Some people worship operatic divas or movie stars, but for Craig Seligman, it's the female critics that leave him weak-kneed. Two specific female critics, actually: Susan Sontag and Pauline Kael. Although Seligman gracefully sketches the similarities between the women (both Jewish single moms raised in the West who took on pop culture), he also concocts a kind of imaginary catfight in his head. They reigned as two of the most prominent and influential intellectuals of the late 20th century while keeping their distance. Yet Seligman contrasts the two as a way of working through his ambivalent feelings about the women, their work, and the art of... More >>>