Susan Sontag (pictured)
Author and social critic Susan Sontag, one of the strongest voices of intellectual opposition to U.S. policies after the Sept. 11 attacks, has died at the age of 71, ABC News reported. Sontag, who had suffered from leukemia for some time, died in a New York cancer hospital. Sontag, whose longtime companion was photographer Annie Leibovitz, fell ill in August and afterward was rarely out of the hospital, according to longtime friend Barbara Epstein.
Sontag was known for interests that ranged from French existentialist writers to ballet, photography and politics. She was the author of 17 books and was a lifelong human-rights activist. Her work has been translated into more than 30 languages.
Among her best-known works was a 1964 study of gay aesthetics called Notes on Camp. According to the Associated Press, the piece, which established her as a major new writer, popularized the 'so bad it's good' attitude toward popular culture, applicable to everything from 'Swan Lake' to feather boas.
Sontag was among the first to raise a dissenting voice after Sept. 11, 2001, in a controversial New Yorker magazine essay arguing that talk of an 'attack on civilisation' was 'drivel'. She ignited a firestorm of criticism when she declared that the attacks were not a 'cowardly attack' on civilization but 'an act undertaken as a consequence of specific American alliances and actions'. Sontag had since been an outspoken critic of President George W. Bush, including on the war in Iraq.
Born in New York in 1933, Sontag grew up in Arizona and Los Angeles before going to the University of Chicago, and later Harvard and Oxford. She wrote novels, non-fiction books, plays, and film scripts as well as essays. A long-time opponent of war and a human-rights activist, Sontag spent several years in Sarajevo and staged Beckett's Waiting for Godot there under siege in the summer of 1993.
From 1987 to 1989, Sontag was president of the American Centre of PEN, an international writers' organization. She led a number of campaigns on behalf of persecuted and imprisoned writers. In 2003, she was awarded a peace prize in Germany and the Prince of Asturias Prize in Spain. Earlier honors included the U.S. National Book Award for her novel In America in 2000.
Though known for her hauteur and not indifferent to her public image, Sontag avoided the 'celebrity' circuit, according to Telegraph News. Her attitude made enemies, foremost among them the American academic Camille Paglia, who never forgave Sontag for snubbing her at a party in 1973. By the late 1980s she was declaring that her intellect had eclipsed Sontag's. 'I've been chasing that bitch for 25 years,' said Paglia, 'and at last I've caught her.' 'We used to think Norman Mailer was bad,' said Susan Sontag, 'but she makes Norman Mailer look like Jane Austen.'
She is survived by Leibovitz; and her son, David, who was born during Sontag's marriage to Philip Rieff, a lecturer on social theory. Sontag described David as her 'best friend'.
Shirley Chisholm
Shirley Chisholm, 80, the first Black woman to serve in Congress and the first woman to seek the Democratic presidential nomination, died Jan. 1 at her home in Ormond Beach, Fla, according to The New York Times. She had
reportedly suffered several strokes recently.
Chisholm was an outspoken educator-turned-politician who shattered racial and gender barriers as she became a national symbol of liberal politics in the 1960s and 1970s.
She won her seat in Congress in 1968 with
a victory in Brooklyn's 12th District, which had been created by court-ordered reapportionment. Her slogan was 'unbought and unbossed.' Chisholm challenged the seniority system and in 1972 she ran for president, losing to George McGovern in the primaries.
Chisholm served seven terms in the House; she was a voice for women and minorities.
Douglas A. Kohfeldt
Douglas A. Kohfeldt, 42, independent artists' representative, graduate of Eastern Michigan University, native of Grosse Pointe, Mich., passed away surrounded by love, Dec. 26. He was cherished life partner to Kyle Spainhour and faithful companion to Shadow the Weimaraner. The family wishes to thank Dr. Beverly Sha of Rush Presbyterian-St. Luke's for her extraordinary care over the years. Services were private.
In lieu of flowers, donations may be made in his name to Howard Brown Health Center, ( 773 ) 388-1600 or www.howardbrown.org .