Sigmund Freud

25 Points: Susan Sontag’s “Against Interpretation”

"The Silence" (still), directed by Ingmar Bergman (1963)

“The Silence” (still), directed by Ingmar Bergman (1963)

[Update: I posted a follow-up to this post, here.]

1.

Susan Sontag’s seminal mid-60s essay has come up several times at this site. I’ve been busy rereading it since Xmas, and want to take this chance to set down some thoughts regarding it.

2.

Obviously, whatever interpretation is, Sontag seems against it.

3.

What, then, does Sontag mean by “interpretation”? Does she mean any and all interpretation, as my fellow contributor Chris Higgs recently argued? Or something else, something more specific?

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Vicarious MFA / 79 Comments
March 18th, 2013 / 8:01 am