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Podcast: Past Present Future
Episode: History of Ideas 8: Susan Sontag
Description: Episode 8 in our history of the great essays is about Susan Sontag’s ‘Against Interpretation’ (1963). What was interpretation and why was Sontag so against it? David explores how an argument about art, criticism and the avant-garde can be applied to contemporary politics and can even explain the monstrous appeal of Donald Trump.Sontag in the LRB:Terry Castle on Sontag and friendship ‘At its best, our relationship was rather like the one between Dame Edna and her feeble sidekick Madge – or possibly Stalin and Malenkov.’James Wolcott on Sontag and polemics...