F239. Susan Sontag and the Authority of Authorship
Friday, February 10, 2017
3:00 pm to 4:15 pm
Susan Sontag was a celebrity intellectual, a writer of essays and fiction. Her searing mind and irrepressible appetite to understand the world shaped Sontag’s authorial persona in ways that drew both admirers and critics. As an essayist she feared neither aphorism nor provocation, and freely argued with herself over the course of her career. The panelists discuss Sontag’s authorial strategies in the context of her time and her legacy for contemporary writers and essayists.
Participants
Moderator:
Mara Naselli's essays have appeared in Agni, the Kenyon Review, the Hudson Review, Ninth Letter, and elsewhere. She has been an editor for twenty years, was a recipient of the 2014 Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers' Award, and writes a regular literature column for 3 Quarks Daily.
Sven Birkerts is the author of nine books, most recently The Other Walk: Essays. He edits the journal AGNI at Boston University and is director of the Bennington Writing Seminars.
Lynne Sharon Schwartz is a novelist, essayist, poet, and translator from Italian. Her latest books are the essay collection, This Is Where We Came In, and See You in the Dark, a poetry collection. She teaches in the Bennington Writing Seminars and at Columbia University.
Rebecca Chace
