Terry Castle, a writer, retells her experiences with Susan Sontag, discussing their complex friendship, shared love of music, and Sontag's unresolved feelings about publicly discussing her female homosexuality. Castle reflects on Sontag's cultural significance in modern feminism and her longing for someone's attention. The podcast offers an entertaining and personal account of their relationship.
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Quick takeaways
Susan Sontag was a complex figure who embodied both high-mindedness and gossip, and played a significant role in modern feminism.
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In the first of our summer readings, Terry Castle reads her 2005 piece about her “on-again, off-again, semi-friendship” with Susan Sontag. She remembers Sontag as a “great comic character”: a high-minded hobnobber, a moralist and a gossip, seductive and snobbish and a catalytic force for modern feminism.