Australian Left Review

Article Title

Profile: Camille Paglia

Authors

Catharine Lumby

Abstract

She's the out of control ego at the back of the classroom; the budding student politician who's always bending your ear in the university bar; the loudmouth video clip director sitting next to you on an international flight; the friend who critiques the movie while you're watching it.

If she was a noise, she’d be an electric sander in the apartment next door, relentless, high-pitched and impossible to ignore. As it is, she compares herself favourably to both Simone de Beauvoir and Madonna. For the past two years, Camille Paglia, Professor of Humanities at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia and controversial author, has been making a living irritating the hell out of practically any ideology which wanders into her sights.