This research has implications for political science, but is grounded in disciplines like biology, psychology, or evolutionary theory, and their intersections. The assumption is that the workings of different biological systems, coded in our genes, lead to certain cognitive or processing biases, which then inform our stance on issues of the day, explained John Hibbings, a political science professor at University of Pittsburgh. Politics, the researchers argued in line with the title of the talk, is in fact in our genes. At the same time, the presenters emphasized that genetics is not determinism, and that environment is crucial in determining the actual outcome of a person’s genetic makeup. One may ask then: why, if nurture has the last say, do we need to study biology at all to understand political behaviour?
For a while now, it has been a trend in the social sciences and humanities to shore up research by pointing to natural sciences or economics. Doing so seems to be a way for these disciplines to gain a legitimacy they appear to have increasing difficulty obtaining on their own. In a world that values quick and easily quantifiable results, it is not surprising that “mathandscience” (as Earl Shorris puts it in an article on the demise of the humanities in Harper’s magazine) gets all the attention and the money. Not only is there a clear profit to be made from something like engineering, but in addition, “science” has also since the Enlightenment been shorthand for objective truth, an unbiased account of the state of things as they really are. Claiming that one’s social science research is grounded in biology, therefore, could give a researcher an edge in competing for funding and publishing: their findings seem closer to objective truth than, say, the mostly thought-based work of a political theorist.

This way of acquiring legitimacy is a dangerous path to take. One of the most important tenets of the social sciences, and especially the humanities, is that there is no objective truth. How you frame the question of study, what method you use – there are always subjective choices to make, and they naturally affect your results. This is also true in the purportedly objective natural sciences. Using natural science to bolster social science research is a shortcut that undermines much of the work that has previously been done in the same discipline; at the same time, it makes it even more difficult for the social sciences to gain merit on their own terms. Interdisciplinarity is great and should be more common, but not when it’s at the expense of one of the disciplines involved. Sadly, this trend seems to be the rule when natural sciences and social sciences are combined, probably because of the aforementioned air of objective truth that the former still has: by virtue of it, the natural sciences are allowed to overrule everything else.

The panel discussion during the symposium evidenced this devaluation of the humanities. It included one economist, one professor of medicine, and one journalist, as well as the presenters – but not a single theorist. Had, say, a philosopher or a historian partaken, perhaps the problem of presenting social research findings as biological facts would have been discussed in more depth. As it was, the symposium not only failed to examine this question properly, but did not even manage to explain why this type of research is useful in the first place, especially since, as was conceded, genetics is not determinism.

There are too many benefits of the social sciences to cite them all here. But one important aspect of these disciplines, related to the matter immediately at hand, is their preoccupation with critical thinking. Not only is the questioning of dominant ideas and understandings necessary for the existence of free minds (to the extent that that is at all possible), but skepticism is also a prerequisite for the advancement of new knowledge. The fact that social sciences are increasingly delegitimized is a disturbing tendency, and the disciplines themselves should not aid the trend by contributing to their own marginalization.

Kira Josefsson is a U2 Honours Cultural Studies and Political Theory student. She’s also a Daily staffer. Write her at kira.josefsson@mail.mcgill.ca.

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One can understand why the man was upset – the exhibit certainly has the capacity to provoke strong emotions. “1,5-1,5” consists of individual photographs of a group of cognitively lucid but severely physically disabled adults, posing daringly on their beds, half-naked. The work of Diane Arbus comes to mind: her photographs of what she called “her freaks” – transvestites, strikingly short or tall people, cognitively disabled adults, blind children – have been criticized for presenting her subjects as spectacles for others to gape over. However, where Arbus used the camera as a shield to make herself invisible, Jivraj is interested in how he is implicated in the photograph, and in the way it shows his relationship to his subjects.

In discussing the controversy surrounding his work, Jivraj points to the fact that photography in general is never neutral. “Just the structure of portraits is exploitative; taking pictures of another person is exploitative, for whatever reason. It’s impossible to get a photograph to be sincere.”

However, Jivraj is still aware that his subject matter can be more problematic than most portraiture. He says that his first work was terrible for this reason. As an undergraduate student of photography at Concordia, he got in touch with a day centre for disabled adults through a friend who worked there, with the intention of doing some kind of photographic documentary work. At first, Jivraj was hampered by his discomfort with bodies that were different than his own. “The photographs showed things like the back of their wheelchairs, computer screens – I couldn’t even acknowledge their faces. I mean, it’s scary if you’re not used to it, I get that. That’s why the guy left angry; he was not used to seeing these things.”

Jivraj realized that he first needed to get to know the people he photographed – something that took a lot of time – and thus implicate himself in the pictures. He continued to work as a caregiver at the centre, developing a friendship with his models, and since that first failed attempt, his work with the group has morphed into a collaborative effort between photographer and subjects, through his career as a master’s student and then as a professional photographer. Jivraj is careful to explain that he does not see himself as a spokesperson for disabled people. Rather, these people are his friends. “What I’m interested in is my friendships, and the possible pitfalls of the artist’s relationship to his models. There is no denying that these persons are disabled, but how do I get past it? Can I get past it? How do I get as close to that line as possible?”

He also says something that should be obvious to the viewer who, thanks to the exhibition text, knows that the persons in the pictures are fully mentally capable: his subjects know what their bodies look like, they know what it means when a photograph is taken of them, and they want to do this. They wanted to take off their clothes. Giota, one of the women featured, says that she feels like a woman in “the magazines,” and Jivraj compares the shots to a retake on the classic nude, an age-old format of art. The only difference is that in his version, the nudes have disabled bodies.

Assuming a portrait is exploitative simply because its subject does not look like your average person removes the privilege of subjecthood from them. It implies that those photographed do not understand what they look like or what a photograph is – a condescending sentiment, which further reaffirms the idea that function of body is correlative to function of mind, and that disabled people need to be spoken for. In the 21st century, we ought to have come further.

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Without oil, the world would effectively stop functioning and chaos would ensue; most people agree on this much. However, the peak oil theory is not endorsed by all (although the loudest voices rejecting it completely are major oil companies whose livelihood depends on the continued belief in the sustainability of a petroleum-based society), and even among the supporters, not everyone believes that the turning point is as close as Ruppert and his colleagues claim. Even more controversially, Ruppert says that most of the world’s governments are aware of peak oil and its urgency and are keeping their populations ignorant – either because they want to stave off panic, or because they have too much to profit from the status quo.

It is difficult to assess with certainty the veracity of Ruppert’s predictions, in part due to the denialist or apathetic approaches most commentators take to the issue. Either we are told that global warming is a sham, that the recession is over and that things are going back to normal – no need to worry, keep driving your SUV with an Evian in hand – or, perhaps more commonly, media solicits attention through alarmist but insubstantive reporting on melting ice caps and housing foreclosures, without getting to the root of the problem which binds these events together. Mainstream media’s alleged concerns over the precarious state of the world don’t really take us anywhere, as evidenced by the miserable failure of the Copenhagen talks, despite scores of media attention. Sure, we are aware that something is happening, but it seems as though the status quo is bad, but tenable; the problem, if it exists, becomes trivialized and it looks as though we could go on living like this forever. Is there anyone who gains from this sensationalist but impotent reporting? Not to sound conspiratorial or anything, but it does seem like the only clear effect of mainstream greenwashing is that more newspapers get sold.

Ruppert may seem like a doomster, but his stance is not motivated by profit. And if we really do think that the environmental and financial crises are worrying, perhaps we should start listening to people like him when they tell us to connect the dots, pointing toward rapidly decreasing oil reserves. Perhaps, as they advocate, radical action must be taken. At least they don’t try to convince us that consumption, whether it is buying a reusable coffee mug or an environmentally friendly car, will save the world.  

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Inter-university charrettes have taken place every fall since 1995 in Montreal. Each year, over the course of a couple of days of intense effort, teams of students – usually of design, architecture, or urban planning – work to find solutions to one specific problem related to the city. By encouraging community participation through ads and a public exhibition, the organizers of the charrette hope to create a dialogue that can inspire city inhabitants to refashion their space to suit their needs.

These are lofty aims, yes. But at the same time, the problems that the charrettes tackle are very real; they are issues that may not be taken on because of the lack of short-term financial incentives, but that must nonetheless be solved.

An illuminating example is this year’s project, titled “Nourishing the City.”

“We’re on the verge of a global food crisis,” says Nik Luka, a professor at McGill’s School of Architecture and the head coordinator of this year’s charrette. Further, he notes that food production is not a part of society’s idea of the city, saying that our current practice of importing our food from the four corners of the earth is one that we must realize is unsustainable. Like every industry, food production becomes more lucrative when it’s centralized and large enough to reach economies of scale. But this is an untenable situation, and one that puts great strain on the environment, and making healthy whole foods unnecessarily expensive. The Canadian Centre for Architecture’s Charrette advocates that food production be closer to home, and asks its participants to think about solutions that may enable this, and thus improve food security.

While submissions to the charrette have often included plans for projects that are too large to be pragmatic, the main point of the event is to inspire and raise awareness among stakeholders in the issues discussed. Nevertheless, Luka says that this year, the charrette may lead to more direct implementation of ideas, a benefit of larger networks and closer collaboration with the community. The CCA and the universities are working together with the Centre d’écologie urbaine de Montréal and Nourrir Montréal, two community groups that have a prolonged relationships with the Parc Extension area, this year’s intervention site. Though not wealthy, the neighbourhood has a vibrant community, largely due to its status as a gateway community, and is home to many immigrants, who are active in seeking new networks.

“Public life becomes more important when private housing isn’t great,” explains Luka. Additionally, the neighbourhood is one of those increasingly rare places that has not yet been subjected to gentrification, and this is another challenge for the charrette teams: improving the quality of life without new development on every street corner.

Emily Reinhart, a U2 Architecture student who will participate in the charrette as a part of her studio class, thinks the project is a great opportunity to try out a design competition, which will be an important part of her career as an architect. Social concerns are often said not to get any room in the commercial world, but Reinhart thinks she will find a way to integrate them into her future work.

“Because of what our professors have stressed in class, they have made us more socially conscious,” Reinhart comments. “[Professors] have really ingrained [in us] the importance of building a city suitable to human needs.”

Change must and will emanate from dreamy ideas. The ivory tower only becomes a reality if those thoughts stay within the university walls. So long as students maintain two-way communication with communities, we should think up as many great dreams as we can. It’s a cliché, but true nonetheless: if we wildly aim for the stars, there is always the risk that we end up somewhere in the treetops – and that’s not half bad.

All of the submitted projects will be exhibited at a vernissage at La Société des arts technologiques (1195 St. Laurent) November 11 at 5 p.m.

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It’s dizzying, and one wonders how the sheer number of books in existence doesn’t deter all prospective authors. It seems as though it would require an extraordinary amount of self-confidence to try to add one’s own work to the huge collection of great (and less great) literature that’s out there. But there is no indication that contemporary writers hesitate to promote their creations. In the shadow of big publishing houses’ crises of waning readership, and their desperate search for a saviour in blockbusters from the likes of Dan Brown and Stephanie Meyer, another branch of the business is thriving: doing it yourself. Today, almost anyone can surpass the hierarchical gatekeeping structures that characterize publishing companies through self-publishing, a trend that may be called the democratization of the literary field.

Andrew Smith, a Canadian-based writer who keeps a day job as a book designer, got tired of slow dancing with publishers who took years to give him a straight “no” about his book. He decided to go a different route and self-publish his novel Edith’s War, a process he documents in the blog edithswarselfpublish.com.

“There definitely was interest, but nobody who’d actually commit to trying to publish the book,” Smith recalled. While it is his first novel, Edith’s War is not the first thing Smith has written. His short fiction and non-fiction have previously appeared in magazines like Descant and Real Travel, and he has been shortlisted for both the CBC Literary Award and the Journey Prize. Extracts from Edith’s War that have appeared on the blog give a promising glimpse of a tale about the second World War, projected onto two generations, in two different settings, through two modes of storytelling.

Still, it’s hard not to be hesitant about a work when the term “self-published” is attached to it.

There is a definite stigma surrounding self-publishing, a fact that Smith discusses on his blog. In an interview in the New York Times last January, Robert Young, CEO of the self-publishing house Lulu Enterprises, said that his company had “easily published the largest collection of bad poetry in the history of mankind.” While Young’s comment was both disrespectful and ill-advised, self-publishing is nicknamed vanity press for a reason, and it’s impossible for such associations not to affect a serious writer with self-publishing in mind.

But the question still remains, should writing even be democratized? Or are there certain markers of quality that only professional editors can recognize? Smith notes that he had his initial doubts, but felt encouraged by the interest expressed by prospective editors before they turned the book down. After critically reading it through, he decided it was worth a try, and has found an independent editor to help him, called J.D. on the blog.

“I honestly don’t still have doubts about the quality of the book”, Smith wrote in an email. “Now that a well-respected editor with lots of publishing experience has read it and pronounced it definitely of good enough quality, I don’t doubt for a minute that the book stands up really well against other published works of fiction.”

Smith’s remarks suggest that self-publishing, then, might not be an enterprise to take on completely by oneself; it’s possible that the absence of a discerning editor is the issue at the root of all the bad poetry Young claims to have helped publish. But with the aid of an editor, why shouldn’t somebody like Smith go ahead and publish a book himself? The decisions made by publishing houses are often based on economic factors, a reality that Smith himself faced when a couple of his works were rejected because of his age – at 62, publishers thought, he wouldn’t be able to give them the additional two to three books that would justify the costs of publishing and marketing the first. Not only do such decision-making processes value profits above all, they’re also often flawed. J.K. Rowling was rejected twelve times before Bloomsbury picked up Harry Potter. Thanks to the Internet, a private person today can sidestep these concerns and take care of most of the functions of a publishing house themself, streamlining the process and perhaps publishing a work that really does deserve to be read by the public.

“Publishing seems to be a very cumbersome endeavour and one wonders if there isn’t some way to make it less ponderous,” says Smith. “I can’t help but feel there’s loads of really good writing out there that falls through the cracks because of the way in which the industry looks at new work and the way in which it sells (or doesn’t sell) new work.” Smith, for one, doesn’t seem fazed by library shelves buckling under the weight of books. He’s probably right. After all, censoring great ideas just because there are a lot of them already out there would be ridiculous, and with self-publishing’s decreased economic imperative, we might see less of the big houses’ safe cards and more quirky, weird, and unique novels that really make us think in new ways.

Follow Andrew Smith’s progress at edithswarselfpublish.com.

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The founders of the site, Toronto-based writers Emily Schultz and Brian Joseph Davis, call Joyland a hub for short fiction. The web site brings together writers from seven different cities; each location has its own editor who is free to select the writers they want to feature. In Montreal, that person is Concordia professor and writer David McGimpsey, who was also at the helm of the evening’s event. Often hovering frighteningly close to the line that separates hosting from stand-up (there was, for instance, a lengthy monologue about the sex lives of panda bears), McGimpsey nonetheless presented an admirable line-up of both established and emerging writers: Nick McArthus, Sina Queyras, Arjun Basu, Allison McMaster and Eva Moran were amongst those taking the stage. Moran read a hilarious piece from her book Porny Stories, about a Harlequin novel writer who gets to follow the red-clad Mermaid Marianne on a series of man-eating escapades. Using these adventures as inspiration for her writing, the protagonist becomes the poster child for Harlequin’s new series: raunchy, with none of that sentimental crap. Another highlight was Basu’s story of an Oedipus complex with a twist: a young boy is in an illegitimate relationship with the mother of his girlfriend, who he has impregnated (don’t worry, he puts an end to the incestuous love triangle by leaving the mother).

Schultz was the last to read her work; after she left the stage, Davis said that he was happy with the Montreal launch. “This is a different scene from that of Toronto in several ways, not least because the Montreal scene is more integrated. Most writers do both poetry and fiction, and there is an audience for both.” Davis is right; Green Room was filled with a substantial crowd, despite it being a Monday night. “Fiction [readings] can be a bit iffy, but I’ve never had a bad event in Montreal”, he added.

McGimpsey agrees, saying that here, literary events seem to fit in with people’s expectations of a night out. Because of the universities, especially Concordia with its creative writing program, events such as poetry readings become a natural part of the city’s cultural life. “It’s not very difficult to get involved, but you have to become actively interested”, McGimpsey claims, recommending that aspiring writers submit material to open readings. By going to readings, especially those with a featured writer, you will get acquainted both with different people and styles.

McArthur, another of the writers featured at Joyland’s Montreal launch and a former student of McGimpsey’s, suggests the Pilot Reading Series at Blizzarts, the last Sunday of every month, as well as readings at the Yellow Door.

“The Montreal scene is special, because as an Anglo, you need persistence to live in Montreal”, McArthur says. And perhaps that’s part of the explanation of the local Anglo lit scene’s vibrancy. Granted, English is Canada’s majority language, a fact that may discredit the minority status of the Anglos to some extent. But why then didn’t the Montreal Moderns and their heirs, whether modernist or not, emerge out of, say, Toronto? As McGimpsey points out, a smaller community is easier to unify, while at the same time it increases its participants’ intensity of dedication and interest. Being at a crossroads of languages and cultures probably helps, too. Certainly, the multicultural metropolis that has sparked the imagination of so many great writers of the past will continue to inspire many more in the future.

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Nighttime passersby of the gallery will see a naked light bulb illuminating a heap of audiotape on the floor of the otherwise dark space, while a video in the window shows the undoing of a weave, also made of tape. During the day, the weave is redone, and if you drop in you might see Trask spinning it. Or, you could try cranking an old-school reel-to-reel speaker which gives life to the voice of Penelope, the wife of Homer’s Ulysses.

The inspiration for this project came when Trask’s close friend got sick with cancer, and had to stay in bed for long periods of time. They had both wanted to read James Joyce’s massive novel Ulysses for a while, and decided it would be a good way of spending time together while taking their mind off the illness. Inspired by the poetic qualities of the text, they spontaneously decided to record their reading, and it resulted in the some 66,000 feet of tape.

The tape itself is used to mimic a scene from Homer’s Odyssey, in which Penelope attempts to ward off unwanted suitors while her husband is away at war. Having promised to pick a new spouse once she is done with her weaving, she undoes it every night, so that it will never be finished. Among other things, Trask’s installation deals with the neverending task of doing something for its own sake.

“It’s now,” she says, of her work-in-progress. “I think the whole thing is like a meditation almost,” she adds.

In a constantly accelerating world, there is not much time for this type of activity. Everything needs to lead somewhere. Just think: when did you last do something without having some kind of goal, however vaguely formulated? We want to move fast, we want to see results. “Non-activity” is scarce all around, and this attitude is reflected in the way Penelope is treated by critics. Her patient waiting – in comparison to her husband’s heroic adventures – is seen as submissive and meek. Trask wants to contest this opinion. She says that although the Odyssey might mostly talk about Ulysses, Penelope was there before him and will continue to be there when he is gone. She is the figure that keeps everything together. “I think patience can be very active, very proud,” she observes. Trask wants to emphasize Penelope’s role as equally or more important than Ulysses’s.

“Cette Nuit, Défaire,” however, is not only about counteracting the all-too-familiar habit of overlooking women in literary history, or even about the value of doing things without having an object. It is also about the desire to alter the past. “How often don’t we think about undoing things?” asks Trask. Still, she recognizes that going back is impossible – even undesirable. We are often told to slow down and appreciate life the way it is, with all its bumps and lumps. She points at the weave, and the knotted tangle of audiotape on the floor. “It will not be a pretty little weaving. It’s going to be messy. Like life.”

“Cette Nuit, Défaire” is running until February 10 at Galerie La Centrale (4296 St. Laurent), which is open on Wednesdays from 12-6 p.m., on Thursdays and Fridays from 12-9 p.m. and on weekends from 12-5 p.m.

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The huge concrete constructions are characterized by uncompromising geometrical regularities, as can be seen in the structure of the windows in Leacock. The technical functions of the building are usually made visible to passersby – nothing is hidden or covered, which has prompted its supporters to call brutalism a very honest style. And although it may not seem so if you have ever scraped your skin against the ridged texture of Leacock’s walls, the name of the style has nothing to do with brutality. Rather, it comes from Le Corbusier’s usage of raw concrete in his later works – in French, béton brut.

You might not be a fan of Leacock’s starkness, but many are. “Architects love brutalism,” says McGill architecture professor Annmarie Adams. “The ideology behind it is closely linked to the free speech movement, so I see it as a great architecture of activism and frankness and expression of free will – all the really good things about the sixties.”

Brutalism’s heyday was in the middle of the last century, at a time when North American universities expanded to make room for the baby boomers of the forties; many new buildings were built in the concrete blocks of brutalism and stood as a backdrop to the student protests of 1968.

The style matched the political sentiments of the time – Adams calls it a kind of architectural protest, breaking with the international style that was so popular earlier. It prescribed the same solution no matter the location, whereas brutalism, she says, is all about the individual, the user, and the actual, individual experience of the building.

“The idea was that [the buildings] would fit into their context. It’s a very humanistic part of brutalism,” she explains, and points at how Leacock matches perfectly with the Redpath Museum. One example is how the roofs of both buildings are made of copper, so that they, in a way, blend in to each other. And it’s true – it’s hard to imagine Leacock not being there. It sits very naturally in its surroundings.

While Le Corbusier was the one who gave name to the style, one of the biggest names in brutalism is Paul Rudolph, who designed the Yale School of Art and Architecture, recently renamed Paul Rudolph Hall. The building was highly controversial from the start. People either loved it or hated it, and when it was partly destroyed by a fire in 1969, some blamed the Fine Arts students, many of whom weren’t exactly fans of the building.

McGill’s brutalist constructions may not have been subjected to fire-raising, but not everyone shares Professor Adam’s love for the style. It is not an aesthetic that welcomes you in a warm embrace – concrete is a stern material, and it is easy to feel alienated and insignificant when it towers over you like Burnside or Leacock do. Sometimes it seems like the only reason that Leacock sits so comfortably in its location is that the colossal building dominates its space.

Housing projects, such as London’s Robin Hood Gardens, that were built in a brutalist vein have become sites of criminality and social misery, developments attributed in part to the unfriendly and estranging character of the houses. Adams, however, says that brutalism was not meant to be applied to housing. “It was just really about these big megastructures that connected nodes in cities. The buildings speak out and ask to be noticed, and provoke people like a student with a megaphone. That’s the way I think about Leacock.”

Brutalist buildings are not meant to be soft-spoken or compliant. They stand unabashed in their raw glory, and appear to leave few unaffected. They might make not make you feel especially at home, but perhaps university shouldn’t make you feel too comfortable and at ease. Isn’t it supposed to move you, inspire you, prompt you to think? If a building can create that feeling in its users, then it seems apt for a school campus.

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Her death in December 2004, at the age of 71, came after a long struggle with acute myelogenous leukemia. Rieff wrote Swimming in a Sea of Death in an attempt to come to terms with the guilt that he believes is inescapable after the loss of a loved one, especially when the process is as slow and excruciatingly painful as Sontag’s was.

Sontag, by virtue of her profession, was “a lover of reason” and certainly no stranger to the power of words and their ability to influence one’s perception of reality. When she was diagnosed with myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS), the preliminary stage of the leukemia that killed her, she had already survived two cancers. Although she obviously recognized the importance of medical science, Rieff believes that his mother thought her recovery was possible due to her own sheer will; her conviction to live to write yet another essay, to see yet another play, to travel to yet another new country.

MDS’s statistics of survival are not encouraging, but Sontag refused to acknowledge the likeliness of her death – even during the very last period of her life, she couldn’t accept that she would not beat the odds this time. But because, at the same time, she so avidly researched her disease in hopes of finding a miracle cure, despair in the face of cruel numbers was near. Rieff found himself cast into a role where he had to try to counter the facts; he felt compelled to make up stories in order to reassure her and give her the strength to go on.

In Swimming in a Sea of Death, he writes that “there is such a thing as too much reality.” Had his mother faced the gravity of her situation, she would have plunged headfirst into a black hole of panic; he felt that he had no choice but to give her the answers that she wanted, whether they were lies or not.

Why is death so hard to accept? Would the deterioration of her health have been easier for Sontag – and those closest to her – if she had recognized her own mortality? Rieff, it seems, would certainly have been happier had he been able to face reality, rather than being forced to tell his mother the reassuring stories she wanted to hear.

It is a truism that we are all going to die, and yet death in the Western world is clinically removed from daily life. Although it should be the most natural thing, most of us have never seen a dead body except for in movies or photos. And how often do we talk about what follows the last breath? People who are not religious usually have vague notions of a “something,” but when it comes down to it, it’s difficult for an atheist to believe in heaven.

Since the Enlightenment, reason and trust in the Self have become the new religion of the occidental, and if we invest everything in ourselves it is not surprising that death becomes such an unfathomable thing. When the self becomes the centre of life instead of a means to a more important end, its erasure equals the merciless annihilation of a life’s work, and simultaneously seems to demonstrate how pointless all of our strivings may be.

Swimming in a Sea of Death is not only an account of one admirable woman’s struggle against her inevitable death, but also a contemplation of the modern world’s relationship to mortality and its implications on the act of living. Sontag was not unusually young when she died, but she was an atheist who had built the entirety of her worldview on the ability to think and reason. To her, the notion of an afterlife brought no consolation.

Rieff’s biography of Sontag explores the seeming impossibility for a non-religious humanist to come to terms with the transience of life. However, as Rieff points out, a cure for cancer only postpones death by other means, and so this struggle is one that we must all face.

Swimming in a Sea of Death is published by Simon and Schuster. It is 192 pages. The list price is $21 for the hardcover edition.

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