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Sontag (Susan) papers
LSC.0612
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Contributing Institution:
UCLA Library Special Collections
Title: Susan Sontag papers
Creator:
Sontag, Susan, 1933-2004.
Identifier/Call Number: LSC.0612
Physical Description:
180.0 linear feet
(283 boxes, 68 oversize boxes, 1 oversize folder, and 2 hard drives)
Physical Description:
7.7 Gigabytes
(64,461 digital files)
Date (inclusive): circa 1907-2009
Date (bulk): circa 1933-2004
Abstract: Susan Sontag (1933-2004) was an American writer, director, and political activist. She authored numerous essays, short stories,
novels, and non-fiction books, as well as films and plays that she also directed in the United States and abroad. The recipient
of many honors and awards throughout her life, Sontag's works have been translated into over thirty languages. The contents
of the Susan Sontag Papers reflect her intelligence, energy, and the seamless integration of her wide-ranging interests in
her work and life. In addition to notes, research, and manuscript material related to her writing, theatre, and film projects,
the collection includes the following: personal and professional correspondence; journals; schoolwork; teaching material;
ephemera and correspondence related to her public appearances, institutional involvement, and political activism; publicity
and press; highlights from her library; personal and professional photographs; personal materials including calendars and
notes; along with digital materials. The digital materials include drafts for published and unpublished works, contact lists,
lists of her favorite words, books, restaurants and more, and email correspondence regarding travel plans and world events.
Physical Location: Stored off-site. All requests to access special collections material must be made in advance using the request button located
on this page.
Language of Material: Materials are in English.
Open for research, with following exceptions: Boxes 136 and 137 of journals are restricted until 25 years after Susan Sontag's
death (December 28, 2029), though the journals may become available once they are published. Box 352 of medical files are
restricted until 50 years after Susan Sontag's death (December 28, 2054). Each of the four computers contained files that
have been restricted. Per the donor's estate request, certain digital files containing private family information are restricted
until December 2044. Other digital system files, software program files, and files that contained private, medical, and sensitive
information have been restricted in perpetuity pending curatorial review.
All requests to access special collections materials must be made in advance using the request button located on this page.
Access to digital materials is available on-site in the Special Collections reading room. Requests to access born-digital
materials must be made at least 2 days in advance. Once request has been made, please confirm viewing arrangements with Special
Collections reference desk staff.
Property rights to the physical objects belong to UCLA Library Special Collections. All other rights, including copyright,
are retained by the creators and their heirs. It is the responsibility of the researcher to determine who holds the copyright
and pursue the copyright owner or his or her heir for permission to publish where The UC Regents do not hold the copyright.
Physical Characteristics and Technical Requirements
CONTAINS DIGITAL MATERIALS: This collection contains processed digital materials. All requests to access digital materials
must be made in advance using the request button located on this page.
PORTIONS OF THIS COLLECTION HAVE BEEN DIGITIZED. All requests to access special collections materials must be made in advance
using the request button located on this page.
CONTAINS UNPROCESSED AUDIOVISUAL MATERIALS: Audiovisual materials are not currently available for access and will require
further processing and assessment. If you have questions about this material please email spec-coll@library.ucla.edu.
Immediate Source of Acquisition
Susan Sontag, Susan Sontag Estate; Purchase; 2002, 2005, 2012.
Correspondence between Susan Sontag and Thomas C. Leonard; Gift; 2008.
UCLA Catalog Record ID:
9961804743606533
[Identification of item], Susan Sontag papers (Collection 612). UCLA Library Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research
Library, University of California, Los Angeles.
The Susan Sontag Papers came to UCLA in three installments. The first installment, received in 2002, was processed maintaining
the organization created by Susan Sontag as it was transferred to UCLA. The following was the organization and arrangement
of the first installment:
- Correspondence
- Bosnia-Correspondence
- Gluhic Family
- Joseph Cornell Box
- Manuscripts by Others
- PEN
- Public Appearances
- Town Hall Speech and Political Statements
- Trips and Juries
- Writings by Susan Sontag, subdivided into an alphabetical list by title and subject, essays from the 80s and 90s, unpublished and uncollected.
The second installment, received in 2005, was combined with the first installment, maintaining the organization and arrangement
of the 2002 installment as much as possible. Due to the nature of the second installment materials, though, some changes were
made to the existing organization and arrangement. The following is the first installment's organization and arrangement with
notes next to each series explaining how they were added to and/or changed:
- Correspondence (Material added, nearly doubling the series in size.)
- Bosnia-Correspondence (Material added. See series #3.)
- Gluhic Family (Material added. Combined with series #2. Reorganized into a single new series, Bosnia Involvement, with three subseries.)
- Joseph Cornell Box (Moved into new series, Artwork by Others, with six subseries, to include added art by Cornell and other artists.)
- Manuscripts by Others (Material added.)
- PEN (Material added which called for a complete reorganization of the series. Series renamed PEN Involvement.)
- Public Appearances (Material added. See series #9.)
- Town Hall Speech and Political Statements (Material added, including new political writings and political writings in series #10. Series renamed Political Activity to more generally describe the series' broad range of material.)
- Trips and Juries (Material added. Combined with series #7. Reorganized by year into a single new series, Public Activity.)
- Writings by Susan Sontag, subdivided into an alphabetical list by title and subject, essays from the 80s and 90s, unpublished and uncollected. (Material added, including more material for existing titles and material for new titles and early work. Series renamed Works by Susan Sontag to more accurately represent the range of her work, with five subseries. Political writings were moved to Political Activity series.)
In addition to the above changes, nine new series were created for the second installment of material that did not belong
in the existing series: Juvenalia, School Material, Teaching Material, Journals, Material about Susan Sontag, Subject Clipping
Files, Material Collected by Susan Sontag, Philip Rieff Material, Selected Books from the Library of Susan Sontag.
Finally, the number order of the series was changed from alphabetical order to a mixed order primarily determined by the significance
of the material.
The third installment, received in 2012, was amended to the structure of the previous two. Given the simultaneously supplemental
and diverse nature of the material in the new installment in relation to the previous two, all materials from this installment
are separately maintained within the existing collection. Material corresponding to the established series are separated into
new subseries titled "Accession 2012." Three additional series were created for the third installment material that did not
belong in the existing series: Photographs, Personal Papers, and Digital Materials.
The Digital Materials series represent a topical continuation of the other series in this collection. The UCLA Library Special
Collections received the digital material from the donor's estate on two external hard-drives. These external hard-drives
contained the files from her computers, rather than the computers themselves, so no disk images were made. In 2018, CFPRT
scholars under the supervision of Shira Peltzman embarked on a reprocessing project that focused on born-digital materials
of the Sontag papers. The files processed during that period were amended to the previous structure.
The Judith Cohen papers were received in 2014 and processed into the collection by archivist Lori Dedeyan as an individual
series at the request of curator Genie Guerard, as the materials are primarily comprised of collected material about Susan
Sontag, though some material created by Susan Sontag may also be found in this series.
Processed by Lorain Wang and Catherine Lee in August 2002; 2005 accession processed by Lauren McDaniel, February 2007-April
2008; 2012 accession processed by Mitchell Erzinger, October 2013-March 2014; digital materials processed by Lori Dedeyan
in 2014. Digital materials reprocessed in 2018 and 2019 by Yvonne Eadon, Patricia Ciccone and Cheryl Cordingley in the Center
for Primary Research and Training (CFPRT).
The Judith Cohen papers were received in 2014 and processed into the collection by archivist Lori Dedeyan as an individual
series at the request of curator Genie Guerard, as the materials are primarily comprised of collected materials about Susan
Sontag, though some material created by Susan Sontag may also be found in this series.
Collections are processed to a variety of levels depending on the work necessary to make them usable, their perceived user
interest and research value, availability of staff and resources, and competing priorities. Library Special Collections provides
a standard level of preservation and access for all collections and, when time and resources permit, conducts more intensive
processing. These materials have been arranged and described according to national and local standards and best practices.
We are committed to providing ethical, inclusive, and anti-racist description of the materials we steward, and to remediating
existing description of our materials that contains language
that may be offensive or cause harm. We invite you to submit feedback about how our collections are described, and how they
could be described more accurately, by filling out the form
located on our website:
Report Potentially Offensive Description in Library Special Collections.
Digital system files, software program files, and files containing personally identifiable, medical, or sensitive information
have been restricted in perpetuity pending curatorial review. The locations of these files are included in the file list within
the collection.
Other digital files are restricted until 2044, and will be made public after that date. The locations of these files will
not be included in the file list.
Deleted digital files and unallocated space were also removed from this collection.
Susan Sontag was an American writer, director, and political activist. She was born in New York City on January 16, 1933,
and was raised in Tucson and Los Angeles. In 1949, she graduated from North Hollywood High School and began her undergraduate
work at the University of California, Berkeley. After one term, she transferred to the University of Chicago, where she graduated
in 1951. She married Philip Rieff in 1950. Their son, David Rieff, was born in 1952. In 1957, she received a Master's degree
in philosophy from Harvard (Radcliffe), and studied on a fellowship at St. Anne's College, Oxford, and the University of Paris-Sorbonne
until 1958. She divorced Philip Rieff the same year. In 1959, she discontinued her doctoral work and moved to New York City
with her son. Sontag worked for
Commentary Magazine and held positions as instructor and lecturer at City College of New York, Sarah Lawrence College, and Columbia University
until around 1966. During this time, she began writing film and literature reviews, essays, and stories for publication in
The Partisan Review and other prominent journals. Throughout her life, her short stories and numerous essays on art, literature, politics, and
culture appeared in several publications in the United States and abroad. Most of these works were collected into seven books:
Against Interpretation and Other Essays (1966),
Styles of Radical Will (1969),
I, Etcetera (1978),
Under the Sign of Saturn (1980),
A Susan Sontag Reader (1982),
Where the Stress Falls (2001), and
At the Same Time (2007). Sontag published four novels:
The Benefactor (1963),
Death Kit (1967),
The Volcano Lover (1992) and
In America (2000), which won the National Book Award. Her non-fiction books explored and challenged aspects of modern society:
On Photography (1977), which won the National Book Critics Circle Award,
Illness as Metaphor (1978), inspired by her own experience with breast cancer,
AIDS and Its Metaphors (1989), and
Regarding the Pain of Others (2003), on war photography. Sontag wrote and directed four films:
Duet for Cannibals (1969),
Brother Carl (1971),
Promised Lands (1974) and
Unguided Tour (1983). She directed several plays, including Samuel Beckett's
Waiting for Godot in Sarajevo in 1993; and she wrote several plays including
Alice in Bed (1993) and
Lady from the Sea (1999), productions of which have been staged across the United States and internationally. As a human rights activist she
traveled to Cuba, China, Vietnam, and Bosnia. She also served as president of the PEN American Center from 1987-1989. Her
works have been translated into over thirty languages. She received honors and awards throughout her life, including the Jerusalem
Prize (2001) and the Friedenspreis (2003) for her body of work. She died of cancer on December 28, 2004, and is buried in
Montparnasse Cemetery in Paris.
The Susan Sontag papers range from ca. 1933-2005. The papers include the following: personal and professional correspondence;
childhood drawings; schoolwork; teaching material; journals; notes, research, manuscripts, and other material related to her
writing, theatre, and film projects; ephemera and correspondence related to her wide range of public appearances and institutional
involvement; reviews, interviews, biography, and publicity material; material related to her political activism (including
her work in Bosnia and with PEN); her subject clipping files; correspondence, research and manuscript material of her former
husband, Philip Rieff; artwork and manuscripts by others; personal materials and photographs; highlights from her library;
photographs; and personal files including calendars, financials, and notes.
The digital materials include drafts for published and unpublished works, contact lists, lists of her favorite words, books,
restaurants and more, and email correspondence regarding travel plans and world events.
Arranged in the following series:
- Series 1: Correspondence, 1942-2004
- Series 2: Juvenalia, ca. 1939
- Series 3: School Material, 1949-1951
- Series 4: Teaching Material, ca. 1960-2000
- Series 5: Journals, 1948-1950, 1954-2003
- Series 6: Works by Susan Sontag, 1945-2004
- Series 7: Public Activity, 1962-2004
- Series 8: Political Activity, 1964-2003
- Series 9: Bosnia Involvement, 1979-2002
- Series 10: PEN Involvement, 1964-2003
- Series 11: Material about Susan Sontag, ca. 1960-2004
- Series 12: Subject Clipping Files, no date
- Series 13: Material Collected by Susan Sontag, 1960-2004
- Series 14: Philip Rieff Material, ca. 1950-1995
- Series 15: Manuscripts by Others, 1963-2004
- Series 16: Artwork by Others, 1965-1985
- Series 17: Selected Books from the Library of Susan Sontag, 1783-2001
- Series 18: Photographs, 1933-2004
- Series 19: Personal Papers, 1951-2003
- Series 20: Digital Materials, 1992-2005
- Series 21: Judith Cohen papers, circa 1907-2009
Books from the library of Susan Sontag (Collection 892). Available at UCLA Library Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research
Library, UCLA.
SON Susan Sontag Library (Special Collections note searchable in the UCLA Library catalog to find records of a selection of
books from Susan Sontag's library, primarily works by Sontag in their various translations)
Lee Poague.
Susan Sontag: an Annotated Bibliography, 1948-1992 (New York: Garland, 2000). Circulating copy held by UCLA Young Research Library; non-circulating, research copy held by UCLA
Library Special Collections.
Philip Rieff papers (Manuscript Collection 1006). University of Pennsylvania: Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare
Books and Manuscripts.
Portions of this collection have been digitized and are available online:
Susan Sontag Papers (2 items) .
Subjects and Indexing Terms
Women intellectuals -- United States -- Archives.
Human rights -- Bosnia and Herzegovina
PEN America
Women authors, American -- Archives.
Sontag, Susan, 1933-2004 --Archives.
- Collection Overview
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Collection Details
- Conditions Governing Access
- Conditions Governing Use
- Physical Characteristics and Technical Requirements
- Immediate Source of Acquisition
- UCLA Catalog Record ID
- Preferred Citation
- Processing Information
- Appraisal
- Biographical / Historical
- Scope and Contents
- Arrangement
- Related Material
- Online Items Available