
Under the Sign of Saturn
Essays
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
$0.99/mo for the first 3 months

Buy for $15.56
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Tavia Gilbert
-
By:
-
Susan Sontag
About this listen
Sontag's most important critical writings from 1972 to 1980 are collected in Under the Sign of Saturn. One of America's leading essayists, Sontag's writings are commentaries on the relation between moral and aesthetic ideas, discussing the works of Antonin Artaud, Leni Riefenstahl, Elias Canetti, Walter Benjamin, and others. The collection includes a variety of her well-known essays.
In "Fascinating Fascism", Sontag eviscerates Leni Riefenstahl's attempts to rehabilitate her image after working for Adolf Hitler on propaganda films during World War II. "Approaching Artaud" reflects on the work and influence of French actor, director, and writer Antonin Artaud. The title essay is a study of the life and temperament of Walter Benjamin, who Sontag describes as a sad and lonesome man. The book also includes the essays "On Paul Goodman", "Syberberg's Hitler", "Remembering Barthes", and "Mind as Passion".
Susan Sontag's writings are famously full of intellectual range and depth, and are at turns exhilarating, ominous, disturbing, and beautiful. Under the Sign of Saturn manages to touch on all of these notes and more.
©2013 Blackstone Audio, Inc. (P)2018 Blackstone Audio, Inc.Listeners also enjoyed...
-
Against Interpretation and Other Essays
- By: Susan Sontag
- Narrated by: Tavia Gilbert
- Length: 12 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Originally published in 1966, Susan Sontag's first collection of essays is a modern classic and includes the famous essays "Notes on Camp" and "Against Interpretation", as well as, her impassioned discussions of Sartre, Camus, Simone Weil, Godard, Beckett, Levi-Strauss, science-fiction movies, psychoanalysis, and contemporary religious thought.
-
-
Against interpretation, like, literally.
- By Dulce Mattos on 08-14-19
By: Susan Sontag
-
Regarding the Pain of Others
- By: Susan Sontag
- Narrated by: Jennifer Van Dyck
- Length: 2 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
How does the spectacle of the sufferings of others affect us? Are viewers inured - or incited - to violence by the depiction of cruelty? Susan Sontag here takes a fresh look at the representation of atrocity - from Goya's The Disasters of War to photographs of the American Civil War, lynchings of Blacks in the South, and the Nazi death camps, and to more contemporary horrific images of Bosnia, Sierra Leone, Rwanda, Israel, and Palestine, as well as New York City on September 11, 2001.
-
-
Terrible recording
- By Vandra on 02-16-12
By: Susan Sontag
-
Illness as Metaphor and AIDS and Its Metaphors
- By: Susan Sontag
- Narrated by: Tavia Gilbert
- Length: 4 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1978 Susan Sontag wrote Illness as Metaphor, a classic work described by Newsweek as “one of the most liberating books of its time”. A cancer patient herself when she was writing the book, Sontag shows how the metaphors and myths surrounding certain illnesses, especially cancer, add greatly to the suffering of patients and often inhibit them from seeking proper treatment.
-
-
fantastic
- By andrew on 09-07-18
By: Susan Sontag
-
On Photography
- By: Susan Sontag
- Narrated by: Jennifer Van Dyck
- Length: 6 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
First published in 1973, this is a study of the force of photographic images, which are continually inserted between experience and reality. When anything can be photographed, and photography has destroyed the boundaries and definitions of art, a viewer can approach a photograph freely, with no expectations of discovering what it means. This collection of six lucid and invigorating essays, with the most famous being "In Plato's Cave", make up a deep exploration of how the image has affected society.
-
-
I'm Glad I Bought, Despite Some Negative Reviews
- By DEF on 10-18-13
By: Susan Sontag
-
Illuminations
- Essays and Reflections
- By: Walter Benjamin, Hannah Arendt
- Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki
- Length: 10 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Walter Benjamin was an icon of criticism, renowned for his insight on art, literature, and philosophy. This volume includes his views on Kafka, with whom he felt a close personal affinity; his studies on Baudelaire and Proust; and his essays on Leskov and Brecht’s epic theater. Illuminations also includes his penetrating study “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction”, an enlightening discussion of translation as a literary mode, and his theses on the philosophy of history.
-
-
finally
- By Anonymous User on 12-08-21
By: Walter Benjamin, and others
-
Reborn
- Journals and Notebooks, 1947-1963
- By: Susan Sontag
- Narrated by: Jennifer Van Dyck
- Length: 8 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
"I intend to do everything...I shall anticipate pleasure everywhere and find it too, for it is everywhere! I shall involve myself wholly...everything matters!" This first selection from Susan Sontag's diaries (from 1947-1963) takes us from early adolescence through to when Sontag was in her early 30s. It is an astonishingly affecting and honest self-portrait which is also a fascinating, revealing account of an artist and critic being born. We see Sontag honing her skills and fashioning herself, by a supreme act of will, into an intellectual force.
-
-
Performed well. But...
- By S. BAKER on 05-17-15
By: Susan Sontag
-
Against Interpretation and Other Essays
- By: Susan Sontag
- Narrated by: Tavia Gilbert
- Length: 12 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Originally published in 1966, Susan Sontag's first collection of essays is a modern classic and includes the famous essays "Notes on Camp" and "Against Interpretation", as well as, her impassioned discussions of Sartre, Camus, Simone Weil, Godard, Beckett, Levi-Strauss, science-fiction movies, psychoanalysis, and contemporary religious thought.
-
-
Against interpretation, like, literally.
- By Dulce Mattos on 08-14-19
By: Susan Sontag
-
Regarding the Pain of Others
- By: Susan Sontag
- Narrated by: Jennifer Van Dyck
- Length: 2 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
How does the spectacle of the sufferings of others affect us? Are viewers inured - or incited - to violence by the depiction of cruelty? Susan Sontag here takes a fresh look at the representation of atrocity - from Goya's The Disasters of War to photographs of the American Civil War, lynchings of Blacks in the South, and the Nazi death camps, and to more contemporary horrific images of Bosnia, Sierra Leone, Rwanda, Israel, and Palestine, as well as New York City on September 11, 2001.
-
-
Terrible recording
- By Vandra on 02-16-12
By: Susan Sontag
-
Illness as Metaphor and AIDS and Its Metaphors
- By: Susan Sontag
- Narrated by: Tavia Gilbert
- Length: 4 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1978 Susan Sontag wrote Illness as Metaphor, a classic work described by Newsweek as “one of the most liberating books of its time”. A cancer patient herself when she was writing the book, Sontag shows how the metaphors and myths surrounding certain illnesses, especially cancer, add greatly to the suffering of patients and often inhibit them from seeking proper treatment.
-
-
fantastic
- By andrew on 09-07-18
By: Susan Sontag
-
On Photography
- By: Susan Sontag
- Narrated by: Jennifer Van Dyck
- Length: 6 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
First published in 1973, this is a study of the force of photographic images, which are continually inserted between experience and reality. When anything can be photographed, and photography has destroyed the boundaries and definitions of art, a viewer can approach a photograph freely, with no expectations of discovering what it means. This collection of six lucid and invigorating essays, with the most famous being "In Plato's Cave", make up a deep exploration of how the image has affected society.
-
-
I'm Glad I Bought, Despite Some Negative Reviews
- By DEF on 10-18-13
By: Susan Sontag
-
Illuminations
- Essays and Reflections
- By: Walter Benjamin, Hannah Arendt
- Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki
- Length: 10 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Walter Benjamin was an icon of criticism, renowned for his insight on art, literature, and philosophy. This volume includes his views on Kafka, with whom he felt a close personal affinity; his studies on Baudelaire and Proust; and his essays on Leskov and Brecht’s epic theater. Illuminations also includes his penetrating study “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction”, an enlightening discussion of translation as a literary mode, and his theses on the philosophy of history.
-
-
finally
- By Anonymous User on 12-08-21
By: Walter Benjamin, and others
-
Reborn
- Journals and Notebooks, 1947-1963
- By: Susan Sontag
- Narrated by: Jennifer Van Dyck
- Length: 8 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
"I intend to do everything...I shall anticipate pleasure everywhere and find it too, for it is everywhere! I shall involve myself wholly...everything matters!" This first selection from Susan Sontag's diaries (from 1947-1963) takes us from early adolescence through to when Sontag was in her early 30s. It is an astonishingly affecting and honest self-portrait which is also a fascinating, revealing account of an artist and critic being born. We see Sontag honing her skills and fashioning herself, by a supreme act of will, into an intellectual force.
-
-
Performed well. But...
- By S. BAKER on 05-17-15
By: Susan Sontag
-
As Consciousness Is Harnessed to Flesh
- Journals and Notebooks, 1964-1980
- By: Susan Sontag
- Narrated by: Jennifer Van Dyck
- Length: 13 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This, the second of three volumes of Susan Sontag’s journals and notebooks, begins where the first volume left off, in the middle of the 1960s. It traces and documents Sontag’s evolution from fledgling participant in the artistic and intellectual world of New York City to world-renowned critic and dominant force in the world of ideas with the publication of the groundbreaking Against Interpretation in 1966.
By: Susan Sontag
-
Mythologies
- The Complete Edition, in a New Translation
- By: Roland Barthes, Annette Lavers - translator, Richard Howard - translator
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 9 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Roland Barthes's groundbreaking Mythologies first appeared in English in 1972, it was immediately recognized as one of the most significant works in French theory - yet nearly half of the essays from the original work were missing. This new edition of Mythologies is the first complete, authoritative English version of the French classic. It includes the brilliant "Astrology", never published in English before.
-
-
Fun and engaging
- By Chris Hall on 01-08-19
By: Roland Barthes, and others
-
Reflections
- Essays, Aphorisms, Autobiographical Writings
- By: Walter Benjamin
- Narrated by: Peter Demetz, Stefan Rudnicki
- Length: 15 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A companion volume to Illuminations, the first collection of Walter Benjamin’s writings, Reflections presents a further sampling of his wide-ranging work. Here Benjamin evolves a theory of language as the medium of all creation, discusses theater and surrealism, reminisces about Berlin in the 1920s, recalls conversations with Bertolt Brecht, and provides travelogues of various cities, including Moscow under Stalin.
-
-
W. B. Writes beautiful long sentences. yea!
- By Amazon Customer on 11-24-22
By: Walter Benjamin
-
Phenomenology of Spirit
- By: G. W. F. Hegel, A. V. Miller - translator, J. N. Findlay
- Narrated by: David DeVries
- Length: 29 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Perhaps one of the most revolutionary works of philosophy ever presented, The Phenomenology of Spirit is Hegel's 1807 work that is in numerous ways extraordinary. A myriad of topics are discussed, and explained in such a harmoniously complex way that the method has been termed Hegelian dialectic. Ultimately, the work as a whole is a remarkable study of the mind's growth from its direct awareness to scientific philosophy, proving to be a difficult yet highly influential and enduring work.
-
-
My favorite audible book of the 700 I've rated
- By Gary on 01-02-16
By: G. W. F. Hegel, and others
-
The Art of Cruelty
- A Reckoning
- By: Maggie Nelson
- Narrated by: Tavia Gilbert
- Length: 8 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Today both reality and entertainment crowd our fields of vision with brutal imagery. The pervasiveness of images of torture, horror, and war has all but demolished the 20th-century hope that such imagery might shock us into a less alienated state, or aid in the creation of a just social order. What to do now? When to look, when to turn away? Genre-busting author Maggie Nelson brilliantly navigates this contemporary predicament, with an eye to the question of whether or not focusing on representations of cruelty makes us cruel.
-
-
Wonderful book, mediocre narration
- By Melina on 11-14-17
By: Maggie Nelson
-
Sontag
- Her Life and Work
- By: Benjamin Moser
- Narrated by: Tavia Gilbert
- Length: 22 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
No writer is as emblematic of the American 20th century as Susan Sontag. Mythologized and misunderstood, lauded and loathed, a girl from the suburbs who became a proud symbol of cosmopolitanism, Sontag left a legacy of writing on art and politics, feminism and homosexuality, celebrity and style, medicine and drugs, radicalism and Fascism and Freudianism and Communism and Americanism, that forms an indispensable key to modern culture.
-
-
Cloying voice
- By Suzanne on 11-02-19
By: Benjamin Moser
-
Teaching to Transgress
- Education as the Practice of Freedom
- By: bell hooks
- Narrated by: Robin Miles
- Length: 7 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Teaching to Transgress, Bell Hooks - writer, teacher, and insurgent black intellectual - writes about a new kind of education, education as the practice of freedom. Teaching students to "transgress" against racial, sexual, and class boundaries in order to achieve the gift of freedom is, for Hooks, the teacher's most important goal. Bell Hooks speakes to the heart of education today: how can we rethink teaching practices in the age of multiculturalism? What do we do about teachers who do not want to teach, and students who do not want to learn? How should we deal with racism and sexism in the classroom? Full of passion and politics, Teaching to Transgress combines a practical knowledge of the classroom with a deeply felt connection to the world of emotions and feelings. This is the rare book about teachers and students that dares to raise questions about eros and rage, grief and reconciliation, and the future of teaching itself.
-
-
Useful but not earthshaking
- By Lana Whited on 11-20-18
By: bell hooks
-
Blue Nights
- A Memoir
- By: Joan Didion
- Narrated by: Kimberly Farr
- Length: 4 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From one of our most powerful writers, a work of stunning frankness about losing a daughter. Richly textured with bits of her own childhood and married life with her husband, John Gregory Dunne, and daughter, Quintana Roo, this new book by Joan Didion examines her thoughts, fears, and doubts regarding having children, illness, and growing old.
-
-
Twilights turn Long and Blue
- By Darwin8u on 01-02-17
By: Joan Didion
-
Bullshit Jobs
- A Theory
- By: David Graeber
- Narrated by: Christopher Ragland
- Length: 12 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Does your job make a meaningful contribution to the world? In the spring of 2013, David Graeber asked this question in a playful, provocative essay titled “On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs”. It went viral. After a million online views in 17 different languages, people all over the world are still debating the answer.
-
-
Incredibly disappointing...
- By Jordan Burton on 12-21-18
By: David Graeber
-
Ideas
- By: Edmund Husserl
- Narrated by: Leighton Pugh
- Length: 16 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
As philosophy professor Taylor Carman explains in his helpful introduction, Edmund Husserl (1859-1938) was the founder of modern phenomenology, one of the most important and influential movements of the 20th century. Ideas, published in 1913 – its full title is Ideas for a Pure Phenomenology and Phenomenological Philosophy – was the key work. It is arguably ‘the most fundamental and comprehensive statement of the fundamental principles of Husserl’s mature philosophy’.
-
-
Husserl WILL Change How You Think About Philosophy
- By POL-PHL-ECO on 05-12-20
By: Edmund Husserl
-
Orientalism
- By: Edward Said
- Narrated by: Peter Ganim
- Length: 19 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This landmark book, first published in 1978, remains one of the most influential books in the Social Sciences, particularly Ethnic Studies and Postcolonialism. Said is best known for describing and critiquing "Orientalism", which he perceived as a constellation of false assumptions underlying Western attitudes toward the East. In Orientalism Said claimed a "subtle and persistent Eurocentric prejudice against Arabo-Islamic peoples and their culture."
-
-
We're lucky to have this on audio
- By Delano on 02-27-13
By: Edward Said
-
Labyrinths
- Selected Stories & Other Writings
- By: Jorge Luis Borges
- Narrated by: Dominic Keating
- Length: 10 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The groundbreaking trans-genre work of Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986) has been insinuating itself into the structure, stance, and very breath of world literature for well over half a century. Multi-layered, self-referential, elusive, and allusive writing is now frequently labelled Borgesian.
-
-
Look, this is Borges
- By Lars Spuybroek on 05-27-20
What listeners say about Under the Sign of Saturn
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Jaded Buddha
- 03-29-18
Great essays and a great reading performance
I love some of the essays in this book and the reader does an outstanding job. Overall a great audiobook experience.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- xiangyang zhao
- 02-26-22
A book takes my breath away and exited my emotions
What a powerful mind ! Opinionated, incisive and likely right.
Her comment on Leni’s triumph is so… “ the leader make the crowd come” the word is true
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Maureen Holloway
- 10-08-22
Audiobook version filled with mistakes
This is not a review of the text, but of the reading. At several points, the narrator reads an entirely different word from what the text says, often giving a completely different meaning, usually a nonsensical one.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!