of 5 stars 103

From Anna Akhmatova to Stefan Zweig, via Charles de Gaulle, Hitler, Thomas Mann and Charlie Chaplin, this varied and unfailingly absorbing book is both story and history, both public memoir and personal record - and provides an essential field-guide to the vast movements of taste, intellect, politics and delusion that helped to prepare the times we live in now.

Very enjoyable and well narrated

• By Larbi on 05-18-08

To Show and to Tell

• The Craft of Literary Nonfiction

By: Phillip Lopate

• Narrated by: Arthur Morey
• Length: 7 hrs and 9 mins
• Overall 4 out of 5 stars 76
• Performance 4.5 out of 5 stars 62
• Story 4 out of 5 stars 62

Distinguished author Phillip Lopate, editor of the celebrated anthology The Art of the Personal Essay , is universally acclaimed as “one of our best personal essayists” ( Dallas Morning News ). Here, combining more than 40 years of lessons from his storied career as a writer and professor, he brings us this highly anticipated nuts-and-bolts guide to writing literary nonfiction. A phenomenal master class shaped by Lopate’s informative, accessible tone, and immense gift for storytelling.

Not a guide on writing personal essays

• By A. Yoshida on 08-07-13

The Art Instinct

• Beauty, Pleasure, and Human Evolution

By: Denis Dutton

• Narrated by: P. J. Ochlan
• Length: 12 hrs and 7 mins
• Overall 4 out of 5 stars 66
• Performance 4 out of 5 stars 50
• Story 4 out of 5 stars 51

The Art Instinct combines two of the most fascinating and contentious disciplines, art and evolutionary science, in a provocative new work that will revolutionize the way art itself is perceived. Aesthetic taste, argues Denis Dutton, is an evolutionary trait, and is shaped by natural selection. It's not, as almost all contemporary art criticism and academic theory would have it, "socially constructed".

A breath of fresh air!

• By Michael on 02-19-14

The Birth of Tragedy Out of the Spirit of Music

By: Friedrich Nietzsche

• Narrated by: Duncan Steen
• Length: 6 hrs and 5 mins
• Overall 4.5 out of 5 stars 168
• Performance 4.5 out of 5 stars 148
• Story 4.5 out of 5 stars 148

One of Nietzsche’s earliest works, The Birth of Tragedy (1872) is a remarkable source of inspiration. It is here that the philosopher expresses his frustration with the contemporary world and urges man to embrace Dionysian energy once more. He refutes European culture since the time of Socrates, arguing that it is one-sidedly Apollonian and prevents man from living in optimistic harmony with the sufferings of life.

The Apollonian vs The Dionysian

• By JCW on 02-05-18

The Long March

• How the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s Changed America

By: Roger Kimball

• Narrated by: Raymond Todd
• Length: 9 hrs and 23 mins
• Overall 4.5 out of 5 stars 118
• Performance 4.5 out of 5 stars 97
• Story 4.5 out of 5 stars 99

The architects of America's cultural revolution of the 1960s were Beat authors like Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac, and celebrated figures like Norman Mailer, Timothy Leary, Eldridge Cleaver, and Susan Sontag. In examining the lives and works of those who spoke for the 1960s, Roger Kimball conceives a series of cautionary tales, an annotated guidebook of wrong turns, dead-ends, and blind alleys.

• By Suzanne on 05-16-06

Culture and Imperialism

• Length: 19 hrs and 59 mins
• Overall 4.5 out of 5 stars 192
• Performance 4.5 out of 5 stars 152
• Story 4.5 out of 5 stars 155

A landmark work from the intellectually auspicious author of Orientalism , this book explores the long-overlooked connections between the Western imperial endeavor and the culture that both reflected and reinforced it. This classic study, the direct successor to Said's main work, is read by Peter Ganim ( Orientalism ).

BRAVO, AUDIBLE!! WE NEED MORE SAID!! REAL BOOKS!!

• By AnthonyStevens on 02-27-11

Deep Thought

• 42 Fantastic Quotes That Define Philosphy

By: Gary Cox

• Narrated by: Richard Mitchley
• Length: 7 hrs and 6 mins
• Overall 4.5 out of 5 stars 39
• Performance 4.5 out of 5 stars 38
• Story 4.5 out of 5 stars 35

As Douglas Adams points out, if there is no final answer to the question "what is the meaning of life?" 42 is as good or bad an answer as any other. Indeed, 42 quotes might be even better! Gary Cox guides us through 42 of the most misunderstood, misquoted, provocative, and significant quotes in the history of philosophy, providing witty and compelling commentary along the way.

Best philosophy intro ever

• By Fabian on 04-14-18

Jewish Comedy

• A Serious History

By: Jeremy Dauber

• Narrated by: Jeremy Dauber
• Length: 10 hrs and 49 mins
• Overall 4 out of 5 stars 175
• Performance 4.5 out of 5 stars 151
• Story 4 out of 5 stars 151

In a major work of scholarship both erudite and very funny, Jeremy Dauber traces the origins of Jewish comedy and its development from Biblical times to the age of Twitter. Organizing his book thematically into what he calls the seven strands of Jewish comedy - including the satirical, the witty, and the vulgar - Dauber explores the ways Jewish comedy has dealt with persecution, assimilation, and diaspora through the ages. He explains the rise and fall of popular comic archetypes such as the Jewish mother, the JAP, and the schlemiel and schlimazel.

• By supermantwo on 08-31-20

Irrationality

• A History of the Dark Side of Reason

By: Justin E. H. Smith

• Narrated by: Jeff Harding
• Length: 13 hrs and 35 mins
• Story 4 out of 5 stars 32

Discovering that reason is the defining feature of our species, we named ourselves the “rational animal”. But is this flattering story itself rational? In this sweeping account of irrationality from antiquity to today - from the fifth-century BC murder of Hippasus for revealing the existence of irrational numbers to the rise of Twitter mobs and the election of Donald Trump - Justin Smith says the evidence suggests the opposite.

A good brain workout

• By ThomasC on 04-09-19

Secular Buddhism

• Imagining the Dharma in an Uncertain World

By: Stephen Batchelor

• Narrated by: Ralph Lister
• Length: 8 hrs and 18 mins
• Overall 4 out of 5 stars 72
• Performance 4 out of 5 stars 61
• Story 4 out of 5 stars 59

As the practice of mindfulness permeates mainstream western culture, more and more people are engaging in a traditional form of Buddhist meditation. However, many of these people have little interest in the religious aspects of Buddhism, and the practice occurs within secular contexts such as hospitals, schools, and the workplace. Is it possible to recover from the Buddhist teachings a vision of human flourishing that is secular rather than religious without compromising the integrity of the tradition?

Good, but repetition of old material

• By Ludwig on 02-25-18

The Art of Fiction

• Narrated by: Marguerite Gavin
• Length: 6 hrs and 50 mins
• Overall 4 out of 5 stars 218
• Performance 4.5 out of 5 stars 133
• Story 4 out of 5 stars 129

Ayn Rand discusses how a writer combines abstract ideas with concrete action and description to achieve a unity of theme, plot, characterization, and style, the four essential elements of fiction. Here, too, are Rand's illuminating analyses of passages from famous writers, rewrites of scenes from her own works, and fascinating rules for building dramatic plots and characters with depth.

Get Stein on Writing

• By Lois on 12-04-09

The Soul of the World

By: Roger Scruton

• Narrated by: Tom Stechschulte
• Length: 8 hrs and 25 mins
• Overall 4.5 out of 5 stars 119
• Performance 4.5 out of 5 stars 102
• Story 4.5 out of 5 stars 101

In The Soul of the World , renowned philosopher Roger Scruton defends the experience of the sacred against today’s fashionable forms of atheism. He argues that our personal relationships, moral intuitions, and aesthetic judgments hint at a transcendent dimension that cannot be understood through the lens of science alone. To be fully alive - and to understand what we are - is to acknowledge the reality of sacred things.

"Against Reductionism"

• By Edmund Schilvold on 10-08-15

Time of the Magicians

• Wittgenstein, Benjamin, Cassirer, Heidegger, and the Decade that Reinvented Philosophy
• By: Wolfram Eilenberger, Shaun Whiteside
• Narrated by: Rhett Samuel Price
• Length: 13 hrs
• Overall 4 out of 5 stars 138
• Performance 4 out of 5 stars 112
• Story 4.5 out of 5 stars 111

The year is 1919. The horror of the First World War is fresh for the protagonists of Time of the Magicians , each of whom finds himself at a crucial juncture. Benjamin is trying to flee his overbearing father and floundering in his academic career, living hand to mouth as a critic. Wittgenstein, by contrast, has dramatically decided to divest himself of the monumental fortune he stands to inherit, in search of spiritual clarity.

Narrator butchers foreign many language quotations

• By William G. Brown on 08-31-20

By: Wolfram Eilenberger , and others

The Dream of Reason, New Edition

• A History of Western Philosophy from the Greeks to the Renaissance

By: Anthony Gottlieb

• Narrated by: Anthony Gottlieb
• Length: 19 hrs and 11 mins
• Overall 4.5 out of 5 stars 65
• Performance 4.5 out of 5 stars 58
• Story 4.5 out of 5 stars 57

Already a classic, this landmark study of early Western thought now appears in a new edition with expanded coverage of the Middle Ages. Author Anthony Gottlieb looks afresh at the writings of the great thinkers, questions much of conventional wisdom, and explains his findings with unbridled brilliance and clarity. From the pre-Socratic philosophers through the celebrated days of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, up to Renaissance visionaries like Erasmus and Bacon, philosophy emerges here as a phenomenon unconfined by any one discipline.

Bias spoils the work.

• By MC on 08-21-20

People who viewed this also viewed...

Styles of Radical Will

• Overall 4 out of 5 stars 19
• Performance 4 out of 5 stars 18

Styles of Radical Will , Susan Sontag's second collection of essays, extends the investigations she undertook in Against Interpretation with essays on film, literature, politics, and a groundbreaking study of pornography.

• Narrated by: Suzanne Toren
• Length: 17 hrs and 12 mins
• Overall 3 out of 5 stars 25
• Performance 4 out of 5 stars 19
• Story 3 out of 5 stars 20

The Volcano Lover , Susan Sontag's best-selling 1992 novel, retold the love story of Emma Lady Hamilton and Lord Nelson with consummate power. In this enthralling audiobook - once again based on a real story - Sontag shows us our own country on the cusp of modernity. In 1876 a group of Poles led by Maryna Zalewska, Poland's greatest actress, travel to California to found a "utopian" commune. Maryna, who has renounced her career, is accompanied by her small son and husband, and in her entourage is a rising young writer who is in love with her.

Being and Nothingness

By: Jean-Paul Sartre

• Length: 49 hrs
• Overall 0 out of 5 stars 0
• Performance 0 out of 5 stars 0
• Story 0 out of 5 stars 0

In a new and more accessible translation, this foundational text argues that we alone create our values and our existence is characterized by freedom and the inescapability of choice. Far from being an internal, passive container for our thoughts and experiences, human consciousness is constantly projecting itself into the outside world and imbuing it with meaning.

Reflections

• Essays, Aphorisms, Autobiographical Writings

By: Walter Benjamin

• Narrated by: Peter Demetz, Stefan Rudnicki
• Length: 15 hrs and 12 mins
• Overall 4.5 out of 5 stars 10
• Performance 4 out of 5 stars 9
• Story 4.5 out of 5 stars 9

A companion volume to Illuminations , the first collection of Walter Benjamin’s writings, Reflections presents a further sampling of his wide-ranging work. Here Benjamin evolves a theory of language as the medium of all creation, discusses theater and surrealism, reminisces about Berlin in the 1920s, recalls conversations with Bertolt Brecht, and provides travelogues of various cities, including Moscow under Stalin.

W. B. Writes beautiful long sentences. yea!

• By Amazon Customer on 11-24-22

An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding

By: David Hume

• Narrated by: Gildart Jackson
• Length: 6 hrs and 6 mins
• Overall 4.5 out of 5 stars 289
• Performance 4.5 out of 5 stars 237
• Story 4.5 out of 5 stars 238

Published in 1748, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding is Scottish empiricist philosopher David Hume's distillation of his mature philosophy. Addressing themes including the limits of human understanding, the compatibility of free will with determinism, weaknesses in the foundations of religion, and the appeal of skepticism, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding is Hume's attempt to revise and clarify the ideas of his earlier A Treatise of Human Nature.

A Great Work Deserves a Great Performance

• By Bob on 03-04-13

Mason & Dixon

By: Thomas Pynchon

• Narrated by: Steven Crossley
• Length: 33 hrs and 55 mins
• Overall 4.5 out of 5 stars 152
• Performance 4.5 out of 5 stars 126
• Story 4.5 out of 5 stars 125

Charles Mason (1728-1786) and Jeremiah Dixon (1733-1779) were the British surveyors best remembered for running the boundary between Pennsylvania and Maryland that we know today as the Mason-Dixon Line. Here is their story as re-imagined by Thomas Pynchon, featuring Native Americans and frontier folk, ripped bodices, naval warfare, conspiracies erotic and political, and major caffeine abuse. We follow the mismatched pair - one rollicking, the other depressive; one Gothic, the other pre-Romantic.

What the hell just happened?

• By Kid A on 12-23-19

Poststructuralism

• A Very Short Introduction

By: Catherine Belsey

• Length: 3 hrs and 38 mins
• Overall 4.5 out of 5 stars 23
• Performance 4.5 out of 5 stars 23
• Story 4 out of 5 stars 23

Poststructuralism changes the way we understand the relations between human beings, their culture, and the world. Following a brief account of the historical relationship between structuralism and poststructuralism, this Very Short Introduction traces the key arguments that have led poststructuralists to challenge traditional theories of language and culture. 

A brief exploration of a complicated topi

• By Adam Shields on 08-29-23

A Season in Hell & The Drunken Boat

• English and French Edition

By: Arthur Rimbaud

• Narrated by: Michael C. Gwynne
• Length: 1 hr and 30 mins
• Overall 4.5 out of 5 stars 96
• Performance 4.5 out of 5 stars 81
• Story 4.5 out of 5 stars 81

Originally distributed as a self-published booklet, A Season in Hell by Arthur Rimbaud quickly established him to be the "first punk" and a visonary mentor to the Beat poets for both his recklessness and fiery poetry according to famous poet of the Beat Generation, Allen Ginsberg.

English Version Great - French Missing

• By Earth Lover on 02-21-19

Where the Stress Falls

• Length: 12 hrs and 39 mins
• Overall 5 out of 5 stars 1
• Performance 5 out of 5 stars 1
• Story 5 out of 5 stars 1

Thirty-five years after her first collection, the classic Against Interpretation , America's most important essayist chose more than 40 longer and shorter pieces from the previous 20 years. "Reading", the first of three sections, includes ardent pieces on writers from Sontag's own private canon - Machado de Assis, Barthes, W. G. Sebald, Borges, Tsvetaeva, and Elizabeth Hardwick.

In the Wake

• On Blackness and Being

By: Christina Sharpe

• Narrated by: Melanie Nicholls-King
• Length: 5 hrs and 59 mins
• Overall 5 out of 5 stars 33
• Performance 5 out of 5 stars 28
• Story 5 out of 5 stars 28

In this original and trenchant work, Christina Sharpe interrogates literary, visual, cinematic, and quotidian representations of Black life that comprise what she calls the "orthography of the wake". Activating multiple registers of "wake" - the path behind a ship, keeping watch with the dead, coming to consciousness - Sharpe illustrates how Black lives are swept up and animated by the afterlives of slavery, and she delineates what survives despite such insistent violence and negation.

Necessary reading

• By Joe Wilson on 08-10-24

What listeners say about Against Interpretation and Other Essays

• 4.5 out of 5 stars 4.4 out of 5.0
• 4.5 out of 5 stars 4.5 out of 5.0

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Audible.com reviews, amazon reviews.

• Overall 5 out of 5 stars
• Performance 4 out of 5 stars
• Story 5 out of 5 stars

Synesthesia at Its Most Structured

Each essay from Sontag builds on the last through harmonies, counterpoints, and ellipses into a melody of exposition. The goal? Unify the logos, ethos, and pathos of art as a reflection of the human experience, so as to advocate for a modern theory of aesthetic appreciation. The conclusions Sontag draws inform everything from how artists should approach outlines of works not-yet-started to the value governments and corporations place on ouevres. The voice talent / reading itself leaves a little to be desired but it's still overall good.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

• Performance 3 out of 5 stars

• Dulce Mattos

Against interpretation, like, literally.

Sontag's ideas are way more spirituous than this interpretation by Tavia Gilbert. Not only that, but an additional detail: this narrator doesn't pronounce french properly and, since Sontag cites lots of french authors and ouvres, this fact takes me away from the listening every time the opportunity rises.

11 people found this helpful

• Overall 4 out of 5 stars
• Performance 1 out of 5 stars

Excellent Essays Hurt By Labored Narrator

I just don't get this narrator. It's almost like she's trying to channel Susan Sontag but Sontag spoke in an assured, even tone.....This Tavia Gilbert makes her sound somehow snobbish and unsure of herself. She really clings to the sound ending a sentence....maybe this is for enunciation but comes across labored, irritating and untrue to Sontag's speaking style. I've listened to Jennifer Van Dyck's reading on Sontag's journals and "On Photography". Audible PLEASE HAVE THESE RE-RECORDED with Jennifer Van Dyck.

8 people found this helpful

• Overall 3 out of 5 stars
• Performance 2 out of 5 stars

• Pinklotuspolo

Distracting Reader serious writing

Sontag is smart and her writing will get your gears turning. The French was difficult to understand which was annoying

• Overall 2 out of 5 stars
• Story 2 out of 5 stars

• Fiammetta Rey

Worthwhile as a historical document?

She wrote from a place of looking at a world where things were just starting to open up in certain ways, and her perspective a lot of the time seems to be “wait, is this really as open as you think it is? Is it really possible to live without those traditional restrictions, or were our ancestors right that those restrictions are hard-baked into the fabric of the universe?” In a time some 50-60 years later where more things have opened up, but people — intellectually limited people who have never lived outside of America and Europe, never lived outside of the dominance of the tyranny of YHWH-worshippers — are still asking the same questions, doubting whether or not openness is really possible, these essays seem restrictive. On the other hand, no one asks deep questions at all anymore. They just live their lives with a fake façade of openness when deep down, they’re terrified of anything outside of the cultural boundaries they’ve been taught.

1 person found this helpful

Please sign in to report this content

You'll still be able to report anonymously.

Susan Sontag

Major works: “Notes on Camp” • Against Interpretation • “Fascinating Fascism” • On Photography • Illness as Metaphor • The Volcano Lover • Regarding the Pain of Others

On Photography

The final reason for the need to photograph everything lies in the very logic of consumption itself. To consume means to burn, to use up—and, therefore, to need to be replenished. As we make images and consume them, we need still more images; and still more. But images are not a treasure for which the world must be ransacked; they are precisely whatever is at hand wherever the eye falls. The possession of a camera can inspire something akin to lust. And like all credible forms of lust, it cannot be satisfied: first, because the possibilities of photography are infinite; and, second, because the project is finally self-devouring. The attempts by photographers to bolster up a depleted sense of reality contribute to the depletion. Our oppressive sense of the transience of everything is more acute since cameras gave us the means to “fix” the fleeting moment. We consume images at an ever faster rate, and, as Balzac suspected cameras used up layers of the body, images consume reality. Cameras are the antidote and the disease, a means of appropriating reality and a means of making it obsolete.

A champion of America’s great writers and timeless works, Library of America guides readers in finding and exploring the exceptional writing that reflects the nation’s history and culture.

Benefits of Using Safe Crypto Casinos. One of the most captivating reasons people drift towards Australian casinos online-casino-au com is the promise of anonymity. Safe platforms guarantee that your identity remains a secret. Quick Payouts and Minimal Fees. No one likes waiting, especially for winnings. Safe crypto casinos ensure that payouts are swift and the fees minimal, if not non-existent.

With contributions from donors, Library of America preserves and celebrates a vital part of our cultural heritage for generations to come. Ozwin Casino offers an exciting array of top-notch slots that cater to every player's preferences. From classic fruit machines to cutting-edge video slots, Ozwin Casino Real Money collection has it all. With stunning graphics, immersive themes, and seamless gameplay, these slots deliver an unparalleled gaming experience. Some popular titles include Mega Moolah, Gonzo's Quest, and Starburst, known for their massive jackpots and thrilling bonus features. Ozwin Casino's slots are not just about luck; they offer hours of entertainment and the chance to win big, making it a must-visit for slot enthusiasts.

• Literature & Fiction
• History & Criticism

Sorry, there was a problem.

Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required .

Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.

Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.

Image Unavailable

• To view this video download Flash Player

Follow the author

Susan Sontag: Essays of the 1960s & 70s (LOA #246): Against Interpretation / Styles of Radical Will / On Photography / Illness as Metaphor / ... (Library of America Susan Sontag Edition) Hardcover – September 26, 2013

• Print length 875 pages
• Language English
• Publisher Library of America
• Publication date September 26, 2013
• Dimensions 5.2 x 1 x 8.2 inches
• ISBN-10 1598532553
• ISBN-13 978-1598532555
• See all details

Products related to this item

Editorial Reviews

About the author, product details.

• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Library of America; First Edition (September 26, 2013)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 875 pages
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1598532553
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1598532555
• Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.3 pounds
• Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.2 x 1 x 8.2 inches
• #199 in American Fiction Anthologies
• #217 in Movie History & Criticism
• #534 in Essays (Books)

About the author

Susan sontag.

Susan Sontag was born in Manhattan in 1933 and studied at the universities of Chicago, Harvard and Oxford. She is the author of four novels, a collection of stories, several plays, and six books of essays, among them Illness as Metaphor and AIDS and Its Metaphors. Her books are translated into thirty-two languages. In 2001 she was awarded the Jerusalem Prize for the body of her work, and in 2003 she received the Prince of Asturias Prize for Literature and the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade. She died in December 2004.

Customer reviews

• 5 star 4 star 3 star 2 star 1 star 5 star 79% 10% 4% 3% 4% 79%
• 5 star 4 star 3 star 2 star 1 star 4 star 79% 10% 4% 3% 4% 10%
• 5 star 4 star 3 star 2 star 1 star 3 star 79% 10% 4% 3% 4% 4%
• 5 star 4 star 3 star 2 star 1 star 2 star 79% 10% 4% 3% 4% 3%
• 5 star 4 star 3 star 2 star 1 star 1 star 79% 10% 4% 3% 4% 4%

Customer Reviews, including Product Star Ratings help customers to learn more about the product and decide whether it is the right product for them.

To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. Instead, our system considers things like how recent a review is and if the reviewer bought the item on Amazon. It also analyzed reviews to verify trustworthiness.

• Sort reviews by Top reviews Most recent Top reviews

Top reviews from the United States

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. please try again later..

Top reviews from other countries

• About Amazon
• Investor Relations
• Amazon Devices
• Amazon Science
• Sell products on Amazon
• Sell on Amazon Business
• Sell apps on Amazon
• Become an Affiliate
• Advertise Your Products
• Self-Publish with Us
• Host an Amazon Hub
• › See More Make Money with Us
• Amazon Business Card
• Shop with Points
• Reload Your Balance
• Amazon Currency Converter
• Amazon and COVID-19
• Your Account
• Your Orders
• Shipping Rates & Policies
• Returns & Replacements
• Manage Your Content and Devices

• Conditions of Use
• Privacy Notice
• Consumer Health Data Privacy Disclosure
• Your Ads Privacy Choices

Garage Library and the 0+ Space will be closed until August 30 for the installation of the project Open Storage: A Prologue .

Susan Sontag. Styles of Radical Will

• Language Russian
• Edition 3000
• Binding Paperback

A collection of essays on important phenomena of   twentieth century culture by the renowned American philosopher.

In the essays collected in Styles of Radical Will (1969), Susan Sontag broadens her inquiry started in the acclaimed Against Interpretation (1966). This collection features essays on art, literature, film, and politics that are rightly believed to be among the best examples of modern critical thought, including the famous The Aesthetics of Silence , a brilliant analysis of language, thought, and spirituality in art, articles on Bergman and Godard and Trip to Hanoi written in 1968 after a month in Vietnam.

Susan Sontag  (1933 – 2004) was an American writer, critic, cultural philosopher and political activist. She achieved widespread recognition through her collections of essays, Against Interpretation (1966), On Photography (1977) and Regarding the Pain of Others (2004).