A Brief Autobiography of Camille Paglia, as Told Through Introductory Appositive Phrases From Her Online Column

All the phrases below are real, and appeared in Camille Paglia’s regular column on Salon.com.

- - -

“As a native of the snow belt of upstate New York, I…”

“As the product of an immigrant family (my mother and all four grandparents were born in Italy), I…”

“As someone only one generation (on my mother’s side) and two generations (on my father’s side) removed from the Italian countryside, I…”

“As an archaeology fan from childhood, I…”

“As someone whose childhood idol was Amelia Earhart, I…”

“As a scruffy tomboy, I…”

“As a tomboy whose Amazonian craze was always for swords and spears, I…”

“As a refugee from Roman Catholic “Religious Ed.” (which we public-school students were sent off to once a week), I…"

“As a lapsed Catholic who grew up under the gigantic bat-wings of the Legion of Decency (America’s anti-Hollywood Inquisition), I…”

“As a student in the 1960s, I…”

“As a 1960s pop Warholite and rock fan, I…”

“As a pop Warholite and pornographic apostle of the 1960s sexual revolution, I…”

“As a faithful Warholite since college, I…”

“As a fan of Erving Goffman from my college days, I…”

“As a grad student then systematically searching the university libraries for changing definitions of male and female in world history, I…”

“As a pop acolyte of Marshall McLuhan and Andy Warhol, I…”

“As a ’60s zealot of the mystic sciences (astrology, palmistry, I Ching, Tarot, et al.), I…”

“As a teacher, I…”

“As a teacher still animated by 1960s ideals, I…”

“As a proponent of Egyptian and Greco-Roman studies, I…”

“As a scholar of sexual history and culture, I…”

“As an arts educator, I…”

“As a feminist and career teacher, I…”

“As an equity feminist, I…”

“As a reform feminist, I…”

“As a dissident feminist and football fanatic, I…”

“As an equity feminist, as well as an open lesbian, I…”

“As a lesbian, I…”

“As an open lesbian, I…”

“As an open lesbian, first of all, I…”

“As a lesbian with a male brain, I…”

“As an Amazon feminist, I…”

“As an Amazon feminist, inspired by masculine achievements, I…”

“As an Amazon with the brain of a pre-Stonewall gay man, I…”

“As a pugnacious Amazon, I…”

“As a superstitious Italian, I…”

“As a libertarian, I…”

“As a strict libertarian, I…”

“As a capitalist libertarian, I…”

“As a civil libertarian, I…”

“As a vigilant civil libertarian, I…”

“As a libertarian Democrat, I…”

“As a libertarian Democrat who cast my primary ballot for Bill Bradley, I…”

“As a longtime supporter of Geraldine Ferraro, I…”

“As a Democrat who voted for Jesse Jackson in the 1988 presidential primary, I…”

“As someone who voted for Jesse Jackson in the 1988 Democratic primary (yes, I know he’s morphed into a pampered Vernon Jordan-style socialite and stagey race-baiter), I…”

“As a Clinton Democrat, I…”

“As someone who voted for Clinton twice — and would vote for him a third time because I support most of his policies — I…”

“As a now-disillusioned early admirer of the Clintons, I…”

“As an ex-Catholic (like Hitchcock) and as an admirer of canonical Western art (like Hitchcock), I…”

“As a lapsed Catholic and professed atheist, I…”

“As an atheist, I…”

“As a disciple of Oscar Wilde, I…”

“As a disciple of the Cambridge School of Anthropology (Sir James George Frazer, Jane Harrison, et al.), I…”

“As a worshipper of Sweden’s national treasure, Ingmar Bergman, I…”

“As a supporter of capital punishment, I…”

“As an advocate of capital punishment, I…”

“As a longtime proponent of capital punishment, I…”

“As a free speech advocate, I…”

“As a militant free-speech advocate, I…”

“As a culture warrior, I…”

“As a biology-minded social analyst, I…”

“As a devotee of Glennda Orgasm (Glenn Belverio’s immortal drag alter ego), I…”

“As a Hellenophile, I…”

“As a theorist of sex, I…”

“As a notoriously gender-dysfunctional, mental teenager myself, I…”

“As a teacher who’s been marking papers for 26 years, I…”

“As a teacher for 27 years, I…”

“As someone who has devoted her career (at great cost) to arts education, I…”

“As a football fan, I…”

“As a committed television enthusiast, I…”

“As a television watcher, I…”

“As a resident of one of the southeastern Pennsylvania counties declared a disaster zone last week by the federal government, I…”

- - -

BONUS:

A DEMOGRAPHIC ANALYSIS OF

CAMILLE PAGLIA’S READERSHIP,

AS TOLD THROUGH INTRODUCTORY

APPOSITIVE PHRASES IN THEIR

LETTERS TO HER ON SALON.COM.





“As a young journalist, I…”

“As a student of American politics, I…”

“As a retired veteran New York City police officer with over 20 years in the streets, I…”

“As an owner of three ‘assault’ weapons, I…”

“As a clinical psychologist, I…”

“As the product of a mother from a fairly traditional Lebanese-American family and a father of skinny hard-drinking Scots-Irish farmers and lawyers (all from Meridian, Miss. … think about that!), I…”

“As someone who really hopes the Green Party will get off the ground in the United States (and who plans to vote for Nader if he happens to appear on my state ballot), I..”.

“As a New Yorker in self-imposed exile, I…”

“As a gay male who would like to become a good thinker, I…”

“As a junior wonkette and history buff, I…”

“As an Englishman last year resident in Canada, I…”

“As a tubby Midwesterner, I…”

- - -

CORRECTION: The phrase “As a tubby Midwesterner, I…” was mistakenly attributed to Paglia, rather than to one of her readers, when this piece originally ran. McSweeney’s regrets the error.