Columbia Professor Camps It Up With the 'New York Times'

On May 9 the exhibition Camp: Notes on Fashion opens at the Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. This year the Costume Institute’s annual spring show—which kicks off with tonight’s star-studded gala—explores the origins of camp’s exuberant aesthetic, using Susan Sontag’s 1964 essay, “Notes on Camp,” as the framework. Camp: Notes on Fashion, which looks at more than 250 objects dating from the 17^th century to the present,  examines how the style has influenced not only fashion, but also film, television, design and pop culture.

Jack Halberstam, a professor in the department of English and comparative literature and the Institute for Research on Women, Gender and Sexuality, joined a panel of camp experts at the New York Times to discuss what the concept now means on the occasion of the exhibition’s opening.