The Utopian Sensibility Of In America

Susan Sontag is a famous modern American writer,critic,she was once known as "the conscience of the American public",she proposed the theory of "new sensibility",which is different from "old sensibility",which in order to realize the rethinking of contemporary culture.Sontag's last novel In America was published in 2000,won the National Book Award,the Jerusalem International Literary Award and many other awards.This article will combine "new sensibility" with Sontag's political doctrines to explore the ideal of governance in the text of In America.The first chapter is an overview of Sontag's criticism and creations.Sontag's aesthetic thought is not brought out of society,but in the social context,is the combination of aesthetic ideal and political ideal.In America uses "utopia" as cutoff point,which shows Sontag's thinking on political issues.The political thought of Sontag shows in a series of papers published in her comments,which "trip to Hanoi" is the most concentrated,in this paper Sontag proposed "sexual society" model of governance,which led "new sensibility" into political dimension.In the second chapter first clarifies the utopian political significance,In America uses Fourier's utopia as a representative model of modern utopia,Sontag through the description of the hero established the utopian community failure,expression of transcendence of modern utopia,Sontag also found the similarities and differences between Fourier's "passional attraction" and "new sensibility".The third chapter makes a concrete analysis the utopian ideal of In America,including organization form of utopia,aim at the lack of political dimension in Fourier's utopia,Sontag introduced political elements in this novel.Utopian sensibility is aesthetic overtakes the moral,and Sontag also advocate a sexual society--the release or activation of individual energy.In the last section,the author explored how the formal strategy expresses utopian sensibility.