Susan Sontag

Latest Articles

Taking a global view at Salt

The plight of the worker
In the 1930s, the New Deal-era Farm Security Administration compiled arguably the most influential photo dossier in American history, enlisting nationally prominent photographers like Dorothea Lange and Walker Evans to capture scenes of rural poverty during the Great Depression.
By NICHOLAS SCHROEDER | September 07, 2011

Looking deeply into the everyday with aa//ee's Broadsheet

Targeting ‘To Go’
The Dixie cup is the first object investigated in aa//ee's inaugural issue of Broadsheet , a quarterly newsletter exploring the historical narratives behind mundane objects of industrial design.
By ANNIE LARMON | January 19, 2011

High-octane coverage

The Huffington Post owns Gulf coverage; plus, that Hitchens memoir
Despite admirable wall-to-wall coverage from the national mainstream press and unusually in-depth reports from network television and cable, the Huffington Post has emerged as perhaps the single best go-to source for developing news and wide-ranging commentary about the British Petroleum (BP) oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
By PETER KADZIS | June 07, 2010

Updike does death, R. Crumb does God, Vanity Fair does Proust

Gift books to savor
Trying to reach as broad a range of tastes and pocketbooks as possible, we this year scavenged everything from the front pages of the Onion to R. Crumb's genesis, to valedictory Updike. Stuff to read, stuff to look at, glossy pages and matte. Remember: be careful not to nick the pages or spill eggnog on them before you wrap. Happy holidays!
By PHOENIX STAFF | December 08, 2009

Review: William Kunstler: Disturbing the Universe

What’s it like being the young daughters of this John Brown–like presence?
“Bill” Kunstler was the flamboyant, contentious, proudly revolutionary lawyer for the Chicago Eight, a handsome man with an unruly mane of black-and-white that was as impressive and iconic as the head of hair on Susan Sontag.
By GERALD PEARY | November 11, 2009

Midsummer madness

Mark Morris, Yo-Yo Ma, and the Festival of Contemporary Music at Tanglewood, Mozart in Boston, Meyerbeer at Bard
After a relatively quiet summer, I saw Boston Midsummer Opera's Cosí fan tutte at BU's Tsai Center. Then I raced out to Tanglewood for a Mark Morris program accompanied by Yo-Yo Ma and Emanuel Ax, a BSO matinee with Ma, and all six concerts in the annual Festival of Contemporary Music.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ | September 29, 2009

Review: 'A Horse Is Not a Metaphor'

Hammer's joy in being alive is no metaphor either
Cinema might not be able to cure cancer, but when wielded by a master documentarian like Barbara Hammer, it can squeeze a little beauty out of the disease.
By PETER KEOUGH | May 06, 2009

Wish-fulfillment for a burning world

The 2008 heroic holiday DVD and Blu-ray gift guide
From the shining big-screen debut of Iron Man to the large amounts of green produced by the Incredible Hulk, this was the year the public couldn't get enough of their favorite heroes.
By BRETT MICHEL | December 11, 2008

Once upon a time in Hungary

Béla Tarr’s epic arrives on DVD
Since its release in 1994, Hungarian auteur Béla Tarr’s 435-minute sui generis masterpiece Sátántangó has had the top critics grasping for superlatives.
By PETER KEOUGH | August 26, 2008

The cuteness surge

Why, in desperate times, we turn to lolcats, twee songs, and mute kittens
Cuteness, of course, is the collective cultural cure-all to our problems.
By SHARON STEEL | February 01, 2008

The Oscars go to Hell

The Devil knows what the nominations will be for this year’s Oscars
Maybe it’s just as well if the writers’ strike forces a cancellation of the Oscars show.
By PETER KEOUGH | January 18, 2008

Winter reads

Novels from Peter Carey and Russell Banks, poetry from Elizabeth Bishop, and advice from Madeleine Albright
Esteemed fiction writers, young stars, the Civil War, the ’60s, and the morass of contemporary geopolitics — it’s all here for reading during winter’s long, dark nights.
By BARBARA HOFFERT | December 21, 2007

Unwell

A doctor writes about coping with illness
In combining the dual careers of novelist and physician, Michael Stein has honed his skills of observation of characters and patients.
By JOHNETTE RODRIGUEZ | April 18, 2007

Deadly art

Sorting out the life and career of Leni Riefenstahl
It’s tempting to see two new biographies of Leni Riefenstahl and assume they’ll push the envelope, and expose the dirt about her personal life.
By MICHAEL BRONSKI | April 10, 2007

My Ellen Willis

Making sense of a woman who was always two or three steps ahead of the Zeitgeist
When I was a queer teenager in suburban New Jersey in the early 1960s, I decided that I wanted to be Susan Sontag.
By MICHAEL BRONSKI | November 30, 2006

Absolute Wilson

Absolutely bewildered
Back in 1991, in the American Repertory Theatre production of When We Dead Awaken , Robert Wilson’s musical based on the dour Henrik Ibsen play, there was a moment when the cast, led by Honey Cole, started a cakewalk line while chanting the play’s title over and over again. Watch the trailer for Absolute Wilson (QuickTime)
By PETER KEOUGH | November 29, 2006

Life, examined

Delving deeper with Mike Daisey
Solo performer Mike Daisey has been described as a cross between Noam Chomsky and Jack Black, Spalding Gray and Robin Williams and — my favorite — “Jackie Gleason meets Franz Kafka.”
By BILL RODRIGUEZ | September 26, 2006

Film noir or red meat?

And Ric Burns’s Warhol documentary
On this, all agree: nobody in 1940s Hollywood consciously made “film noirs,” though that’s what we now call The Maltese Falcon , Double Indemnity , The Big Sleep , and other dark, cynical, crime melodramas.
By GERALD PEARY | September 12, 2006

Master movers

Mark Morris and Ronald K. Brown head to RIC
Rhode Island audiences have long been treated to national caliber dance troupes in Rhode Island College’s Performing Arts Series.
By JOHNETTE RODRIGUEZ | February 01, 2006