On Photography
Susan Sontag (1933–2004) was one of the most influential and incisive American thinkers and writers of the late 20th-century. She was born in New York and studied at the University of Chicago and elsewhere, notably the Sorbonne in Paris, and she retained lifelong connections with French intellectual life. Based in New York from 1959, she spent several years teaching philosophy before abandoning her academic career and becoming a full-time writer. In books such as Against Interpretation and Illness as Metaphor, and through her political activism, she reshaped our understanding of major social and cultural issues – from the Vietnam War to the AIDS epidemic, as well – famously – as the importance of ‘camp’ and the interplay between high and low art. Alongside her essays and non-fiction books Sontag wrote fiction, notably including a well-received historical novel, The Volcano Lover. Her many accolades include the Jerusalem Prize for the Freedom of the Individual in Society and the Prince of Asturias Award for Literature.
Mia Fineman is curator in the Department of Photographs at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, where she has worked since 1999. Her exhibitions on photographic history have included major shows such as Apollo’s Muse (on photography and the moon), and Faking It (on manipulated photography before the digital era), as well as On Photography, a tribute to Susan Sontag’s landmark book. Fineman’s publications include essays and introductions for books such as The New Woman Behind the Camera (National Gallery of Art, 2020) and Snapshots of Dangerous Women (2015). She was educated at Yale University, graduating with a PhD on German modernist photography in 2001.