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Susan Sontag

Susan Sontag. “Notes on Camp”. Life and Works. Born in New York City on January 16, 1933 Received Bachelors from the College of the University of Chicago Received Masters from Harvard University and Saint Anne’s College at the University of Oxford.

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Susan Sontag

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  1. Susan Sontag “Notes on Camp”

  2. Life and Works • Born in New York City on January 16, 1933 • Received Bachelors from the College of the University of Chicago • Received Masters from Harvard University and Saint Anne’s College at the University of Oxford. • Published 4 novels; The Benefactor, Death Kit, The Volcano Lover, and In America • 9 works of non-fiction; Against Interpretation and including On Photography, Illness as Metaphor, Where the Stress Falls, Regarding the Pain of Others, and At the Same Time. • Directed several films and plays. • Human rights activist and president of American Center of PEN • Stories and essays appeared in publications around the world including: • The New York Times, The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books, The Times Literary Supplement, and Art in America.

  3. Received many honors and awards during career, most notably the 2003 Peace Prize of the German Book Trade. • Married Philip Rieff at age 17 and had one child, David Rieff , then divorced eight years later. • Sontag died in New York City on 28 December 2004, at age 71, from complications of myelodysplastic syndrome. • Sontag is buried in the Montparnasse Cemetery in Paris.

  4. “Notes on Camp” • Sontag’s breakthrough essay that helped her gain recognition as an intellectual writer. • Consists of 58 numbered theses • Published in 1964, on the Partisan Review, as one essay in a collection of essays titled Against Interpretation. • Main Themes throughout text: • The 3 sensibilities • Unnatural/artifice • Aesthetics • Exaggeration • Sexuality • Sentimental • Lacking content • Innocence • Recognized retrospectively

  5. What is Camp? • “Love of the unnatural: of artifice of exaggeration”. • Among urban cliques • Drawn to it and offended by it • A master of taste (not to be patronized- everything is taste) • Sensibility is hard to put into words, but underlies taste logically • Video

  6. The 3 SensibilitiesWhat determines your taste • and aesthetic. “Extreme states of feeling” • Camp –wholly aesthetic • High Culture- Moralistic. • Examples: Romonoff family, • Between moralistic

  7. Style of Camp • “Nothing in Nature can be campy” (#7) • “Camp is (to repeat) the relation to style in a time in which the adoption of style--as such—has become altogether questionable” (#53) • “Camp taste is a kind of love, love for human nature” (56)

  8. Camp Changing Over Time • Change from beginning in late 17th century-early 18th century to today’s camp. • For something to be camp it must be nothing like our everyday lives or it must be far from it. • As time goes on what used to be seen as non-camp is now thought of as camp. • The style of camp has changed in things such as balls as well.

  9. Camp is Subversive • Camp tries to dethrone seriousness. • “It incarnates a victory of ‘style’ over ‘content’, ‘aesthetics’ over ‘morality’, of irony over tragedy” (38) • Camp introduces a new standard.

  10. Experience & Identity • “Yet one feels that is homosexuals hadn’t more or less invented Camp, someone else would” (53) • Modern definition • GLTBQ Encyclopedia: Combining elements of incongruity, theatricality, and exaggeration, camp is a form of humor that helps homosexuals cope with a hostile environment. • “Paris Is Burning: • Haus of _________ • Taking on roles

  11. Offensive • Note 48: Vulgarity • Old vs. New dandy • Sensibility • Shakespearean humor

  12. Camp Informs Pop Culture • Time must pass Contrast: Dorian Cory and Vogue • Pop Culture informs Camp? • Glamorous Hollywood & Designer labels • Failed Camp

  13. Myra Breckinridge and Camp • Sontag’s use of multiple references and outside resources • Camp is glorification of ‘character’. • The androgyne is one of the great images of camp sensibility. • Camp loves characters. • Myra Breckinridge’s character relates to other camp characters.

  14. Roots of Camp • Progression: • Late seventeenth century-Mannerist style paintings • Period of artifice, surface, and symmetry • Nineteenth century Art Nouveau • The acute, escoteric, and perverse • Modern figures and Films • Oscar Wilde, Gone with the Wind

  15. Art Nouveau staircase Gone with the Wind Parmigianino's Madonna with the Long Neck

  16. Structure and Faults • Disorganized “notes” • Stereotypes • “moral seriousness” versus “aestheticism”

  17. Modern Camp Observations • Consumer Culture • More involved in the creation of pop culture. • Encapsulates a moment in time – Camp gains content and reflects society • Video

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