(Sontag born Jan. 16, 1933; died Dec. 28, 2004)
Britannica –
“[Jewish] American intellectual and writer best known for her essays on modern culture.
Sontag (who adopted her stepfather’s name) was reared in Tucson, Arizona, and in Los Angeles. She attended the University of California at Berkeley for one year and then transferred to the University of Chicago, from which she graduated in 1951. She studied English literature (M.A., 1954) and philosophy (M.A., 1955) at Harvard University and taught philosophy at several colleges and universities before the publication of her first novel, The Benefactor (1963).
During the early 1960s she also wrote a number of essays and reviews, most of which were published in such periodicals as The New York Review of Books, Commentary, and Partisan Review. Some of these short pieces were collected in Against Interpretation, and Other Essays (1966)…
Sontag’s essays are characterized by a serious philosophical approach to various aspects and personalities of modern culture… In addition to criticism and fiction, she wrote screenplays…”
Encyclopaedia Britannica Online. http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/554590/Susan–Sontag (accessed May 2, 2009)