Camille Paglia
Camille Paglia | |
---|---|
Born | Camille Anna Paglia April 2, 1947 Endicott, New York, U.S. |
Occupation | Professor, cultural critic |
Education | Binghamton University (BA) Yale University (MA, PhD) |
Subjects | Popular culture, art, poetry, sex, film, feminism, politics |
Literary movement | Individualist feminism |
Camille Anna Paglia (
Personal life
Paglia was born in
During her stays at a summer
For more than a decade, Paglia was the partner of artist Alison Maddex.[17][18] Paglia legally adopted Maddex's son (who was born in 2002).[19] In 2007, the couple separated[20] but remained "harmonious co-parents", in the words of Paglia, who lived two miles (three kilometers) apart.[4]
Paglia is an
Education
Paglia entered Harpur College at Binghamton University in 1964.[23] The same year, Paglia's poem "Atrophy" was published in the local newspaper.[24] She later said that she was trained to read literature by poet Milton Kessler, who "believed in the responsiveness of the body, and of the activation of the senses to literature ... And oh did I believe in that".[25] She graduated from Harpur as class valedictorian in 1968.[10]
According to Paglia, while in college she punched a "marauding drunk",[16] and takes pride in having been put on probation for committing 39 pranks.[11]
Paglia attended
Paglia read Susan Sontag and aspired to emulate what she called her "celebrity, her positioning in the media world at the border of the high arts and popular culture." Paglia first saw Sontag in person on October 15, 1969 (Vietnam Moratorium Day), when Paglia, then a Yale graduate student, was visiting a friend at Princeton. In 1973, Paglia, a militant feminist and open lesbian, was working at her first academic job at Bennington College. She considered Sontag a radical who had challenged male dominance. The same year, Paglia drove to an appearance by Sontag at Dartmouth, hoping to arrange for her to speak at Bennington, but found it difficult to find the money for Sontag's speaking fee; Paglia relied on help from Richard Tristman, a friend of Sontag's, to persuade her to come. Bennington College agreed to pay Sontag $700 (twice what they usually offered speakers but only half Sontag's usual fee) to give a talk about contemporary issues. Paglia staged a poster campaign urging students to attend Sontag's appearance. Sontag arrived at Bennington Carriage Barn, where she was to speak, more than an hour late, and then began reading what Paglia recalled as a "boring and bleak" short story about "nothing" in the style of a French New Novel.[29]
As a result of Sontag's Bennington College appearance, Paglia began to become disenchanted with her, believing that she had withdrawn from confrontation with the academic world, and that her "mandarin disdain" for popular culture showed an elitism that betrayed her early work, which had suggested that high and low culture both reflected a new sensibility.[29]
Career
In the autumn of 1972, Paglia began teaching at Bennington College, which hired her in part thanks to a recommendation from Harold Bloom.[30] At Bennington, she befriended the philosopher James Fessenden, who first taught there in the same semester.[31]
Through her study of the
Paglia wrote that she "nearly came to blows with the founding members of the
Paglia finished Sexual Personae in the early 1980s, but could not get it published. She supported herself with visiting and part-time teaching jobs at Yale,
In 1984, she joined the faculty of the Philadelphia College of Performing Arts, which merged in 1987 with the Philadelphia College of Art to become the University of the Arts.
Paglia is on the editorial board of the classics and humanities journal Arion.[36] She wrote a regular column for Salon.com from 1995 to 2001, and again from 2007 to 2009. Paglia resumed writing a Salon.com column in 2016.[37]
Paglia cooperated with Carl Rollyson and Lisa Paddock in their writing of Susan Sontag: The Making of an Icon, sending them detailed letters from which they quoted with her permission. Rollyson and Paddock note that Sontag "had her lawyer put our publisher on notice" when she realized that they were investigating her life and career.[29]
Paglia participates in the decennial poll of film professionals conducted by
In 2005, Paglia was named as one of the top 100 public intellectuals by the journals
Views
Feminism
Though Paglia admires
Paglia accused Greer of becoming "a drone in three years" as a result of her early success; Paglia has also criticized the work of feminist activist
In 1999, Martha Nussbaum wrote an essay called "The Professor of Parody", in which she criticized Judith Butler for retreating to abstract theory disconnected from real world problems.[49] Paglia reacted to the essay by stating that the criticism was "long overdue", but characterized the criticism as "one PC diva turning against another". She criticized Nussbaum for failing to make her criticisms earlier while accusing her of borrowing Paglia's ideas without acknowledgement. She called Nussbaum's "preparation or instinct for sex analysis... dubious at best", but nevertheless stated that "Nussbaum is a genuine scholar who operates on a vastly higher intellectual level than Butler".[50]
Many feminists have criticized Paglia;
Paglia's view that rape is sexually motivated has been endorsed by
In an essay critiquing the Hollywood/celebrity fad of "Girl Squads", made popular in 2015 by pop-icons like Taylor Swift, Paglia argued that rather than empowering women the cliquish practice actually harms the self-esteem of those who are not rich, famous, or attractive enough to belong to the group, while further defining women only by a very narrow, often sexualized stereotype. She challenged that to be truly empowering, these groups need to mentor, advise, and be more inclusive, for more women to realize their true, individual potential.[62]
Transgender people
Though she has not
Nevertheless, Paglia says that she is "highly skeptical about the current transgender wave" which she thinks has been produced by "far more complicated psychological and sociological factors than current gender discourse allows". She writes that "In a democracy, everyone, no matter how nonconformist or eccentric, should be free from harassment and abuse. But at the same time, no one deserves special rights, protections, or privileges on the basis of their eccentricity."[63]
Paglia's views led to a petition demanding that the University of the Arts remove her from their faculty, but the university rejected it. Paglia considered it "a publicity stunt" and praised the university's "eloquent statement affirming academic freedom [as] a landmark in contemporary education."[65]
Climate change
Paglia has long rejected the scientific consensus on
French academia
Paglia is critical of the influence many postwar French writers have had on the humanities, claiming that universities are in the "thrall" of French post-structuralists;[67] that in the works of Jean Baudrillard, Jacques Derrida, Jacques Lacan and Michel Foucault, she never once found a sentence that interested her.[68] François Cusset writes that Paglia, like other major American public intellectuals after World War II, owes her broader recognition mainly to the political repercussions of polemics that first erupted on college campuses, in her case to a polemic against foreign intellectualism. He says she achieved phenomenal success when she called Foucault a "bastard", thereby providing (together with Alan Sokal's Social Text parody) the best evidence for Paul de Man's view that theory should be defined negatively, based on the opposition it arouses.[69]
However, Paglia's assessment of French writers is not purely negative. She has called Simone de Beauvoir's The Second Sex (1949) "brilliant and imperious" and she traces the lineage of her "dissident feminism", not from Betty Friedan but from Beauvoir. Paglia also identified Jean-Paul Sartre's work as part of a high period in literature. She has praised Roland Barthes's Mythologies (1957) and Gilles Deleuze's Masochism: Coldness and Cruelty (1967), while finding both men's later work flawed. Of Gaston Bachelard, who influenced Paglia, she wrote "[his] dignified yet fluid phenomenological descriptive method seemed to me ideal for art", adding that he was "the last modern French writer I took seriously".[70][71][72]
Politics
Paglia characterizes herself as a
Paglia criticized
In the
Child sexuality
In accordance with a highly politicised view of child abuse, Paglia notably commented in an interview in 1992: "In the case of
She later changed her views on the matter. In an interview for Radio New Zealand's Saturday Morning show, conducted on April 28, 2018, by Kim Hill, Paglia was asked, "Are you a libertarian on the issue of pedophilia?", to which she replied, "In terms of the present day, I think it's absolutely impossible to think we could reproduce the Athenian code of pedophilia, of boy-love, that was central to culture at that time. [...] We must protect children, and I feel that very very strongly. The age of consent for sexual interactions between a boy and an older man is obviously disputed, at what point that should be. I used to think that fourteen (the way it is in some places in the world) was adequate. I no longer think that. I think young people need greater protection than that. [...] This is one of those areas that we must confine to the realm of imagination and the history of the arts."[91]
Books
Sexual Personae (1990)
Paglia's
In the book, Paglia argues that human nature has an inherently dangerous Dionysian or chthonic aspect, especially in regard to sexuality.[92] Culture and civilization are created by men and represent an attempt to contain that force.[92] Women are powerful, too, but as natural forces, and both marriage and religion are means to contain chaotic forces.[10] A best seller, it was described by Terry Teachout in a New York Times book review as being both "intellectually stimulating" and "exasperating".[93] Sexual Personae received critical reviews from numerous feminist scholars.[94] Anthony Burgess described Sexual Personae as "a fine disturbing book" that "seeks to attack the reader's emotions as well as his or her prejudices".[95]
Sex, Art and American Culture (1992)
External videos | |
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Presentation by Paglia on Sex, Art and American Culture, October 26, 1994, C-SPAN |
Sex, Art and American Culture: Essays is a collection of short pieces, many published previously as editorials or reviews, and some transcripts of interviews.
Vamps and Tramps (1994)
Vamps and Tramps: New Essays is a collection of 42 short articles and a long essay, "No Law in the Arena: a Pagan Theory of Sexuality". It also contains a collection of cartoons from newspapers about Paglia. Writing for The New York Times, Wendy Steiner wrote "Comic, camp, outspoken, Ms. Paglia throws an absurdist shoe into the ponderous wheels of
The Birds
In 1998, in commemoration of the 35th anniversary of the release of
Break, Blow, Burn (2005)
Break, Blow, Burn: Camille Paglia Reads Forty-three of the World's Best Poems is a collection of 43 short selections of verse with an accompanying essay by Paglia.
Glittering Images (2012)
Glittering Images: A Journey Through Art from Egypt to Star Wars is a series of essays about notable works of art from ancient to modern times, published in October 2012.[102] Writer John Adams of The New York Times Book Review was skeptical of the book, accusing it of being "so agenda driven and so riddled with polemic asides that its potential to persuade is forever being compromised".[41] Gary Rosen of The Wall Street Journal, however, praised the book's "impressive range" and accessibility to readers.[103]
Free Women, Free Men (2017)
External videos | |
---|---|
Presentation by Paglia on Free Women, Free Men, March 20, 2017, C-SPAN |
Free Women, Free Men: Sex, Gender, and Feminism is a series of essays from 1990 onward.
Provocations (2018)
Paglia's fourth essay collection, Provocations: Collected Essays on Art, Feminism, Politics, Sex, and Education, was published by Pantheon on October 9, 2018.[106]
Works
- The Androgyne in Literature and Art (1974; PhD thesis)
- ISBN 0-679-73579-8
- Sex, Art and American Culture: Essays (1992) ISBN 0-679-74101-1
- Vamps and Tramps: New Essays (1994) ISBN 0-679-75120-3
- The Birds (ISBN 0-851-70651-7
- Break, Blow, Burn: Camille Paglia Reads Forty-three of the World's Best Poems (2005) ISBN 0-375-42084-3
- ISBN 978-0-375-42460-1
- ISBN 978-0-375424779
- Provocations: Collected Essays (2018) ISBN 978-1-52474689-6
References
- ^ "Camille Paglia". Staff. U arts.
- ^ a b Birnbaum, Robert (August 3, 2005). "Birnbaum v. Camille Paglia" (interview). The Morning News.
- ^ Handler, Richard (May 23, 2009). "An atheist's defence of religion: The paradox of Camille Paglia, the cultural gunslinger". CBC News.
- ^ a b Patterson, Christina (August 25, 2012). "Camille Paglia – 'I don't get along with lesbians at all. They don't like me, and I don't like them'". The Independent. Retrieved May 30, 2017.
- ^ You tube, Google[permanent dead link]
- ^ Paglia 1994, p. 61.
- ^ Varadaraja, Tunku (August 30, 2019). "A Feminist Capitalist Professor Under Fire". The Wall Street Journal. Archived from the original on December 30, 2019.
- ^ "Arcadia", Financial Times, p. 22, March 15, 1997
- ^ "Pasquale J. Paglia", Syracuse Herald Tribune (obit), January 23, 1991
- ^ a b c d e f Duffy, Martha (January 13, 1992). "The Bête Noire of Feminism: Camille Paglia". Time. Archived from the original on November 6, 2012.
- ^ a b c Paglia, Camille (January 26, 2000). "My Education". The Scotsman.
- ^ McKeever, James 'Jim' (November 22, 1992). "Hurricane Camille". Syracuse Herald American. Syracuse, NY.
- ^ "A Short History of the Beaverkill Valley". Friends of Beaverkill Community. Retrieved March 31, 2019.
- ^ Paglia 1994, p. 428–29.
- ^ Lavin, Cheryl (December 8, 1994). "Camille Paglia!". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved January 18, 2017.
- ^ a b c Steiner, Wendy (November 20, 1994). "Advertisements for Themselves". The New York Times.
- ^ Hamilton, William L (March 11, 1999). "In a New Museum, a Blue Period". The New York Times. Archived from the original on January 30, 2013.
- ^ Lauerman, Kerry (April 7, 2005). "Camille Paglia: Warrior for the word". Salon. Archived from the original on January 23, 2011. Retrieved October 9, 2010.
- ^ a b Wente, Margaret (October 18, 2007). "Camille Paglia: Hillary Clinton can't win – and shouldn't". The Globe & Mail. Toronto.
- ^ "Camille Paglia: Gay Activists 'Childish' for Demanding Rights". Towleroad. June 25, 2009. Archived from the original on April 1, 2015. Retrieved June 28, 2012.
- ^ "Camille Paglia discusses 'Free Women, Free Men: Sex, Gender, Feminism" (PDF). Seattle Public Library. Retrieved June 12, 2022.
- ^ "Camille Paglia, astrologer". Questionable Utility Company. Retrieved March 7, 2024.
- ^ a b c d e Showalter, Elaine (2002), Inventing Herself: Claiming a Feminist Intellectual Heritage, London: Picador
- ^ "Atrophy". The Post-Standard. Syracuse, New York. April 12, 1964.
- ^ a b Nester, Daniel (April 2005). "An interview with Camille Paglia". bookslut.com. Bookslut. Archived from the original on May 10, 2012. Retrieved June 28, 2012.
- ^ Savage, Dan (October 4, 1992). "Interview". The Stranger.
- ^ "Letter to the Editor", Camille Paglia, "Chronicle of Higher Education", June 17, 1998.
- ^ Paglia, Camille A (February 13, 1972), To Professor Carolyn Heilbrun (letter), Austin, Texas: Knopf Archive, Humanities Research Center
- ^ a b c Rollyson, Carl; Paddock, Lisa (2000), Susan Sontag: The Making of an Icon, New York: WW Norton & Co
- ^ Girlfriends magazine
- ^ Paglia 1994, p. 202.
- ^ "Lecture by Camille Paglia", Bennington Banner, September 20, 1976
- ^ Interview, November 2002
- Chronicle of Higher Education
- ^ Paglia, Camille (February 1995), To Boyd Holmes (letter)
- ^ "About Arion". Boston University. Archived from the original on July 8, 2012. Retrieved June 28, 2012.
- Salon.
- Sight & Sound via BFI, 2002, archived from the originalon June 25, 2012
- Sight & Sound via BFI, 2012, archived from the originalon August 19, 2012
- ^ "Camille Paglia | BFI".
- ^ a b Adams, John (November 30, 2012). "Paglia on Art". The New York Times. Retrieved July 7, 2014.
- TVO. November 7, 2009. Archived from the originalon May 24, 2012.
- ISBN 0-8032-3939-4.
- ^ "Madonna". Vogue. 1998. p. 135.
- ^ Crawford, Leslie (June 5, 1999). "Kate Millett, the ambivalent feminist". Salon.
- Salon Media Group. Archived from the originalon December 30, 2008.
- Salon Media Group. Archived from the originalon April 27, 2010. Retrieved January 16, 2009.
- Salon Media Group. Archived from the originalon February 6, 2009. Retrieved June 28, 2012.
- ^ Boynton, Robert (November 21, 1999). "Who Needs Philosophy?". The New York Times. New York City. Retrieved December 12, 2015.
- Salon Media Group. February 24, 1999. Archived from the originalon June 25, 2009. Retrieved July 2, 2009.
- Who Stole Feminism? How Women Have Betrayed Women, New York: Simon & Schuster
- ISBN 1-55111-156-X.
- ^ Wolf, Naomi (March 16, 1992). "Feminist Fatale". The New Republic. pp. 23–25.
- ^ Paglia, Camille (April 13, 1992). "Wolf Pack". The New Republic. pp. 4–5.
- ^ Wolf, Naomi; Paglia, Camille (May 18, 1992). "The Last Words". The New Republic. pp. 4–5.
- ^ Viner, Katharine (August 31, 2001). "Stitched up". The Guardian. London.
- MIT
- ^ Fields, Suzanne (May 14, 1992). "New enemies list for some of you feminists". Reading Eagle.
- ^ Blinkhorn, Lois (December 6, 1992). "Ideas flying, a maverick breaks the feminist mold". The Milwaukee Journal.[permanent dead link]
- ^ Pollitt, Katha (November 1997). "Feminism's Unfinished Business". The Atlantic. Retrieved May 25, 2008.
- ^ Thornhill, Randy; Palmer, Craig T (2000), A Natural History of Rape: Biological Bases of Sexual Coercion, Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, p. 183
- ^ Paglia, Camille (October 12, 2015). "Camille Paglia Takes on Taylor Swift, Hollywood's #GirlSquad Culture". The Hollywood Reporter.
- ^ a b c d e Last, Jonathan V. (June 15, 2017). "Camille Paglia: On Trump, Democrats, Transgenderism, and Islamist Terror". The Weekly Standard. New York City. Archived from the original on October 19, 2020. Retrieved June 15, 2017.
- ISSN 0099-9660. Retrieved July 31, 2021.
- ^ "University of the Arts rejects calls to fire Camille Paglia". www.insidehighered.com. April 17, 2019. Retrieved August 3, 2021.
- Salon Media Group. Retrieved October 4, 2018.
- ^ a b Baird, Julia (April 8, 2005). "Hark, a libertarian looks to her right". The Sydney Morning Herald.
- Salon.
- ISBN 978-0816647323
- ^ Paglia 1992, p. 243.
- ^ Paglia 1994, p. 232.
- Salon, p. 2, July 22, 1997, archived from the originalon April 11, 2008
- ^ Pagila, Camille (April 23, 2014). "The Drinking Age Is Past Its Prime". Time.
- ^ Postrel, Virginia (August–September 1995). "Interview with the Vamp". Reason.
- ^ a b Killough, George (December 20, 1992). "Paglia attacks political correctness". Reading Eagle. Reading, PA: William S. Flippin.
- ^ "Is Camille Paglia a Cultural Conservative?". Conversations with Tyler – via YouTube.[dead YouTube link]
- ^ a b "Who's Getting Your Vote?". Reason. Washington DC: Reason Foundation. November 2004. Archived from the original on October 29, 2008. Retrieved October 27, 2008.
- ^ Paglia, Camille (April 20, 2008). "Why Women Shouldn't Vote for Hillary Clinton". The Daily Telegraph. London, England. Archived from the original on May 16, 2008. Retrieved April 28, 2010.
- Salon Media Group.
- ^ Gillespie, Nick; Krainin, Todd (March 19, 2015). "Everything's Awesome and Camille Paglia Is Unhappy!". Reason. Washington DC: Reason Foundation. Retrieved May 20, 2015.
- Salon. Retrieved May 15, 2016.
- ^ "Which Hollywood Stars are Voting for Third-Party Candidates?". The Hollywood Reporter. Los Angeles, CA: Eldridge Industries. November 8, 2016. Retrieved November 11, 2016.
- ^ a b Paglia, Camille (December 5, 2018). "Camille Paglia: 'Hillary wants Trump to win again'". The Spectator. Retrieved May 5, 2021.
- ^ "Transcript: Interview: Camille Paglia". TVO Today. November 2, 1992. Retrieved January 20, 2024.
- ^ Paglia, Camille (March 1, 2014). "The Drinking Age Is Past Its Prime". The Telegraph. Archived from the original on March 6, 2014.
- ^ Salon. San Francisco, CA: Salon Media Group. April 15, 1997. Archived from the originalon May 10, 2000. Retrieved September 7, 2019.
- ^ a b Paglia 1994, pp. 90–91.
- ^ Paglia, Camille (August 1995). "Has the gay movement turned down the wrong path?". The Guide. Montréal, Canada: Bill Andriette. Archived from the original on July 11, 2011. Retrieved September 7, 2019.
- ^ "The Bête Noire of Feminism: Camille Paglia". Time. New York City: Time. January 13, 1992. Retrieved September 7, 2019.
- ^ Paglia, Camille (September 19, 1991). "Crisis In The American Universities". Gift of Speech. Sweet Briar, VA: Sweet Briar College. Retrieved September 7, 2019.
- ^ Paglia, Camille (April 22, 2018). "Camille Paglia — Free Women, Free Men". Radio New Zealand. Wellington, NZ. 44 min 29 s. Retrieved August 22, 2020.
- ^ Knight-Ridder.[permanent dead link]
- ^ Teachout, Terry (July 22, 1990). "Siding With the Men". The New York Times. New York City. Retrieved October 4, 2018.
- ^ See the following:
- JSTOR 4336635.
- Lofreda, Beth (1992). "Of Stallions and Sycophants: Camille Paglia's Sexual Personae". JSTOR 466472.
- Kasraie, Mary Rose (November 1993). "Book Reviews: Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson by Camille Paglia". JSTOR 3201015.
- Booth, Alison (Winter 1999). "The Mother of All Cultures: Camille Paglia and Feminist Mythologies". JSTOR 4337811.
- Sheets, Robin Ann (October 1991). "Book Reviews: Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson by Camille Paglia". JSTOR 3704039.
- Ebert, Teresa L. (October 1991). "Review: The Politics of the Outrageous". JSTOR 4021115.
- Noble, Marianne (2000). "Notes to Chapter 5 (note 1)". In Noble, Marianne (ed.). The masochistic pleasures of sentimental literature. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press. pp. 225–226. ISBN 9780691009377.
- Simons, Judy (August 1994). "Book Reviews: Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson by Camille Paglia". JSTOR 518881.
- ^ Burgess, Anthony (April 27, 1990). "Creatures of decadent light and violent darkness: Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson". The Independent. London, England: Independent Print Ltd. p. 19.
- ^ "Paperback Best Sellers". The New York Times. January 10, 1993.
- ^ Steiner, Wendy (November 20, 1994). "Advertisements for Themselves". The New York Times. New York City. Retrieved October 4, 2018.
- ^ Kakutani, Michiko (November 15, 1994). "The Rise of a Self-Proclaimed Phenomenon". The New York Times. New York City. Retrieved October 4, 2018.
- ISBN 978-1405155571.
- ^ McCombe p.267
- ^ a b c d James, Clive (March 27, 2005). "Well Versed". The New York Times.
- ^ Book description on Random House website.
- ^ Rosen, Gary (October 16, 2012). "The Pagan Aesthetic". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved February 7, 2014.
- ^ "Free Women, Free Men". Retrieved March 15, 2017.
- ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved May 30, 2017.
- OCLC 1019883092.
Sources
- Paglia, Camille (1992), Sex, Art and American Culture: Essays, Knopf Doubleday Publishing, ISBN 0-679-74101-1
- ——— (1994), Vamps and Tramps: New Essays, New York: ISBN 978-0-67975120-5
External links
- Quotations related to Camille Paglia at Wikiquote
- Media related to Camille Paglia at Wikimedia Commons
- Salon Articles by Camille Paglia
- Appearances on C-SPAN
- Camille Paglia at IMDb
- Russell Walter (2023). "Camille Paglia on Masculinity & Femininity"
- Lyons, Donald (March 2024). Sex, the Sixties & Camille Paglia. The New Criterion, Vol. 42, No. 7.