Fall 2008

ENG 495 – Susan Sontag: Arts and Letters

Professor: Nathalie op de Beeck

Credit Hours: 3

Thursday, 5:30-8:20pm, location TBA

Required texts: TBA

 

Students in English Studies, Visual Culture, Women’s and Gender Studies, Art History, Theater, and other fields of study are encouraged to join this interdisciplinary, special topics course on Susan Sontag.

 

Description of the Course

Susan Sontag (1933-2004) modeled interdisciplinary ways in which a scholar can engage with cultural and critical studies. Both esteemed and maligned for her intellectual approaches and creative efforts, Sontag distinguished herself as a critic of literature, cinema, visual art, and theater; as a diarist and playwright; as a screenwriter and director; as a human rights activist; and as a novelist (The Benefactor; Death Kit; The Volcano Lover; America). From her essays on critical practice in books like Against Interpretation and On Photography to her reflections on illness, war, and affective shock in books like AIDS and Its Metaphors and Regarding the Pain of Others, Sontag demonstrated keen awareness of twentieth and early twenty-first century art, politics, and cultural criticism. A recent retrospective exhibition based on the collaborative work of Sontag and her partner, photographer Annie Leibovitz, indicates Sontag remains an iconic American figure. A forthcoming special issue of Women’s Studies journal, with Sontag as its topic, attests to Sontag’s continuing importance in the academy and in women’s and gender studies. Meanwhile, Sontag is controversial, notably in her bisexual history, the silence regarding her lesbianism, and the perception that she should have spoken out more forcefully on feminism and LGBTQ social justice.

 

In this course, we will read Sontag’s nonfiction and fiction, and screen excerpts from her cinematic work. We’ll look at examples of the cinema, photography, and other art that caught her attention (e.g., Callot, Goya, Capa, Bergman, Arbus, and contemporary war photographers). We’ll read selections from past and contemporary writers whose work she emulated (e.g., Woolf, Benjamin, Beckett, Barthes, Kís, Sebald), as well as remarks from admirers and detractors from Sohnya Sayres to Cynthia Ozick to Camille Paglia to Sontag’s son David Rieff. Our in-depth study will provide experience in close study of a challenging artist/critic and a distinct cult of personality, while investigating why any opinionated public figure may be remembered alternately as dedicated, elitist, brilliant, narrow-minded, arrogant, committed, silent, and/or bold in his or her stance.

 

Format of the Course

Students will write and share short weekly responses, bring visual and material culture items to class for discussion, screen multimedia examples during class, and hold weekly conversations around Sontag’s approaches. For a final paper or multimedia project, students will either examine Sontag’s work in context; test Sontag’s and related critics’ theories on newly developing and contemporary concerns; and/or identify and study their own object/trend in the spirit of seriousness and curiosity Sontag exemplified.