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Comment by iron0013 | Hacker News Reader

Read Notes on Camp. I’m certainly no expert on Theory, but a lot of stuff in there rang true to me. Also, be sure to read the linked Slate article if you haven’t. The title makes it sound like it’s going to be an anti-Sontag polemic, but it’s really not at all.

If there’s one feminist author who really doesn’t deserve the usual “feminists bad!” treatment that some corners of the internet default to, it’s Sontag.

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Also read On Photography, which is one of the seminal works of American art criticism and philosophy.

I, too, before reading her encountered her as a reference more than a primary source and had a vague idea that she was some untouchable academic, but On Photography is one of the great works of art theory in the vein of Walter Benjamin's "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction".

Thanks, I’ll read Notes on Camp.

I did read the Slate article, and I didn’t get much out of it beyond a claim that Sontag, via her writings or just her status as a public figure, represented and argued for a serious approach to thinking about culture. But this conclusion seemed oddly tacked on to the end of the article.

Also for many major figures like Sontag their impact is hard to measure just by reading their work. Their impact is measured more by influence on their peers and intellectual ancestors. So if you're not familiar with an entire canon of literature you might find her interesting but not necessarily special.

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