orig. Susan Rosenblatt
born Jan. 16, 1933, New York, N.Y., U.S.
died Dec. 28, 2004, New York
U.S. writer.
She studied at the University of Chicago and Harvard University and taught philosophy at several institutions. In the early 1960s she began contributing to such periodicals as the New York Review of Books , Commentary , and Partisan Review , her French-influenced essays being characterized by a serious philosophical approach to aspects of modern culture rarely taken seriously at the time, including films, popular music, and "camp" sensibility. Collections of her essays include the influential Against Interpretation, and Other Essays (1966) and Styles of Radical Will (1969). Her later critical works include On Photography (1977), Illness as Metaphor (1978), and AIDS and Its Metaphors (1989). She also wrote screenplays and novels, including The Volcano Lover (1992) and In America (2000).