Popular Culture Review 31.2
THE MELANCHOLY OBJECT AND NOSTALGIA
In 1977 , the American writer Susan Sontag released her
bundle of essays On Photography . After the publication ’ s release , Sontag swung between celebrity figure and cultural critic : popular magazine Time had previously published multiple of her essays throughout the sixties , and the author was well liked in the media . Apart from her intelligence , Sontag was known for high-profile gay relationships ( most notable with celebrity photographer Annie Leibovitz ) and striking presences at shows and parties ( During ; Emre ). Although the critical work became mandatory reading for every art scholar or photographer , Sontag ’ s thinking method and essays read as accessible and non-academic . This makes her theories easy to dismiss or unravel .
On Photography , in this vein , was her first big commercial breakthrough . Sarah Parsons , a professor of photography theory and history , notes that when On Photography was released , its “ emotional intensity , internal contradictions and leaps of logic were often cited as weakness ” ( 290 ). Yet Parsons also declares that : “[ It ] is a passionate and brave effort to think through photography as a affective and effective medium , to understand how and why it impacts us so deeply ” ( 290 ), Sontag focuses , quite harshly , in multiple chapters how multiple characteristics of photography have considerable negative impacts on our worldview . Literary academic Simon During describes the work as “[ an attack on ] photography as a mode of anti-culture and of anti-literature , on the predictable grounds that photographs ‘ certified ’ experience by actually destroying it . A casual , easy , enjoyable craft , photography deprived the world of seriousness .” Seriousness is a term that multiple scholars attribute to Sontag ’ s cultural critiques and personality . On Photography shows the incredible critical of the impact that photographs have on our emotion-
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