Susan Sontag
American writer and critic (1933 to 2004); author of the essay collections Against Interpretation (1966) and On Photography (1977), Illness as Metaphor (1978) and Regarding the Pain of Others (2003).
Susan Sontag did not write this page. ppll compiled it from their own words, each linked to the source. Is this you? · Report a mistake
What they believe
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A photograph is never simply transparent: to photograph is to frame, and to frame is to exclude
But the photographic image, even to the extent that it is a trace (not a construction made out of disparate photographic traces), cannot be simply a transparency of something that happened. It is always the image that someone chose; to photograph is to frame, and to frame is to exclude.
newyorker.comSaid 2 Dec 2002This on korrents
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Public figures and commentators responding to the September 11 attacks were infantilizing the public
The disconnect between last Tuesday’s monstrous dose of reality and the self-righteous drivel and outright deceptions being peddled by public figures and TV commentators is startling, depressing. The voices licensed to follow the event seem to have joined together in a campaign to infantilize the public.
newyorker.comSaid 16 Sept 2001This on korrents
The bold line is korrents’ wording; the quote is theirs. These 2: what they wrote before what they said aloud, one per source, newest first.
Beliefs
Korrents What they believe 8 beliefs — each backed by an exact quote.
Each is a — compiled by korrents.com, not by them: the one-line wordings are korrents', the quotes are theirs.
Recent
A photograph is never simply transparent: to photograph is to frame, and to frame is to exclude
But the photographic image, even to the extent that it is a trace (not a construction made out of disparate photographic traces), cannot be simply a transparency of something that happened. It is always the image that someone chose; to photograph is to frame, and to frame is to exclude.
Looking at War (The New Yorker) Said 2 Dec 2002
Disgust and pity at war pictures should not distract from asking whose cruelties and deaths are not being shown
And the disgust and pity that pictures like Hicks’s inspire should not distract from asking what pictures, whose cruelties, whose deaths you are not being shown.
Looking at War (The New Yorker) Said 2 Dec 2002
The problem is not remembering through photographs but remembering only the photographs, which eclipses other understanding
The problem is not that people remember through photographs but that they remember only the photographs. This remembering through photographs eclipses other forms of understanding—and remembering.
Looking at War (The New Yorker) Said 2 Dec 2002
Show 5 more
What looks like callousness toward images of suffering comes from the unstable attention television is built to arouse and satiate
Images shown on television are, by definition, images of which, sooner or later, one tires. What looks like callousness has its origin in the instability of attention that television is organized to arouse and to satiate, by its surfeit of images.
Looking at War (The New Yorker) Said 2 Dec 2002
Public figures and commentators responding to the September 11 attacks were infantilizing the public
The disconnect between last Tuesday’s monstrous dose of reality and the self-righteous drivel and outright deceptions being peddled by public figures and TV commentators is startling, depressing. The voices licensed to follow the event seem to have joined together in a campaign to infantilize the public.
Tuesday, and After (The New Yorker, Talk of the Town, her contribution) Said 16 Sept 2001
Courage is a morally neutral virtue, and whatever else is said of the September 11 attackers, they were not cowards
In the matter of courage (a morally neutral virtue): whatever may be said of the perpetrators of Tuesday’s slaughter, they were not cowards.
Tuesday, and After (The New Yorker, Talk of the Town, her contribution) Said 16 Sept 2001
After September 11, the politics of democracy was replaced by grief management; people may grieve together but should not be stupid together
Politics, the politics of a democracy—which entails disagreement, which promotes candor—has been replaced by psychotherapy. Let’s by all means grieve together. But let’s not be stupid together.
Tuesday, and After (The New Yorker, Talk of the Town, her contribution) Said 16 Sept 2001
The unanimous, reality-concealing rhetoric of American officials after September 11 seemed unworthy of a mature democracy
The unanimity of the sanctimonious, reality-concealing rhetoric spouted by American officials and media commentators in recent days seems, well, unworthy of a mature democracy.
Tuesday, and After (The New Yorker, Talk of the Town, her contribution) Said 16 Sept 2001
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