Camille Paglia | |
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 Paglia in 2017 | |
| Born | Camille Anna Paglia (1947-04-02)April 2, 1947 (age 78) Endicott, New York, U.S. |
| Occupation | Professor, cultural critic |
| Education | Binghamton University (BA) Yale University (MA,PhD) |
| Subjects | Popular culture, art, poetry, sex, film, feminism, politics |
| Literary movement | Individualist feminism |
| Signature | |
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Camille Anna Paglia (/ˈpɑːliə/PAH-lee-ə; born April 2, 1947) is an American academic, social critic andfeminist.[citation needed] Paglia was a professor at theUniversity of the Arts inPhiladelphia, Pennsylvania from 1984 until the university's closure in 2024.[1] She is critical of many aspects of modern culture[2][3] and is the author ofSexual Personae: Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson (1990) and other books. She is also a critic of contemporaryAmerican feminism and ofpost-structuralism, as well as a commentator on multiple aspects ofAmerican culture such as itsvisual art,music, andfilm history.
Paglia was born inEndicott, New York, the eldest child[4] of Lydia Anne (née Colapietro) and Pasquale Paglia. All four of her grandparents were born in Italy. Her mother emigrated to the United States at five years old fromCeccano, in theprovince of Frosinone,Lazio.[2] Her father's side of the family was from theCampanian towns ofAvellino,Benevento, andCaserta.[5] Paglia was raisedCatholic,[6] and attended primary school in ruralOxford, New York, where her family lived in a workingfarmhouse.[7]
Her father, aveteran ofWorld War II,[8] taught at the Oxford Academy high school and exposed his young daughter to art through books he brought home about French art history. In 1957, her family moved toSyracuse, New York, so that her father could begingraduate school; he eventually became a professor ofRomance languages atLe Moyne College.[9] She attended the Edward Smith Elementary School, T. Aaron Levy Junior High, andNottingham Senior High School.[10]
In 1992, Carmelia Metosh, herLatin teacher for three years, said, "She always has been controversial. Whatever statements were being made (in class), she had to challenge them. She made good points then, as she does now."[11] Paglia thanked Metosh in the acknowledgments toSexual Personae, later describing her as "thedragon lady of Latin studies, who breathed fire at principals andschool boards".[10]
During her stays at a summerGirl Scout[12] camp inThendara, New York, she took on new names, including Anastasia (herconfirmation name, inspired by the filmAnastasia), Stacy, and Stanley.[13] A crucially significant event for her was when anouthouse exploded after she poured too muchquicklime into the latrine. "That symbolized everything I would do with my life and work. Excess and extravagance and explosiveness. I would be someone who would look into the latrine of culture, intopornography and crime andpsychopathology... and I would drop the bomb into it".[14][15]
For more than a decade, Paglia was the partner of artist Alison Maddex.[16][17] Paglia legally adopted Maddex's son, who was born in 2002.[18] In 2007, the couple separated[19] but remained "harmonious co-parents", in the words of Paglia, who lived two miles (three kilometers) apart.[4]
Paglia is anatheist, and has stated she has "a very spiritualmystic view of the universe".[20] She has expressed interest inastrology and has written about it in several of her works, includingSexual Personae: "I'm an astrologer – people don't mention this! I mean, everyone's attacked me for everything else. I mean, I'm an astrologer – it's right in my book. I endorse astrology. I believe in astrology. Will someone attack me for that? No!"[21]
In 1964, Paglia entered Harpur College atBinghamton University.[22] The same year, Paglia's poem "Atrophy" was published in the local newspaper.[23] She later said that she was trained to read literature by poetMilton Kessler, who "believed in the responsiveness of the body, and of the activation of the senses to literature ... And oh did I believe in that".[24] In 1968, she graduated from Harpur as classvaledictorian.[9]
According to Paglia, while in college she punched a "marauding drunk",[15] and takes pride in having been put onprobation for committing 39 pranks.[10]
Paglia attendedYale as agraduate student, and she claims to have been the only open lesbian atYale Graduate School from 1968 to 1972.[15][25] At Yale, Paglia quarreled withRita Mae Brown, whom she later characterized as "then darklynihilist," and argued with theNew Haven, Connecticut, Women's Liberation Rock Band when they dismissedThe Rolling Stones assexist.[26] Paglia was mentored byHarold Bloom.[22]Sexual Personae was then titled "The Androgynous Dream: the image of the androgyne as it appears in literature and is embodied in thepsyche of the artist, with reference to the visual arts and the cinema."[27]
In 1973, Paglia drove to an appearance bySusan Sontag at Dartmouth, hoping to arrange for her to speak at Bennington, but found it difficult to find the money for Sontag's speaking fee. Paglia staged a poster campaign urging students to attend Sontag's appearance. Sontag arrived at Bennington Carriage Barn, where she was to speak, more than an hour late, and then began reading what Paglia recalled as a "boring and bleak" short story about "nothing" in the style of aFrench New Novel.[28]
Through her study of the classics and the scholarly work ofJane Ellen Harrison,James George Frazer,Erich Neumann and others, Paglia developed a theory of sexual history that contradicted a number of ideas fashionable at the time, hence her criticism ofMarija Gimbutas,Carolyn Heilbrun,Kate Millett and others. She laid out her ideas onmatriarchy,androgyny,homosexuality,sadomasochism and other topics in her Yale PhD thesisSexual Personae: The Androgyne in Literature and Art, which she defended in December 1974.
In the autumn of 1972, Paglia began teaching atBennington College, which hired her in part thanks to a recommendation fromHarold Bloom.[29] At Bennington, she befriended the philosopher James Fessenden, who first taught there in the same semester.[30]
In September 1976, she gave a public lecture drawing on her dissertation,[31] discussingEdmund Spenser'sThe Faerie Queene, followed by remarks onDiana Ross,Gracie Allen,Yul Brynner, andStéphane Audran.[32]
Paglia wrote that she "nearly came to blows with the founding members of thewomen's studies program at theState University of New York at Albany, when they categorically denied thathormones influence human experience or behavior".[33] Similar fights with feminists and academics culminated in a 1978 incident[further explanation needed] which led her to resign from Bennington; after a lengthy standoff with the administration, Paglia accepted asettlement from the college and resigned in 1979.[29]
Paglia finished her bookSexual Personae in the early 1980s, but could not get it published. She supported herself with visiting and part-time teaching jobs at Yale,Wesleyan, and other Connecticut colleges. Her paper, "TheApollonian Androgyne and the Faerie Queene", was published inEnglish Literary Renaissance, Winter 1979. In April 1980, her dissertation was cited byJ. Hillis Miller in his article "Wuthering Heights and the Ellipses of Interpretation", inJournal of Religion in Literature, but her academic career was otherwise stalled. In a 1995 letter to Boyd Holmes, she recalled: "I earned a little extra money by doing some local features reporting for aNew Haven alternative newspaper (The Advocate) in the early 1980s". She wrote articles on New Haven's historicpizzerias and on an old house that was a stop on theUnderground Railroad.[34]
In 1984, she joined the faculty of the Philadelphia College of Performing Arts, which merged in 1987 with the Philadelphia College of Art, to become theUniversity of the Arts.
Paglia is on the editorial board of the classics andhumanities journalArion.[35] She wrote a regular column forSalon.com from 1995 to 2001, and again from 2007 to 2009. During 2016, Paglia briefly resumed writing aSalon column.[36][37]
Paglia cooperated with Carl Rollyson and Lisa Paddock in their writing ofSusan Sontag: The Making of an Icon. Rollyson and Paddock note that Sontag "had her lawyer put our publisher on notice" when she realized she was to be the subject.[28]
Paglia participates in the decennial poll of film professionals conducted bySight and Sound which asks participants to submit a list of what they believe to be the tengreatest films of all time. According to her responses to the poll in 2002, 2012, and 2022, the films Paglia holds in highest regard includeBen-Hur,Blowup,Citizen Kane,La Dolce Vita,The Godfather,The Godfather: Part II,Gone with the Wind,Lawrence of Arabia,North by Northwest,Orphée,Persona,2001: A Space Odyssey,The Ten Commandments, andVertigo.[38][39][40] During 2012'sChicago Humanities Festival, Paglia praisedStar Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith as the greatest work of art in the past 30 years, praising the movie's visual effects and symbology, specially in its final act with it being "emotionally compelling and significant".[41]
In 2005, Paglia was named as one of the top 100 public intellectuals by the journalsForeign Policy andProspect.[18] In 2012, an article inThe New York Times remarked that "anyone who has been following the body count of the culture wars over the past decades knows Paglia".[42] Paglia has said that she is willing to have her entire career judged on the basis of her composition of what she considers to be "probably the most important sentence that she has ever written": "God is man's greatest idea."[43]
Though Paglia admiresSimone de Beauvoir andThe Second Sex ("the supreme work of modern feminism... its deep learning and massive argument are unsurpassed") as well asGermaine Greer,[22]Time critic Martha Duffy writes that Paglia "does not hesitate to hurl brazen insults" at several feminists. In an interview, Paglia stated that to be effective, one has to "name names"; criticism should be concrete. Paglia stated that many critics "escape into abstractions", rendering their criticism "intellectualized and tame".[44] Paglia was known as one of the scholars and feminists thattheorized American singerMadonna within feminism and for which publications such asVogue called her the "high priestess ofpost-feminism".[45]
Paglia accused Greer of becoming "a drone in three years" as a result of her early success; Paglia has also criticized the work of feminist activistDiana Fuss.[9]Elaine Showalter calls Paglia "unique in the hyperbole and virulence of her hostility to virtually all the prominent feminist activists, public figures, writers and scholars of her generation", mentioningCarolyn Heilbrun,Judith Butler,Carol Gilligan,Marilyn French,Zoe Baird,Kimba Wood,Susan Thomases, andHillary Clinton as targets of her criticism.[22]
Paglia accusedKate Millett of starting "the repressive,Stalinist style in feminist criticism."[46] Paglia has repeatedly criticizedPatricia Ireland, former president of theNational Organization for Women (NOW), calling her a "sanctimonious", unappealing role model for women[47] whose "smug, arrogant" attitude is accompanied by "painfully limited processes of thought".[48] Paglia contends that under Ireland's leadership, NOW "damaged and marginalized the women's movement".[49]
In 1999,Martha Nussbaum wrote an essay called "The Professor of Parody", in which she criticized Judith Butler for retreating to abstract theory disconnected from real world problems.[50] Paglia reacted to the essay by stating that the criticism was "long overdue", but characterized the criticism as "onePC diva turning against another". She criticized Nussbaum for failing to make her criticisms earlier while accusing her of borrowing Paglia's ideas without acknowledgement. She called Nussbaum's "preparation or instinct for sex analysis... dubious at best", but nevertheless stated that "Nussbaum is a genuine scholar who operates on a vastly higher intellectual level than Butler".[51]
Many feminists have criticized Paglia;Christina Hoff Sommers calls her "[p]erhaps the most conspicuous target of feminist opprobrium," noting that theWomen's Review of Books describedSexual Personae aspatriarchy's "counter-assault on feminism".[52] Some feminist critics have characterized Paglia as an "anti-feminist feminist", critical of central features of much contemporary feminism but holding out "her own special variety of feminist affirmation".[53]
In the early 1990s,Naomi Wolf traded a series of sometimes personal attacks with Paglia. InThe New Republic, Wolf wrote that Paglia "poses as a sexual renegade but is in fact the most dutiful of patriarchal daughters" and characterized Paglia as intellectually dishonest.[54][55][56][57] In a 1991 speech, Paglia criticized Wolf for blaming anorexia on the media, calling Wolf a "twit".[58]Gloria Steinem said of Paglia that, "Her calling herself a feminist is sort of like aNazi saying they're notanti-Semitic."[59] Paglia called Steinem "theStalin of feminism".[60]Katha Pollitt calls Paglia one of a "seemingly endless parade of social critics [who] have achieved celebrity by portraying not sexism but feminism as the problem". Pollitt writes that Paglia has glorified "male dominance", and has been able to get away with things "that might make evenRush Limbaugh blanch," because she is a woman.[61]
Paglia's view that rape is sexually motivated has been endorsed byevolutionary psychologistsRandy Thornhill andCraig T. Palmer; they comment that "Paglia... urges women to be skeptical toward the feminist 'party line' on the subject, to become better informed about risk factors, and to use the information to lower their risk of rape".[62]
In an essay critiquing the Hollywood/celebrity fad of "Girl Squads", made popular in 2015 by pop-icons likeTaylor Swift, Paglia argued that rather than empowering women the cliquish practice actually harms the self-esteem of those who are not rich, famous, or attractive enough to belong to the group, while further defining women only by a very narrow, often sexualized stereotype. She challenged that to be truly empowering, these groups need to mentor, advise, and be more inclusive, for more women to realize their true, individual potential.[63]
Paglia has described herself as an androgynous, gender-nonconforming woman. In some earlier interviews, she used the term "transgender" to characterize her cross-gender expression and discomfort with conventional femininity; however, she has consistently stated that she is biologically female, identifies as a woman, and does not believe that biological sex can be changed.[64][65] She reports havinggender dysphoria since childhood, and says that "never once in my life have I felt female".[66] She says that she was "donning flamboyant male costumes from early childhood on".[67]
Nevertheless, Paglia says that she is "highly skeptical about the current transgender wave" which she thinks has been produced by "far more complicated psychological and sociological factors than current gender discourse allows". She said that the "cold biological truth is that sex changes are impossible" and that she rejects "state-sponsored coercion to call someone a "woman" or a "man" simply on the basis of his or her subjective feeling about it."[67] She writes that "In a democracy, everyone, no matter how nonconformist or eccentric, should be free from harassment and abuse. But at the same time, no one deserves special rights, protections, or privileges on the basis of their eccentricity."[67]
Paglia's views led to a petition demanding that theUniversity of the Arts remove her from their faculty, but the university rejected it. Paglia considered it "a publicity stunt" and praised the university's "eloquent statement affirmingacademic freedom [as] a landmark in contemporary education."[68]
Paglia has long rejected the scientific consensus onglobal warming, which she describes as "the political agenda that has slowly accrued" around the issue ofclimate change.[69] In a 2017 interview withThe Weekly Standard, Paglia stated, "It is certainly ironic how liberals who posture as defenders of science when it comes toglobal warming (a sentimental myth unsupported by evidence) flee all reference to biology when it comes to gender."[67]
Paglia is critical of the influence many postwar French writers have had on the humanities, claiming that universities are in the "thrall" of Frenchpost-structuralists;[70] that in the works ofJean Baudrillard,Jacques Derrida,Jacques Lacan andMichel Foucault, she never once found a sentence that interested her.[71]
However, Paglia's assessment of French writers is not purely negative. She has calledSimone de Beauvoir'sThe Second Sex (1949) "brilliant and imperious" and she traces the lineage of her "dissident feminism", not fromBetty Friedan but from Beauvoir. Paglia also identifiedJean-Paul Sartre's work as part of a high period in literature. She has praisedRoland Barthes'sMythologies (1957) andGilles Deleuze'sMasochism: Coldness and Cruelty (1967), while finding both men's later work flawed. OfGaston Bachelard, who influenced Paglia, she wrote "[his] dignified yet fluid phenomenological descriptive method seemed to me ideal for art", adding that he was "the last modern French writer I took seriously".[72][73][74]
Paglia characterizes herself as alibertarian.[70][75] She opposes laws againstprostitution, pornography,drugs, andabortion. She is also opposed toaffirmative action laws.[76][77] Some of her views have been characterized asconservative, although when asked in 2016 if she considers herself a cultural conservative she replied: "No, not at all... Conservative would mean I was cleaving to something past which was great, and no longer is... and Usually I'm not saying we should return to anything. I do believe we're moving inexorably into the future."[9][78]
Paglia criticizedBill Clinton for not resigning after theMonica Lewinsky scandal, which she says "paralyzed the government for two years, leading directly to our blindsiding by9/11."[79] In the2000 U.S. presidential campaign, she voted for theGreen Party candidateRalph Nader because "I detest the arrogant, corruptsuperstructure of theDemocratic Party, with which I remain stubbornly registered."[79]
In the2004 U.S. presidential election, Paglia supportedJohn Kerry, and in2008 she supportedBarack Obama.[80] In 2012, she supportedGreen Party candidateJill Stein.[81] Paglia was highly critical of 2016 presidential candidateHillary Clinton, calling her a "fraud" and a "liar".[82] Paglia refused to support either Hillary Clinton orDonald Trump in the2016 U.S. presidential election, indicating in a MarchSalon column that if Hillary Clinton won the Democratic Party's nomination, she would either cast a write-in vote forBernie Sanders or else vote for Green Party candidate Stein, as she did in 2012.[83] Paglia later clarified in a statement that she would vote for Stein.[84]
In 2017, she stated that she is a registered Democrat who voted for Bernie Sanders in the 2016 Democratic primary and for Jill Stein in the 2016 general election.[67] For the2020 U.S. presidential election, Paglia criticized the Democratic Party for lacking a coherent message and a strong candidate. She disavowed Sanders as being "way too old and creaky" and retracted her initial support forKamala Harris for missing "a huge opportunity to play a moderating, statesmanlike role."[85] Citing the "need to project steadiness, substance, and warmth," Paglia expressed interest inCheri Bustos andSteve Bullock as potential candidates.[85]
Paglia jokingly commented in an interview in 1992: "In the case ofSinéad O'Connor, child abuse was justified". This was her response to the singer's action onSaturday Night Live, where she tore up a picture of the pope in protest of the unfoldingchild sexual abuse scandal surrounding the Catholic Church.[86] In 1993, Paglia signed a manifesto supportingNAMBLA, apederasty andpedophilia advocacy organization.[87][88] In 1994, Paglia supported lowering thelegal age of consent to 14. She noted in a 1995 interview with pro-pedophile activistBill Andriette, "I fail to see what is wrong with erotic fondling with any age."[89][90]
In a 1997Salon column, Paglia expressed the view that male pedophilia correlates with the heights of a civilization, stating "I have repeatedly protested the lynch-mob hysteria that dogs the issue of man-boy love. InSexual Personae, I argued that male pedophilia is intricately intertwined with the cardinal moments of Western civilization."[88] Paglia noted in several interviews, as well asSexual Personae, that she supported the legalization of certain forms ofchild pornography.[91][92][89]
She later changed her views on the matter. In an interview forRadio New Zealand'sSaturday Morning show, conducted on April 28, 2018, byKim Hill, Paglia was asked, "Are you a libertarian on the issue of pedophilia?", to which she replied, "In terms of the present day, I think it's absolutely impossible to think we could reproduce the Athenian code of pedophilia, of boy-love, that was central to culture at that time. [...] We must protect children, and I feel that very very strongly. The age of consent for sexual interactions between a boy and an older man is obviously disputed, at what point that should be. I used to think that fourteen (the way it is in some places in the world) was adequate. I no longer think that. I think young people need greater protection than that. [...] This is one of those areas that we must confine to the realm of imagination and the history of the arts."[93]
Paglia'sSexual Personae was rejected by at least seven publishers before it was published byYale University Press, where it became a best-seller.[9] 'Paglia called it her "prison book", commenting, "I felt likeCervantes,Genet. It took all the resources of beingCatholic to cut myself off and sit in my cell."[22]Sexual Personae has been called an "energetic,Freud-friendly reading ofWestern art", one that seemed "heretical and perverse", at the height ofpolitical correctness; according to Daniel Nester, its characterization of "William Blake as the BritishMarquis de Sade orWalt Whitman andEmily Dickinson as 'self-rulinghermaphrodites who cannot mate' still pricks up many an English major's ears."[24]
In the book, Paglia argues thathuman nature has an inherently dangerousDionysian orchthonic aspect, especially in regard tosexuality.[94] Culture and civilization are created by men and represent an attempt to contain that force.[94] Women are powerful, too, but as natural forces, and both marriage and religion are means to contain chaotic forces.[9] A best seller, it was described byTerry Teachout in aNew York Times book review as being both "intellectually stimulating" and "exasperating."[95]Sexual Personae received critical reviews from numerous feminist scholars.[96]Anthony Burgess describedSexual Personae as "a fine disturbing book" that "seeks to attack the reader's emotions as well as his or her prejudices".[97]
| External videos | |
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 Presentation by Paglia onSex, Art and American Culture, October 26, 1994,C-SPAN |
Sex, Art and American Culture: Essays is a collection of short pieces, many published previously as editorials or reviews, and some transcripts of interviews.[77] The essays cover such subjects asMadonna,Elizabeth Taylor, rock music,Robert Mapplethorpe, theClarence Thomas Supreme Court nomination, rape,bodybuilding,Marlon Brando,drag,Milton Kessler, and academia. It madeThe New York Times Best Seller list for paperbacks.[98]
Vamps and Tramps: New Essays is a collection of 42 short articles and a long essay, "No Law in the Arena: a Pagan Theory of Sexuality". It also contains a collection of cartoons from newspapers about Paglia. Writing forThe New York Times, Wendy Steiner wrote "Comic, camp, outspoken, Ms. Paglia throws an absurdist shoe into the ponderous wheels of academia".[99]Michiko Kakutani, also writing forThe New York Times, wrote: "Her writings on education ... are highly persuasive, just as some of her essays on the perils of regulating pornography and the puritanical excesses of the women's movement radiate a fierce common sense ... Unfortunately, Ms. Paglia has a way of undermining her more interesting arguments with flip, hyperbolic declarations".[100]
In 1998, in commemoration of the 35th anniversary of the release ofAlfred Hitchcock's filmThe Birds, theBritish Film Institute commissioned Paglia to write a book about the film. The book interprets the film as "in the main line of British Romanticism descending from the raw nature-tableaux and sinister femme-fatales ofColeridge".[101] Paglia uses apsychoanalytic framework to interpret the film as portraying "a release of primitive forces of sex and appetite that have been subdued but never fully tamed".[102]
Break, Blow, Burn: Camille Paglia Reads Forty-three of the World's Best Poems is a collection of 43 short selections of verse with an accompanying essay by Paglia.[103] The collection is oriented primarily to those unfamiliar with the works.[103]Clive James wrote that Paglia tends to focus on American works as it moves fromShakespeare forward through time, withYeats, followingColeridge, as the last European discussed,[103] but emphasized her range of sympathy and her ability to juxtapose and unite distinct art forms in her analysis.[103]
Glittering Images: A Journey Through Art from Egypt to Star Wars is a series of essays about notable works of art from ancient to modern times, published in October 2012.[104] ComposerJohn Adams, writing forThe New York Times Book Review was skeptical of the book, accusing it of being "so agenda driven and so riddled with polemic asides that its potential to persuade is forever being compromised".[42] Gary Rosen ofThe Wall Street Journal, however, praised the book's "impressive range" and accessibility to readers.[105]
| External videos | |
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| Presentation by Paglia onFree Women, Free Men, March 20, 2017,C-SPAN |
Free Women, Free Men: Sex, Gender, and Feminism is a series of essays from 1990 onward.[106]Dwight Garner inThe New York Times wrote Paglia's essays address two main targets: modern feminism, which, Paglia writes, "has become a catchall vegetable drawer where bunches of clingy sob sisters can store their moldy neuroses," and modern American universities, of which she asks, "How is it possible that today's academic left has supported rather than protested campus speech codes as well as the grotesque surveillance and overregulation of student life?"[107]
Paglia's fourth essay collection,Provocations: Collected Essays on Art, Feminism, Politics, Sex, and Education, was published byPantheon on October 9, 2018.[108]
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