Camille Paglia

Camille Anna Paglia (born April 2, 1947 in Endicott, New York) is a social critic, author and avowed feminist. She is University Professor of Humanities and Media Studies at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia.

Related Topics:
April 2 - 1947 - Endicott, New York - Feminist - University of the Arts

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Paglia is an intellectual of many apparent contradictions: a classicist who champions art both high and low, with a view that human nature is inherently dangerous, while at the same time celebrating dionysian revelry in the wilder, darker sides of human sexuality.

Related Topics:
Intellectual - Classicist - High - Low - Human nature - Dionysian - Human sexuality

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Paglia came to public attention with the publication of her first book, Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson, in 1990, when she also began writing about popular culture and feminism in mainstream newspapers and magazines. Less than a year after Sexual Personae was published, she was the subject of a New York Magazine cover story, "Woman Warrior."

Related Topics:
Sexual Personae - Popular culture - Feminism - New York Magazine

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Her significance in the 1990s intellectual world was two-fold:

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• The seventies had seen the rise of a particularly rigid, doctrinaire "feminism" that many were finding stifling but only a few were challenging (e.g., the "sex positive" S/M lesbians, perhaps typified by Susie Bright).
• The left was pushing for a change in the traditional focus of Western universities on Western culture (sometimes derided as the study of "dead white males"). For example, Stanford University was dropping its well-regarded undergraduate requirement of a year-long course in "Western Culture" in favor of a more broadly-focused study of "Cultures, Ideas and Values" or CIV.

Against this backdrop, Paglia appeared on the scene as a female intellectual who enjoyed challenging the left-wing position in these areas. But she did so by arguing from an unusual position that also embraced homosexuality, fetishism, and prostitution. She describes herself as a Democrat and a libertarian. She is also an atheist with catholic sensibilties, though she thinks comparative religion should be at the center of world education.

Related Topics:
Homosexuality - Fetishism - Prostitution - Democrat - Libertarian - Atheist - Catholic - Comparative religion

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In September 2005, she was named as one of the "Top 100 Public Intellectuals" in the world, in a list compiled jointly by editors of the journals "Foreign Policy" and "The Prospect" (UK). The list, which included only 10 women, also included feminist thinkers Germaine Greer, Martha Nussbaum, and Julia Kristeva.

Related Topics:
Germaine Greer - Martha Nussbaum - Julia Kristeva

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Camille Paglia: Writings ►