Special Issue of Aphra Behn Online: 18th-Century Camp!
Special Issue Overview & CFP
Ula Lukszo Klein, Texas A&M International University, and Emily Kugler, Howard University
In Susan Sontag’s now-classic essay, “Notes on ‘Camp,’” Sontag argues for a critical dimension of the term “camp.” Camp, for Sontag, is “one way of seeing the world as an aesthetic phenomenon.” For her, Camp emphasizes a blend of the silly and the extravagant, making the serious and the ridiculous equal to one another. She cites the beginnings of the Enlightenment period as an important moment for the establishment of this sensibility: