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Susan Sontag

Susan Lee Sontag (January 16, 1933 – December 28, 2004) was an American writer, critic, and public intellectual. She mostly wrote essays, but also published novels; she published her first major work, the essay "Notes on 'Camp'", in 1964. Her best-known works include the critical works Against Interpretation (1966), On Photography (1977), Illness as Metaphor (1978) and Regarding the Pain of Others (2003), as well as the fictional works The Way We Live Now (1986), The Volcano Lover (1992), and In America (1999).

Sontag was active in writing and speaking about, or traveling to, areas of conflict, including during the Vietnam War and the Siege of Sarajevo. She wrote extensively about literature, photography and media, culture, AIDS and illness, war, human rights, and left-wing politics. Her essays and speeches drew controversy, and she has been called "one of the most influential critics of her generation".

Early life and education
Sontag was born Susan Rosenblatt in New York City, the daughter of Mildred (née Jacobson) and Jack Rosenblatt, both Jews of Lithuanian and Polish descent. Her father managed a fur trading business in China, where he died of tuberculosis in 1939, when Susan was five years old. Seven years later, Sontag's mother married US Army Captain Nathan Sontag. Susan and her sister, Judith, took their stepfather's surname, although he did not adopt them formally. Sontag did not have a religious upbringing and said she had not entered a synagogue until her mid-20s.

Remembering an unhappy childhood, with a cold, alcoholic, distant mother who was "always away", Sontag lived on Long Island, New York, then in Tucson, Arizona, and later in the San Fernando Valley in southern California, where she took refuge in books and graduated from North Hollywood High School at the age of 15. She began her undergraduate studies at the University of California, Berkeley but transferred to the University of Chicago in admiration of its prominent core curriculum. At Chicago, she undertook studies in philosophy, ancient history, and literature alongside her other requirements. Leo Strauss, Joseph Schwab, Christian Mackauer, Richard McKeon, Peter von Blanckenhagen, and Kenneth Burke were among her lecturers. She graduated at age 18 with an A.B. and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. While at Chicago, she became best friends with fellow student Mike Nichols. In 1951, her work appeared in print for the first time in the winter issue of the Chicago Review.

At 17, Sontag married writer Philip Rieff, a sociology instructor at the University of Chicago, after a 10-day courtship; their marriage lasted eight years. While studying at Chicago, Sontag attended a summer school taught by the sociologist Hans Heinrich Gerth who became a friend and subsequently influenced her study of German thinkers. Upon completing her Chicago degree, Sontag taught freshman English at the University of Connecticut for the 1952–53 academic year. She attended Harvard University for graduate school, initially studying literature with Perry Miller and Harry Levin before moving into philosophy and theology under Paul Tillich, Jacob Taubes, Raphael Demos, and Morton White.

After completing her Master of Arts in philosophy, Sontag began doctoral research in metaphysics, ethics, Greek philosophy, Continental philosophy, and theology at Harvard. The philosopher Herbert Marcuse lived with Sontag and Rieff for a year while working on his 1955 book Eros and Civilization. Sontag researched for Rieff's 1959 study Freud: The Mind of the Moralist before their divorce in 1958, and contributed to the book to such an extent that she has been considered an unofficial co-author. The couple had a son, David Rieff, who went on to be his mother's editor at Farrar, Straus and Giroux, as well as a writer in his own right. According to Sontag's biographer Benjamin Moser, Sontag was the true author of the text on Freud, which she wrote after David's birth, and in the separation the latter was the subject of an exchange: she handed over the authorship of the book to Rieff, he gave her their son.

Sontag was awarded an American Association of University Women's fellowship for the 1957–58 academic year to St Anne's College, Oxford, where she traveled without her husband and son. There, she had classes with Iris Murdoch, Stuart Hampshire, A. J. Ayer, and H. L. A. Hart while also attending the B. Phil seminars of J. L. Austin and the lectures of Isaiah Berlin. But Oxford did not appeal to her, and she transferred after Michaelmas term of 1957 to the University of Paris (the Sorbonne). In Paris, Sontag socialized with expatriate artists and academics including Allan Bloom, Jean Wahl, Alfred Chester, Harriet Sohmers, and María Irene Fornés. She remarked that her time in Paris was perhaps the most important period of her life. It certainly provided the basis of her long intellectual and artistic association with the culture of France. She moved to New York in 1959 to live with Fornés for the next seven years, regaining custody of her son and teaching at universities while her literary reputation grew.

Fiction
While working on her stories, Sontag taught philosophy at Sarah Lawrence College and City University of New York and the philosophy of religion with Jacob Taubes, Susan Taubes, Theodor Gaster, and Hans Jonas, in the religion department at Columbia University from 1960 to 1964. She held a writing fellowship at Rutgers University in 1964–65 before ending her relationship with academia in favor of full-time freelance writing.

At age 30, Sontag published an experimental novel called The Benefactor (1963), following it four years later with Death Kit (1967). Despite a relatively small output, Sontag thought of herself principally as a novelist and writer of fiction. Her short story "The Way We Live Now" was published to great acclaim on November 24, 1986, in The New Yorker. Written in an experimental narrative style, it remains a significant text on the AIDS epidemic. She achieved late popular success as a best-selling novelist with The Volcano Lover (1992). At age 67, Sontag published her final novel, In America (2000). The last two novels were set in the past, which Sontag said gave her greater freedom to write in the polyphonic voice:

"In a print shop near the British Museum, in London, I discovered the volcano prints from the book that Sir William Hamilton did. My very first thought—I don't think I have ever said this publicly—was that I would propose to FMR (a wonderful art magazine published in Italy which has beautiful art reproductions) that they reproduce the volcano prints and I write some text to accompany them. But then I started to adhere to the real story of Lord Hamilton and his wife, and I realized that if I would locate stories in the past, all sorts of inhibitions would drop away, and I could do epic, polyphonic things. I wouldn't just be inside somebody's head. So there was that novel, The Volcano Lover." She wrote and directed four films and also wrote several plays, the most successful of which were Alice in Bed and Lady from the Sea.

High and low in mass culture
It was through her essays that Sontag gained early fame and notoriety. She frequently wrote about the intersection of high and low art and expanded the dichotomy concept of form and art in every medium. She elevated camp to the status of recognition with her widely read 1964 essay "Notes on 'Camp'", which accepted art as including common, absurd, and burlesque themes.

The concept of photography image
In 1977, Sontag published the series of essays On Photography. These essays are an exploration of photographs as a collection of the world, mainly by travelers or tourists, and the way we experience it. In the essays, she outlined her theory of taking pictures as you travel: The method especially appeals to people handicapped by a ruthless work ethic—Germans, Japanese and Americans. Using a camera appeases the anxiety which the work driven feel about not working when they are on vacation and supposed to be having fun. They have something to do that is like a friendly imitation of work: they can take pictures. (p. 10)

Sontag writes that the convenience of modern photography has created an overabundance of visual material, and "just about everything has been photographed". This has altered our expectations of what we have the right to view, want to view, or should view.

Ethic and the problem of norms
Ethical intentions are key points for Sontag. In her book On Photography she writes of the connection of the photography with the idea of norm. Discussing photographs of Diane Arbus, Sontag writes on borders and landmarks of the photo program of beauty. Beauty is the ground of the photography program and at the same time one of the biggest conceptual questions of photography. The problem of identification of beauty and ugliness forms one more question—the idea of norm.

"In teaching us a new visual code, photographs alter and enlarge our notion of what is worth looking at and what we have the right to observe" and has changed our "viewing ethics".

Photography: reality and truth
According to Sontag, photographs have increased our access to knowledge and experiences of history and faraway places, but the images may replace direct experience and limit reality; photography desensitizes its audience to horrific human experiences, and children are exposed to experiences before they are ready for them.

Sontag continued to theorize about the role of photography in life in her essay "Looking at War: Photography's View of Devastation and Death", which appeared in the December 9, 2002, issue of The New Yorker. There she concludes that the problem of our reliance on images and especially photographic images is not that "people remember through photographs but that they remember only the photographs ... that the photographic image eclipses other forms of understanding—and remembering. ... To remember is, more and more, not to recall a story but to be able to call up a picture" (p. 94).

She became a role model for many feminists and aspiring female writers during the 1960s and 1970s.

Activism
Sontag became politically active in the 1960s, opposing the Vietnam War. In January 1968, she signed the "Writers and Editors War Tax Protest" pledge, vowing to refuse to pay a proposed 10% Vietnam War surtax. In May 1968, she visited Hanoi; afterward, she wrote favorably about North Vietnamese society in her essay Trip to Hanoi.

During 1989 Sontag was the President of PEN American Center, the main U.S. branch of the International PEN writers' organization. After Iranian leader Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa death sentence against writer Salman Rushdie for blasphemy after the publication of his novel The Satanic Verses that year, Sontag's uncompromising support of Rushdie was crucial in rallying American writers to his cause.

A few years later, during the Siege of Sarajevo, Sontag gained attention for directing a production of Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot in a candlelit theater in the Bosnian capital, cut off from its electricity supply for three and a half years. The reaction of Sarajevo's besieged residents was noted:"To the people of Sarajevo, Ms. Sontag has become a symbol, interviewed frequently by the local newspapers and television, invited to speak at gatherings everywhere, asked for autographs on the street. After the opening performance of the play, the city's Mayor, Muhamed Kreševljaković, came onstage to declare her an honorary citizen, the only foreigner other than the recently departed United Nations commander, Lieut. Gen. Phillippe Morillon, to be so named. 'It is for your bravery, in coming here, living here, and working with us,' he said."

Personal life
Sontag's mother died of lung cancer in Hawaii in 1986.

Sontag died in New York City on December 28, 2004, aged 71, from complications of myelodysplastic syndrome which had evolved into acute myelogenous leukemia. She is buried in Paris at Cimetière du Montparnasse. Her final illness has been chronicled by her son, David Rieff.

Sexuality and relationships
Sontag became aware of her bisexuality during her early teens. At 15, she wrote in her diary, "I feel I have lesbian tendencies (how reluctantly I write this)." At 16, she had a sexual encounter with a woman: "Perhaps I was drunk, after all, because it was so beautiful when H began making love to me... It had been 4:00 before we had gotten to bed... I became fully conscious that I desired her, she knew it, too."

Sontag lived with 'H', the writer and model Harriet Sohmers Zwerling, whom she first met at U. C. Berkeley from 1958 to 1959. Later, Sontag was the partner of María Irene Fornés, a Cuban-American avant garde playwright and director. Upon splitting with Fornés, she was involved with an Italian aristocrat, Carlotta Del Pezzo, and the German academic Eva Kollisch. Sontag was romantically involved with the American artists Jasper Johns and Paul Thek. During the early 1970s, she lived with Nicole Stéphane, a Rothschild banking heiress turned movie actress, and, later, the choreographer Lucinda Childs. Sontag also had a relationship with the writer Joseph Brodsky, who deepened her appreciation of the anti-communism of the writers persecuted by the Soviet regime, whom she had read and in some cases even known, without really understanding them.

With photographer Annie Leibovitz, Sontag maintained a close romantic relationship stretching from the later 1980s until her final years. Sontag and Leibovitz met in 1989, when both had already established notability in their careers. Leibovitz has suggested that Sontag mentored her and constructively criticized her work. During Sontag's lifetime, neither woman publicly disclosed whether the relationship was a friendship or romantic. Newsweek in 2006 made reference to Leibovitz's decade-plus relationship with Sontag: "The two first met in the late '80s, when Leibovitz photographed her for a book jacket. They never lived together, though they each had an apartment within view of the other's."

When interviewed for her 2006 book A Photographer's Life: 1990–2005, Leibovitz said the book told a number of stories, and that "with Susan, it was a love story." While The New York Times in 2009 referred to Sontag as Leibovitz's "companion", Leibovitz wrote in A Photographer's Life, "Words like 'companion' and 'partner' were not in our vocabulary. We were two people who helped each other through our lives. The closest word is still 'friend. The same year, Leibovitz said the descriptor "lover" was accurate. She later reiterated, "Call us 'lovers.' I like 'lovers.' You know, 'lovers' sounds romantic. I mean, I want to be perfectly clear. I love Susan."

In an interview in The Guardian in 2000, Sontag was open about bisexuality: "'Shall I tell you about getting older?', she says, and she is laughing. 'When you get older, 45 plus, men stop fancying you. Or put it another way, the men I fancy don't fancy me. I want a young man. I love beauty. So what's new?' She says she has been in love seven times in her life. 'No, hang on,' she says. 'Actually, it's nine. Five women, four men.'"

Many of Sontag's obituaries failed to mention her significant same-sex relationships, most notably that with Leibovitz. Daniel Okrent, public editor of The New York Times, defended the newspaper's obituary, saying that at the time of Sontag's death, a reporter could make no independent verification of her romantic relationship with Leibovitz (despite attempts to do so). After Sontag's death, Newsweek published an article about Leibovitz that made clear references to her relationship with Sontag.

Sontag was quoted by editor-in-chief Brendan Lemon of Out magazine as saying "I grew up in a time when the modus operandi was the 'open secret.' I'm used to that, and quite OK with it. Intellectually, I know why I haven't spoken more about my sexuality, but I do wonder if I haven't repressed something there to my detriment. Maybe I could have given comfort to some people if I had dealt with the subject of my private sexuality more, but it's never been my prime mission to give comfort, unless somebody's in drastic need. I'd rather give pleasure, or shake things up."

Legacy
Following Sontag's death, Steve Wasserman of the Los Angeles Times called her "one of America's most influential intellectuals, internationally renowned for the passionate engagement and breadth of her critical intelligence and her ardent activism in the cause of human rights." Eric Homberger of The Guardian called Sontag "the 'Dark Lady' of American cultural life for over four decades." He observed that "despite a brimming and tartly phrased political sensibility, she was fundamentally an aesthete [who] offered a reorientation of American cultural horizons."

Of Against Interpretation, Brandon Robshaw of The Independent later wrote that "Sontag was remarkably prescient; her project of analysing popular culture as well as high culture, the Doors as well as Dostoevsky, is now common practice throughout the educated world." In Critique and Postcritique (2017), Rita Felski and Elizabeth S. Anker argue that the title essay from the aforementioned collection played an important role in the field of postcritique, a movement within literary criticism and cultural studies that attempts to find new forms of reading and interpretation that go beyond the methods of critique, critical theory, and ideological criticism.

Reviewing Sontag's On Photography in 1998, Michael Starenko wrote that it "has become so deeply absorbed into this discourse that Sontag's claims about photography, as well as her mode of argument, have become part of the rhetorical 'tool kit' that photography theorists and critics carry around in their heads."

White civilization as a cancer
Sontag drew criticism for writing in 1967 in Partisan Review:

"If America is the culmination of Western white civilization, as everyone from the Left to the Right declares, then there must be something terribly wrong with Western white civilization. This is a painful truth; few of us want to go that far.... The truth is that Mozart, Pascal, Boolean algebra, Shakespeare, parliamentary government, Baroque churches, Newton, the emancipation of women, Kant, Marx, Balanchine ballets, et al, don't redeem what this particular civilization has wrought upon the world. The white race is the cancer of human history; it is the white race and it alone—its ideologies and inventions—which eradicates autonomous civilizations wherever it spreads, which has upset the ecological balance of the planet, which now threatens the very existence of life itself."

According to journalist Mark M. Goldblatt, Sontag later made a "sarcastic retraction, saying the line slanders cancer patients." Patrick J. Buchanan said: "Rewrite that sentence with 'Jewish race' in place of 'white race' and the passage would fit nicely into Mein Kampf." According to Eliot Weinberger, "She came to regret that last phrase, and wrote a whole book against the use of illness as metaphor." But, he wrote, this did not lead to any "public curiosity about those who are not cancerously white", and "She may well have been the last unashamed Eurocentrist."

Allegations of plagiarism
Ellen Lee accused Sontag of plagiarism when Lee discovered at least twelve passages in In America that were similar to, or copied from, passages in four other books about Helena Modjeska without attribution. Sontag said of the passages, "All of us who deal with real characters in history transcribe and adopt original sources in the original domain. I've used these sources and I've completely transformed them. There's a larger argument to be made that all of literature is a series of references and allusions."

In a 2007 letter to the editor of the Times Literary Supplement, John Lavagnino identified an unattributed citation from Roland Barthes's 1970 essay "S/Z" in Sontag's 2004 speech "At the Same Time: The Novelist and Moral Reasoning", delivered as the Nadine Gordimer Lecture in March 2004. Further research led Lavagnino to identify several passages that appeared to have been taken without attribution from an essay on hypertext fiction by Laura Miller, originally published in the New York Times Book Review six years earlier. Writing for the Observer, Michael Calderone interviewed Sontag's publisher about the allegations, who argued, "This was a speech, not a formal essay", and that "Susan herself never prepared it for publication."

On Communism
At a New York pro-Solidarity rally in 1982, Sontag said that "people on the left", like herself, "have willingly or unwillingly told a lot of lies." She added that they:

"believed in, or at least applied, a double standard to the angelic language of Communism ... Communism is Fascism—successful Fascism, if you will. What we have called Fascism is, rather, the form of tyranny that can be overthrown—that has, largely, failed. I repeat: not only is Fascism (and overt military rule) the probable destiny of all Communist societies—especially when their populations are moved to revolt—but Communism is in itself a variant, the most successful variant, of Fascism. Fascism with a human face... Imagine, if you will, someone who read only the Reader's Digest between 1950 and 1970, and someone in the same period who read only The Nation or [t]he New Statesman. Which reader would have been better informed about the realities of Communism? The answer, I think, should give us pause. Can it be that our enemies were right?"

Sontag's speech reportedly "drew boos and shouts from the audience". The Nation published her speech, excluding the passage contrasting the magazine with Reader's Digest. Responses to her statement were varied. Some said that Sontag's sentiments had been held by many on the left for years, while others accused her of betraying "radical ideas".

On the September 11 attacks
Sontag received angry criticism for her remarks in The New Yorker (September 24, 2001) about the immediate aftermath of 9/11. In her commentary, she called the attacks a "monstrous dose of reality" and criticized U.S. public officials and media commentators for trying to convince the American public that "everything is O.K." Specifically, she opposed the idea that the perpetrators were "cowards", a comment George W. Bush made among other remarks on September 11. Rather, she argued the country should see the terrorists' actions not as "a 'cowardly' attack on 'civilization' or 'liberty' or 'humanity' or 'the free world' but an attack on the world's self-proclaimed superpower, undertaken as a consequence of specific American alliances and actions."

Criticisms from other writers
Tom Wolfe dismissed Sontag as "just another scribbler who spent her life signing up for protest meetings and lumbering to the podium encumbered by her prose style, which had a handicapped parking sticker valid at Partisan Review."

In "Sontag, Bloody Sontag", an essay in her 1994 book Vamps & Tramps, critic Camille Paglia describes her initial admiration and subsequent disillusionment. She mentions several criticisms of Sontag, including Harold Bloom's comment of "Mere Sontagisme!" on Paglia's doctoral dissertation, and says that Sontag "had become synonymous with a shallow kind of hip posturing." Paglia also tells of a visit by Sontag to Bennington College, in which she arrived hours late and ignored the agreed-upon topic of the event.

"Sontag's cool self-exile was a disaster for the American women's movement. Only a woman of her prestige could have performed the necessary critique and debunking of the first instant-canon feminist screeds, such as those by Kate Millett or Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar, whose middlebrow mediocrity crippled women's studies from the start ... No patriarchal villains held Sontag back; her failures are her own."

Nassim Nicholas Taleb in his book Skin in the Game criticizes Sontag and other people with extravagant lifestyles who nevertheless declare themselves "against the market system". Taleb assesses Sontag's shared New York mansion at $28 million, and writes that "it is immoral to be in opposition to the market system and not live (somewhere in Vermont or Northwestern Afghanistan) in a hut or cave isolated from it." Taleb also argues that it is even more immoral to "claim virtue without fully living with its direct consequences."

According to Rachel Cooke, it seems that Sontag never read the classics of feminism, including those of Millett. In the essays published in 2023 under the title On Women, there are some derogatory and demeaning statements toward women, such as when she asks whether Adrienne Rich is not "just like all feminists, those moaning minnies whose thinking is a bit 'simple-minded.'" In another essay, she is lukewarm about the fight to legalize abortion, writing: "It might be desirable on humanitarian grounds, but once the right is won 'nothing in the situation of women will be changed.'" In the same 2023 review of On Women, Cooke added: "Slowly, it begins to dawn on you that Sontag believes women have only themselves to blame for the inequality and discrimination they experience; that they have chosen to go along with it, unable to resist the powerful allure of lipstick and Tupperware. Is this a particularly egregious case of internalised sexism? Or is it just Sontag's regular exceptionalism, in a creakier format? I don't know. But again, I find myself amazed by her reputation, still so burnished almost two decades after her death."

Fiction

 * (1963) The Benefactor ISBN 0-385-26710-X
 * (1967) Death Kit ISBN 0-312-42011-0
 * (1977) I, etcetera (Collection of short stories) ISBN 0-374-17402-4
 * (1991) "The Way We Live Now" (short story) ISBN 0-374-52305-3
 * (1992) The Volcano Lover ISBN 1-55800-818-7
 * (1999) In America ISBN 1-56895-898-6 – winner of the 2000 U.S. National Book Award for Fiction

Plays

 * A Parsifal (1991), a deconstruction inspired by Robert Wilson's 1991 staging of the Wagner opera
 * Alice in Bed (1993), about 19th century intellectual Alice James, who was confined to bed by illness
 * Lady from the Sea, an adaptation of Henrik Ibsen's 1888 play of the same name, premiered in 1998 in Italy. Sontag wrote an essay about it in 1999 in Theatre called "Rewriting Lady from the Sea".

Collections of essays

 * (1966) Against Interpretation ISBN 0-385-26708-8 (includes "Notes on "Camp"")
 * (1969) Styles of Radical Will ISBN 0-312-42021-8
 * (1977) On Photography ISBN 0-374-22626-1
 * (1980) Under the Sign of Saturn ISBN 0-374-28076-2
 * (2001) Where the Stress Falls ISBN 0-374-28917-4
 * (2007) At the Same Time: Essays and Speeches ISBN 0-374-10072-1 (edited by Paolo Dilonardo and Anne Jump, with a foreword by David Rieff)
 * (2023) On Women ISBN 9781250876867 (edited by David Rieff, with an introduction by Merve Emre)

Sontag published numerous essays and reviews in The New York Review of Books, Partisan Review, The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, Vogue, The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, The Times Literary Supplement, The Nation, The New Republic, Art in America, Granta and the London Review of Books. Many of these were included in the collections listed above.

Monographs

 * (1959) Freud: The Mind of the Moralist
 * (1978) Illness as Metaphor ISBN 0-394-72844-0
 * (1988) AIDS and Its Metaphors (a continuation of Illness as Metaphor) ISBN 0-374-10257-0
 * (2003) Regarding the Pain of Others ISBN 0-374-24858-3

Films

 * (1969) Duet for Cannibals (Duett för kannibaler)
 * (1971) Brother Carl (Bröder Carl)
 * (1974) Promised Lands
 * (1983) Unguided Tour AKA Letter from Venice

Discography
Tanam Press – 7903
 * (1979) Debriefing

Other works

 * (2002) Liner notes for the Patti Smith album Land
 * (2004) Contribution of phrases to Fischerspooner's third album Odyssey
 * (2008) Reborn: Journals and Notebooks 1947–1963. ISBN 978-0312428501
 * (2012) As Consciousness Is Harnessed to Flesh: Journals and Notebooks, 1964–1980. ISBN 978-0374100766

Awards and honors

 * 1976: Arts and Letters Award in Literature
 * 1977: National Book Critics Circle Award for On Photography
 * 1979: Became member of the American Arts
 * 1990: MacArthur Fellowship
 * 1992: Malaparte Prize, Italy
 * 1999: Commandeur des Arts et des Lettres, France
 * 2000: National Book Award for In America
 * 2001: Jerusalem Prize, awarded every two years to a writer whose work explores the freedom of the individual in society.
 * 2002: George Polk Award, for Cultural Criticism for "Looking at War", in The New Yorker
 * 2003: Honorary Doctorate of Tübingen University
 * 2003: Friedenspreis des Deutschen Buchhandels during the Frankfurt Book Fair
 * 2003: Prince of Asturias Award on Literature.
 * 2004: Two days after her death, Muhidin Hamamdzic, the mayor of Sarajevo announced the city would name a street after her, calling her an "author and a humanist who actively participated in the creation of the history of Sarajevo and Bosnia." Theatre Square outside the National Theatre was promptly proposed to be renamed Susan Sontag Theatre Square. It took five years, however, for that tribute to become official. On January 13, 2010, the city of Sarajevo posted a plate with a new street name for Theater Square: Theater Square of Susan Sontag.

Digital archive
A digital archive of 17,198 of Sontag's emails is kept by the UCLA Department of Special Collections at the Charles E. Young Research Library. Her archive—and the efforts to make it publicly available while protecting it from bit rot—are the subject of the article On Excess: Susan Sontag's Born-Digital Archive, by Jeremy Schmidt and Jacquelyn Ardam.

Documentary and biopic film
A documentary about Sontag directed by Nancy Kates, titled Regarding Susan Sontag, was released in 2014. It received the Special Jury Mention for Best Documentary Feature at the 2014 Tribeca Film Festival.

In February 2023, it was announced that a biographical film by Kirsten Johnson and featuring Kristen Stewart as Sontag was in development. It is based on the biography Sontag: Her Life and Work by Benjamin Moser.

title: Susan Sontag


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Lugano

Lugano (, , ; Lügán ) is a city and municipality within the Lugano District in the canton of Ticino, Switzerland. It is the largest city in both Ticino and the Italian-speaking region of southern Switzerland. Lugano has a population of, and an urban agglomeration of over 150,000. It is the ninth largest Swiss city.

The city lies on Lake Lugano, at its largest width, and, together with the adjacent town of Paradiso, occupies the entire bay of Lugano. The territory of the municipality encompasses a much larger region on both sides of the lake, with numerous isolated villages. The region of Lugano is surrounded by the Lugano Prealps, the latter extending on most of the Sottoceneri region, the southernmost part of Ticino and Switzerland. Both western and eastern parts of the municipality share an international border with Italy.

Described as a market town since 984, Lugano was the object of continuous disputes between the sovereigns of Como and Milan until it became part of the Old Swiss Confederation in 1513. In 1803, the political municipality of Lugano was created, following the establishment of the canton. Since 1882, Lugano has been an important stop on the international Gotthard Railway. The rail brought a decisive contribution to the development of tourism and more generally of the tertiary sector which are, to this day, predominant in the economy of the city.

In 1956, Lugano hosted the first-ever Eurovision Song Contest.

Name and coat of arms
The toponym is first recorded in 804, in the form Luanasco, in 874 as Luano, and from 1189 as Lugano. German-language variants of the name (now no longer in use) were Lowens, Lauis, Lauwis, Louwerz. The local Lombard form of the name is rendered Lugan. The etymology of the name is uncertain, suggestions include derivation from Latin lucus ("grove"), from a vulgar Latin lakvannus ("lake-dweller") and from the god Lugus.

Pre-history
The shores of Lake Lugano have been inhabited since the Stone Age. Within the modern city limits (Breganzona, Castagnola, Davesco and Gandria) several ground stones or quern-stones have been found. In the area surrounding Lugano, items from the Copper Age and the Iron Age have been found. There are Etruscan monuments at Davesco-Soragno (5th to 2nd century BC), Pregassona (3rd to 2nd century BC), and Viganello (3rd to 2nd century BC). Graves with jewellery and household items have been found in Aldesago, Davesco, Pazzallo and Pregassona along with Celtic money in Viganello.

The region around Lake Lugano was settled by the Romans by the 1st century BC. There was an important Roman town north of Lugano at Bioggio. There are fewer traces of the Romans in Lugano, but several inscriptions, graves and coins indicate that some Romans lived in what would become Lugano.

Foundation of Lugano
The first written mention of a settlement at Lugano can be found in documents, which are of disputed authenticity, with which the Longobard king Liutprand ceded various assets located in Lugano to the Church of Saint Carpophorus in Como in 724. Other documents, dating from 804 and 844 refer to Lake Lugano as Laco Luanasco, and an act of 984 indicates Lugano as a market town.

During the fighting between Guelphs and Ghibellines and the new disputes between Como and Milan, during the 14th and 15th centuries, Lugano was the scene of clashes between opposing forces. After a long rule by the Rusca family, Lugano was freed from the domination of Como, which had been taken over in 1335 from the Visconti. At the same time, the link between the town and the valley strengthened. By 1405–06 documents attest to a vallis comunitas Lugani et, a governing body that was independent of Como. The new community included the parishes of Lugano, Agno, Riva San Vitale and Capriasca. In 1416 the Duke of Milan, Filippo Maria Visconti, conquered the region of Lugano and the Rusca valley and made it a fief. A year later, Lugano's freedoms were first documented in a series of statutes modelled on those of Como. The town was able to secure complete independence.

Lugano during the Renaissance
Between 1433 and 1438 the Duke of Milan sat as a feudal lord over Lugano. He compensated the Rusca family with the ownership of Locarno. Under the reign of his heirs in the following decades rebellions and riots broke out, which lasted until the French invasion of 1499.

Lugano as a dependency of the Old Swiss Confederacy
Lugano was the object of continuous disputes between the sovereigns of Como and Milan, in particular by the powerful dynasties of the Visconti (rulers of Milan) and the Rusca (rulers of Como), until it became a Swiss dominion in 1513.

An important name in this period was that of the von Beroldingen, a noble family from Uri, whose members between 1576 and 1798 served as chancellors of the Vogt residing in Lugano. A key member of this family was Karl Konrad von Beroldingen (1624-1706), who served as Lugano's chancellor and general captain, serving also Spain, and receiving the title of Baron from Leopold I in 1691. He commissioned the construction of Palazzo Beroldingen, on the site of the current Parco Ciani, and Villa Favorita (Lugano), in Castagnola.

Lugano during the Enlightenment
In 1746, the Agnelli brothers opened the first printing press and bookshop in Lugano. They began publishing the newspaper Nuove di diverse corti e paesi in 1748 and changed its name to Gazzetta di Lugano in 1797. The newspaper was widely read in north and central Italy. It supported the cause of the later Jansenists against the Jesuits and therefore was banned in 1768 in the territory of the Papal States. It was open to the themes of enlightened reform and the American Revolutionary War. It was the first newspaper in the Italian language to publish an excerpt from the Declaration of Independence of 1776. After the death of Abbot Gian Battista Agnelli in 1788, who had been the editor for more than 40 years, Abbot Giuseppe Lodovico Maria Vanelli took over the paper. Under Abbot Vanelli, it supported the revolutionary ideas from France, which drew protests from the Austrian government in Lombardy. The publication of the magazine ceased abruptly after edition number 17 of 29 April 1799, following the anti-French riots in Lugano during which the Agnelli printing house was sacked and Abbot Vanelli was shot.

Swiss control lasted until 1798 when Napoleon conquered the Old Swiss Confederation and created the Helvetic Republic, within which Lugano became the capital of the Canton of Lugano.

Canton of Lugano
The canton of Lugano unified the former Landvogteien of Lugano, Mendrisio, Locarno and Valmaggia. However, as with the other cantons of the Helvetic Republic, the autonomy of Lugano was very limited, the republic having been founded by Napoleon in order further to centralise power in Switzerland. The canton was led by a Directory of five members, who appointed a "national préfet".

The canton was deeply divided between "patriots" supporting the Cisalpine Republic, and traditionalist "aristocrats". By 1799 riots broke out in Lugano, and the second préfet, Francesco Capra, fled the town. Power passed to a provisional government sympathetic to the Habsburgs. However, French occupation was restored in 1800. Discontent continued and in early 1802 a revolt in Capriasca led to the autumn pronunciamento of Pian Povrò, which declared the independence of Lugano from the Helvetic client republic.

With the Act of Mediation, the following year, political agitation was finally quelled, as were the struggles between unionists and federalists. The canton of Lugano merged with Bellinzona creating the canton of Ticino, which endures to the present day.

Lugano in the early 19th century
After 1803, the political municipality of Lugano was created. One of the primary tasks of the new city government was to determine the division of property and authority between the patriziato and the new political municipality. Two agreements between the two organizations, in 1804 and 1810, began this process. In the second half of the 19th century, the political municipality received various properties and rights from the patriziato. Francesco Capra, the préfet during the Helvetic Republic, became the first mayor of Lugano from 1803 until 1813. The cantonal constitution of 1814, set Lugano, Bellinzona and Locarno as capitals of the Canton. They each served as the capital in a six-year rotation. Lugano was the capital in 1827–33, 1845–51 and 1863–69.

In the 19th century, the city government was dominated by the Liberal Party. In 1900, slightly more than half of the seats on the city council (at the time 50 total members, but 60 members since 2004) were held by Liberals. Most of the rest of the seats were held by either Conservatives or Socialists.

The city government initially had eleven members, but in 1908 their number was reduced to five and in 2004 increased to seven. Throughout most of the 20th century, the Liberals held the absolute majority here as well. The rest of the municipal executive posts were held by the Conservatives, the Socialists (1944–48, 1976–80 and since 2000) and the Ticino League (since 1992).

Around 1830 new civic and government buildings began to emerge in Lugano. The town also began to expand into the surrounding hills, along the Cassarate, and toward Molino Nuovo, Paradiso and Castagnola. In 1843–44 the city hall was built on the site of the Bishop's Palace (built in 1346). It housed the cantonal government in 1845–51 and again in 1863–69. Since 1890, it has housed the city government. The promenade was built in stages: the first part was in the 1870s, the second in the first decade of the 20th century. In the first decades of the 19th century, the roads that connect Lugano with Bellinzona (1808–12), Ponte Tresa (1808–20) and Chiasso (1810–16) were built. In 1848 the first steamboat on Lake Lugano began to operate, with regular, scheduled service since 1856.

Modernization of the city
The construction of the Melide causeway between Melide and Bissone in 1844–47 favoured the development of the Chiasso-Bellinzona-Lugano-Gotthard line at the expense of the north–south route along Lake Maggiore. This tendency for development was strengthened further in 1882 with the completion of the Gotthard railway line. The railway station was built in 1874–77 in Lugano, and transformed it into one of the main links between northern Italy and central and northern Europe, which led to the development of tourism and in general, helped the services sector.

From the mid-19th century to 1970 the city recorded consistent population growth, especially between 1880 and 1910, when the population more than doubled. This increase was partly due to foreign nationals settling in Lugano (in 1870 18.7% of the population, 1910 43.6%) and people from other language areas of Switzerland (1870 1.4% of the population, 1910 6.9%). In the last three decades of the 20th century, the population fell slightly, despite the merger in 1972, of the municipalities of Castagnola and Brè-Aldesago. This reflected a trend to move away from the centre to the suburban communities.

However, in 2004 the municipalities of Breganzona, Cureggia, Davesco-Soragno, Gandria, Pambio-Noranco, Pazzallo, Pregassona and Viganello were incorporated into the municipality and followed by Barbengo, Carabbia and Villa Luganese in 2008. This, among other factors, resulted in a doubling of the population to 52,059 in 2006, of which over a third were foreigners. In 2013 the municipalities of Bogno, Cadro, Carona, Certara, Cimadera, Sonvico and Val Colla were incorporated into the municipality.

Postwar Lugano
Following the Second World War, and particularly during the 1960s and 70s, thanks to an abundant flow of capital from nearby Italy, Lugano experienced a period of exponential growth in banking activities which led to it placing itself as the third financial centre of Switzerland, with over 100 banking institutions present in the city. Trade, tourism and finance are the mainstays of the local economy. In 2000, nine-tenths of the workers were employed in the services sector, of which three-quarters were commuters, including many cross-border commuters (13% of the working population).

Lugano was the host city of the 1956 Eurovision Song Contest, the first-ever edition of the contest. In 1975, the Congress Center was built followed in 1978 by the new City Hospital. In 1963 the city acquired the land for the airfield Lugano-Agno, and the first scheduled flights was in 1980. At the beginning of the 21st century they began the Grande Lugano projects, including: the car tunnel Vedeggio-Cassarate, which started in 2005 and connects the A2 motorway with the neighbourhood of Cornaredo, the creation of a new Kulturpol on the site of the former Grand Hôtel Palace and a convention and exhibition centre in the area of Campo Marzio.

Israeli replication
In June 2011, officials of the Israeli town of Yehud announced they would undertake a massive construction project to replicate Lugano's old square in the centre of their town, to reinvigorate commerce and tourism. The replica will be replete with neoclassical columns and colonnades.

Topography
The municipality Lugano lies at the edge of Lake Lugano (Lago di Lugano or Ceresio), which is situated between the lakes Lago Maggiore and Lago di Como, south of the Alps. It lies at the heart of the Sottoceneri, that part of the canton of Ticino that lies south of the Monte Ceneri Pass.

The city centre is located on the lake shore just to the west of where the river Cassarate enters the lake. The city's waterfront forms a crescent around the bay between the Brè (925 m) and the San Salvatore (912 m) mountains.

Because of the historical development of the city, incorporating some relatively distant suburbs but leaving other, nearer, suburbs as independent municipalities, the borders of the city are disparate. A large and sparsely populated section of the city is on the east bank of Lake Lugano and separated from the city by that lake. Similarly, the inner-urban but independent municipality of Paradiso is a near-enclave, totally surrounded as it is by the municipality and Lake Lugano.

Based on the 1997 land survey, the municipality Lugano has a total area of 32.09 km2. Of this area, 3.25 km2 or 10.1% is used for agricultural purposes, while 6.73 km2 or 21.0% is forested. Of the rest of the land, 4.48 km2 or 14.0% is settled (buildings or roads), 0.04 km2 or 0.1% is either rivers or lakes and 0.12 km2 or 0.4% is unproductive land.

Of the built-up area, housing and buildings made up 9.4% and transportation infrastructure made up 3.0%. while parks, green belts and sports fields made up 1.2%. Out of the forested land, all of the forested land area is covered with heavy forests. Of the agricultural land, 0.5% is used for growing crops and 9.4% is used for alpine pastures. Almost all the water in the municipality is in lakes.

Climate
Lugano is amongst the warmest places in Switzerland, along with Locarno and Grono. Lugano has a rare temperate version of a humid subtropical climate (Köppen: Cfa) for the latitude, closely bordering on a temperate oceanic climate (Köppen: Cfb) due to the warmer average being 22 °C (71.6 °F). Although the US National Academy of Sciences considers a sea-like climate, the vegetation is from the subtropics with deciduous forest. It is characterized by relatively mild winters and warm humid summers. It has an average of 98.1 days of rain or snow per year and on average receives 1559 mm of precipitation. The wettest month is May during which Lugano receives an average of 196 mm of rain, while the driest month of the year is February with an average of 52 mm of precipitation over 4.6 days.

Located on a plain in southern Switzerland and protected by the Alps and lakes, the climate is one of the mildest in the country, typical of the Italian Lakes in the Insubrian region. In addition, the precipitation is ample while the deviations of temperature are moderate. Lugano is also one of the sunniest Swiss cities. The greatest precipitates anticipate and succeed much of the summer. Winter freezing temperatures are more common on the night of January (between 27 and 28 days), but the low temperatures remains are rare and do not occur every year. Much of the summer is pleasant, but warm days above 30 °C (86 °F) are not uncommon (average of about 8 days).

The highest temperature recorded in Lugano is 38.0 C, recorded in July 1945, with the lowest temperature recorded being -20.4 C, recorded in February 1929.

Coat of arms
The blazon of the municipal coat of arms is Gules, a cross throughout argent, between the upper case serif letters L, V, G and A (respectively in the I, II, III and IV quarters). The coat of arms dates from around 1200. The four letters on the coat of arms are an abbreviation of the name Lugano.

Neighborhoods and circles
The municipality is subdivided into 25 quartieri (neighborhoods) which are grouped into three (cantonal) circles.

Quarters 1–9 are the older quarters of the city, which have been added to by successive enlargements of the municipality in 2004, 2008 and 2013; these enlargements involved previously independent municipalities becoming parts of the municipality.

Cantonal
In the Grand Council of Ticino election, there were a total of 27,557 registered voters in Lugano, of which 15,214 or 55.2% voted. 237 blank ballots and 38 null ballots were cast, leaving 14,939 valid ballots in the election. The most popular party was the PLR which received 3,680 or 24.6% of the vote. The next three most popular parties were; the Lega (with 2,854 or 19.1%), the SSI (with 2,532 or 16.9%) and the PS (with 2,170 or 14.5%).

In the Council of State of Ticino election, 158 blank ballots and 79 null ballots were cast, leaving 14,980 valid ballots in the election. The most popular party was the Lega which received 3,839 or 25.6% of the vote. The next three most popular parties were; the PLR (with 3,596 or 24.0%), the PS (with 2,496 or 16.7%) and the SSI (with 2,169 or 14.5%).

National
In the 2019 federal election for the Swiss National Council the most popular party was the Lega which received 20.6% (-5.8) of the vote. The next five most popular parties were the PLR (20.3%, -2), the PPD (14.0%, -1.1), PS (13.9%, -1.3), the UDC (13.2%, -0.2), and the Green Party (11.1%, +7.0). In the federal election a total of 15,639 votes were cast, and the voter turnout was 46.6%.

In the 2007 federal election the most popular party was the PLR which received 26.6% of the vote. The next three most popular parties were the Lega (19%), the PPD (18.71%) and the PS (17.46%). In the federal election, a total of 11,980 votes were cast, and the voter turnout was 42.8%.

Demographics

Since its union with some surrounding municipalities in 2004 (Breganzona, Cureggia, Davesco-Soragno, Gandria, Pambio-Noranco, Pazzallo, Pregassona and Viganello), 2008 (Barbengo, Carabbia and Villa Luganese) and 2013 (Bogno, Cadro, Carona, Certara, Cimadera, Sonvico and Val Colla), Lugano has a population of  and is, therefore, the canton's largest city. The expansion in 2004 was the second major expansion after the union in 1972 with the municipalities of Brè-Aldesago and Castagnola. , 38.1% of the population do not hold Swiss citizenship and 14,778 or 23.2% of the population was born in Italy. In 2013, among the Swiss population (61.6%, 41,392), 24.3% (16,349) are Luganesi, 21.7% (14,585) from anywhere else in the canton of Ticino, and 15.6% (10,458) from other cantons in Switzerland.

The city's economy provides an estimated 38,000 jobs, over a third of which are occupied by cross-border commuters. Business, tourism and finance constitute the backbone of the local economy. In 2000, the tertiary sector offered 90% of all jobs in Lugano, of which 75% were occupied by commuters, many of which commute from neighbouring Italy (approximately 13% of the active working population); in the same year tax revenues reached CHF 104 million, of which CHF 59 million were attributable to the banking sector. The town is Switzerland's third largest banking centre after Zürich and Geneva. With regards to intercommunal financial equalisation, thanks to its financial strength Lugano contributes significantly to the equalisation fund. The population is Italian-speaking and mainly Catholic by faith. Lugano is the largest city outside Italy with Italian as official language.

Between 1997 and 2007, the population changed at a rate of 6.9%. Most of the population speaks Italian (80.3%), with German being second most common (7.1%) and Serbo-Croatian being third (2.7%). Of the Swiss national languages, 20,998 people speak Italian, 1,855 speak German, 597 people speak French, and 39 people speak Romansh. The remainder (3,071 people) speak another language.

, the gender distribution of the population was 47.1% male and 52.9% female. The population was made up of 15,457 Swiss men (28.1% of the population), and 10,461 (19.0%) non-Swiss men. There were 19,417 Swiss women (35.3%), and 9,725 (17.7%) non-Swiss women.

In there were 318 live births to Swiss citizens and 190 births to non-Swiss citizens, and in the same period there were 351 deaths of Swiss citizens and 92 non-Swiss citizen deaths. Ignoring immigration and emigration, the population of Swiss citizens decreased by 33 while the foreign population increased by 98. There were 7 Swiss men and 3 Swiss women who emigrated from Switzerland. At the same time, there were 672 non-Swiss men and 556 non-Swiss women who immigrated from another country to Switzerland. The total Swiss population change in 2008 (from all sources, including moves across municipal borders) was an increase of 197 and the non-Swiss population change was an increase of 706 people. This represents a population growth rate of 1.7%.

The age distribution,, in Lugano is; 4,666 children or 8.5% of the population are between 0 and 9 years old and 5,013 teenagers or 9.1% are between 10 and 19. Of the adult population, 6,270 people or 11.4% of the population are between 20 and 29 years old. 8,267 people or 15.0% are between 30 and 39, 9,113 people or 16.6% are between 40 and 49, and 6,844 people or 12.4% are between 50 and 59. The senior population distribution is 6,459 people or 11.7% of the population are between 60 and 69 years old, 4,947 people or 9.0% are between 70 and 79, and there are 3,481 people or 6.3% who are over 80.

the average number of residents per living room was 0.61 which is about equal to the cantonal average of 0.6 per room. In this case, a room is defined as space of a housing unit of at least 4 m2 as normal bedrooms, dining rooms, living rooms, kitchens and habitable cellars and attics. About 19.1% of the total households were owner occupied, or in other words, did not pay rent (though they may have a mortgage or a rent-to-own agreement).

, there were 23,168 private households in the municipality and an average of 2 persons per household. there were 489 single-family homes (or 20.6% of the total) out of a total of 2,372 inhabited buildings. There were 214 two-family buildings (9.0%) and 1,046 multi-family buildings (44.1%). There were also 623 buildings in the municipality that were multipurpose buildings (used for both housing and commercial or another purpose).

The vacancy rate for the municipality,, was 0.64%. there were 16,333 apartments in the municipality. The most common apartment size was the 3 room apartment of which there were 5,398. There were 1,811 single-room apartments and 2,019 apartments with five or more rooms. Of these apartments, a total of 13,342 apartments (81.7% of the total) were permanently occupied, while 2,485 apartments (15.2%) were seasonally occupied and 506 apartments (3.1%) were empty. , the construction rate of new housing units was 3.3 new units per 1000 residents.

the average price to rent an average apartment in Lugano was 1073.49 Swiss francs (CHF) per month (US$860, £480, €690 approx. exchange rate from 2003). The average rate for a one-room apartment was 623.12 CHF (US$500, £280, €400), a two-room apartment was about 809.81 CHF (US$650, £360, €520), a three-room apartment was about 1030.53 CHF (US$820, £460, €660) and a six or more room apartment cost an average of 1890.13 CHF (US$1510, £850, €1210). The average apartment price in Lugano was 96.2% of the national average of 1116 CHF.

Historic population
The population of the original town of Lugano (not including the municipalities added after 1972) is given in this chart:

Religion
From the, 18,035 or 67.9% were Catholic, while 1,517 or 5.7% belonged to the Swiss Reformed Church. There are 4,714 individuals (or about 17.75% of the population) who belong to another church (not listed on the census), and 2,294 individuals (or about 8.64% of the population) did not answer the question.

Economy
, Lugano had an unemployment rate of 5.59%. , there were 77 people employed in the primary economic sector and about 28 businesses involved in this sector. 3,520 people were employed in the secondary sector and there were 420 businesses in this sector. 33,601 people were employed in the tertiary sector, with 3,877 businesses in this sector. There were 12,191 residents of the municipality who were employed in some capacity, of which females made up 45.9% of the workforce.

, there were 28,174 workers who commuted into the municipality and 3,994 workers who commuted away. Lugano is the economic centre of the region and draws about 7.1 workers into the municipality for every one leaving. About 12.4% of the workforce coming into Lugano are coming from outside Switzerland, while 1.6% of the locals commute out of Switzerland for work. Of the working population, 15.2% used public transportation to get to work, and 44.6% used a private car.

, there were 43 hotels in Lugano with a total of 1,584 rooms and 2,889 beds.

The airline Darwin Airline, operating under the brand name Etihad Regional since January 2014, has its head office on the grounds of Lugano Airport in Agno, near Lugano.

Tourism
Lugano is one of the most popular tourist destinations in Switzerland. The city is home to a number of historic buildings and museums, whilst the surrounding area has many natural sights.

Both Lake Lugano and the surrounding mountains provide a wide variety of outdoor activities. The area surrounding Lugano is home to over 300 km of mountain biking trails, the largest net of trails in Switzerland.

Heritage sites of national significance
17 sites in Lugano are part of the Swiss heritage site of national significance. The city of Lugano, the districts of Barbengo, Brè, Gandria and Biogno, and the sites of Cantine di Gandria and Castagnola are all part of the Inventory of Swiss Heritage Sites.

The heritage sites of national significance include two libraries, the Biblioteca Cantonale and the Biblioteca Salita dei Frati as well as the Swiss National Recording Archives (Fonoteca nazionale svizzera). There were three churches; Cathedral of San Lorenzo, Church of Santa Maria degli Angioli and the Church of San Rocco.

There were four museums; the, , the and the Villa Ciani complex with the 'Museo civico. In 2015, the two art museums in the city merged to form MASI Lugano. The cemetery complex at via Trevano is also one of the sites, as is the Radiotelevisione svizzera di lingua italiana (RTSI) Italian-language broadcast facility. The rest of the sites are houses throughout the town. They include the Palazzo civico at piazza della Riforma, the Palazzo e cinema Corso at via Pioda, the Palazzo Riva at via Francesco Soave, the Palazzo Riva at via Massimiliano Magatti, the Palazzo Riva at via Pretorio 7 and Villa Favorita in Castagnola.

Natural sights
A very popular destination in Lugano is Lake Lugano. The lake is 48.7 km2 in size, 63% of which is in Switzerland and 37% in Italy. It has an average width of roughly 1 km and is nearly 3 km at its widest. The maximum depth of the lake is 279 m. The water is generally warm with average water temperatures in the summer ranging from 19.5 °C to 24.0 °C.

Several companies provide tourist boat services on the lake. A popular excursion is by boat to the picturesque lakeside village of Gandria. Additionally, there are numerous shipyards, water taxis and boat rental sites along the lake, as well as hotels and restaurants that offer moorings. Bathing in the lake is allowed at any of the 50 or so bathing establishments located along the Swiss shores.

In addition to the lake, Lugano is surrounded by mountains, which provide a number of opportunities for sports or sightseeing. Two mountains, both providing excellent views over the city and lake, bracket each end of the town's waterfront. Monte Brè (933 m), to the north, is reputedly Switzerland's sunniest spot and is also home to the old village of Brè. Monte San Salvatore (912 m), to the south, has an old church and museum atop its summit. Both mountains are accessible by funicular railways, which are themselves easily accessible by frequent city bus or by car.

Slightly further afield is Monte Generoso (1704 m), with a view that encompasses the lakes of Lugano, Como and Maggiore, as well as the Alps from the Matterhorn to the Bernina Range, the Lombardy Plains, and, on a clear day, the city of Milan. The summit can be reached by taking either an SNL boat, or a railway train, to Capolago, and changing there onto a rack railway train of the Monte Generoso Railway.

Religious buildings

 * St. Lawrence Cathedral (9th and 15th century)
 * Church of Santa Maria degli Angioli (Lugano) (16th century) with the fresco of the Christ's Passion from Bernardino Luini
 * San Rocco Church (Lugano)

Secular buildings

 * Park and Villa Ciani
 * Palazzo Civico (Lugano)
 * Villa Favorita (Lugano)
 * Palazzo Albertolli

Museums

 * MASI Lugano (or Swiss–Italian Art Museum), on three sites:
 * Lugano Arte e Cultura (LAC), a cultural centre dedicated to visual arts, music and performing arts
 * Palazzo Reali
 * Giancarlo and Danna Olgiati Collection
 * Museo delle Culture (Museum of Cultures)
 * Foundation Aligi Sassu and Helenita Olivares
 * Historical Museum
 * Cantonal Museum of Natural History of Lugano
 * Swiss Customs Museum
 * Wilhelm Schmid Museum
 * Hermann Hesse Museum
 * Swiss National Sound Archives

Education and research
In Lugano about 63.7% of the population (between age 25–64) have completed either non-mandatory upper secondary education or additional higher education (either university or a University of Applied Sciences).

In Lugano there were a total of 7,931 students. The Ticino education system provides up to three years of non-mandatory kindergarten and in Lugano there were 1,356 children in kindergarten. The primary school program lasts for five years and includes both a standard school and a special school. In the municipality, 2,280 students attended the standard primary schools and 129 students attended the special school. In the lower secondary school system, students either attend a two-year middle school followed by a two-year pre-apprenticeship or they attend a four-year program to prepare for higher education. There were 1,932 students in the two-year middle school and 47 in their pre-apprenticeship, while 884 students were in the four-year advanced program.

The upper secondary school includes several options, but at the end of the upper secondary program, a student will be prepared to enter a trade or to continue on to a university or college. In Ticino, vocational students may either attend school while working on their internship or apprenticeship (which takes three or four years) or may attend school followed by an internship or apprenticeship (which takes one year as a full-time student or one and a half to two years as a part-time student). There were 492 vocational students who were attending school full-time and 722 who attend part-time.

The professional program lasts three years and prepares a student for a job in engineering, nursing, computer science, business, tourism and similar fields. There were 89 students in the professional program. , there were 3,537 students in Lugano who came from another municipality, while 887 residents attended schools outside the municipality.

Lugano is home to 2 libraries. These libraries include; the Biblioteca universitaria di Lugano and the Biblioteca cantonale Lugano. There was a combined total of 448,811 books or other media in the libraries, and in the same year a total of 51,740 items were loaned out.

The headquarter of the university Università della Svizzera italiana in Lugano includes 5 of its 6 faculties, the Academy of Architecture being based in Mendrisio. The main building, built in 1909, was originally the hospital of Lugano and since 1996 it is home of the university. In the next years, several added buildings enriched the headquarter until the other side of the river, in the quarter called Viganello. In fact, the area of the older buildings on the west side of the river is called "West Campus" (or "Campus Ovest" in italian), whereas the newest building (active since 2021) on the other side of the river is called "East Campus" (or "Campus Est" in italian) and it houses both the university USI and the University of Applied Sciences of Southern Switzerland SUPSI.

Some of the universities and colleges in Lugano include:
 * Università della Svizzera Italiana (USI): This Swiss university, translated as "University of Italian Switzerland", which is organised in 6 faculties: the Faculty of Informatics, Faculty of Economics, Faculty of Communication, Culture and Society, Faculty of Biomedical Sciences, Faculty of Theology and the Academy of Architecture (which is based in Mendrisio).
 * Swiss National Supercomputing Centre: an autonomous unit of ETH Zürich that focuses on high-performance computing.
 * Dalle Molle Institute for Artificial Intelligence (IDSIA): a non-profit oriented research institute for artificial intelligence, affiliated with both the Università della Svizzera Italiana and SUPSI.
 * Franklin University Switzerland: an American and Swiss accredited liberal arts college.
 * The American School In Switzerland: an international secondary school.
 * SUPSI: University of Applied Sciences and Arts of Southern Switzerland.

Air
Lugano is served by Lugano Airport, in the nearby municipality of Agno. Currently, only Silver Air operates to Lugano Airport. While there is limited service to Lugano's airport, Milan's airports are not that far away and provide access to a greater number of worldwide locations. Milan Malpensa Airport is connected to Lugano by a direct hourly train with a travel time of 1:45h from/to Lugano, or about one hour, 80 km by road.

Railways
Lugano's railway station is situated on the historically and concurrently important Gotthard railway line, which links northern Switzerland with Ticino and Italy. Since the inauguration of the Gotthard Base Tunnel, in 2016, and the Ceneri Base Tunnel, in 2020, train connections with cities in Northern Switzerland, such as Zürich, Luzern and Basel, have been improved, with significantly faster services through the base tunnels.

Long-distance trains of the Swiss Federal Railways (SBB CFF FFS), together with international trains of Trenitalia, connect Lugano with the cities of northern Switzerland and with Italy. The trains operate under the InterCity and EuroCity brands. Service is provided hourly to Zürich and once every two hours to Basel and Milan. One train per day operates to each of Bologna, Genoa and Venice. All the above trains operate via the Gotthard and Ceneri base tunnels. Between April and mid October, the tourist oriented Gotthard Panorama Express connects Lugano with Lucerne once a day by train and boat, travelling by train over the historic high-level Gotthard route, and then by boat along the length of Lake Lucerne.

Lugano is also served by several lines of regional trains of the Treni Regionali Ticino Lombardia (TILO) network which operates in the canton of Ticino and the north of the Italian region of Lombardy. Line RE80 provides a half-hourly semi-fast service northbound to Locarno and southbound to Mendrisio and Chiasso, with alternate southbound trains continuing to Milan. Line S10 provides a half-hourly all-stations service northbound to Bellinzona and Biasca and southbound to Mendrisio and Chiasso, with alternate southbound trains continuing to Como and occasional northbound trains continuing to Airolo. Line S50 provides an hourly service to Milan Malpensa Airport, running coupled to an S10 service between Biasca and Mendrisio. All the above trains use the Ceneri Base Tunnel, but line S90 provides a half-hourly service north to Giubiasco and an hourly service south to Mendrisio serving all the stations over the old high-level Ceneri route.

Additionally, the metre gauge ( gauge) Lugano-Ponte Tresa Railway (FLP) provides a quarter-hourly service to Agno, Lugano Airport and Ponte Tresa. The service operates as line S60 from its own station adjacent to the main railway station.

Lugano is also served by three funicular railways. The Funicolare Città–Stazione, which has recently been renewed, is a short line connecting Lugano railway station to the lower part of the city centre by the lake, whilst the Funicolare Monte Brè and the Funicolare Monte San Salvatore ascend nearby hills to vantage points. A fourth funicular, the Funicolare degli Angioli, still exists but has not operated since 1986.

Road
Lugano is located along the A2 motorway, a part of the European route E35 that stretches over 1600 km between Amsterdam and Rome. Like the original railway, the A2 to the north crosses the Ceneri and Gotthard passes and links Lugano to northern Switzerland and, via Basel, to the German motorway network. To the south it crosses the Swiss-Italian border at Chiasso, linking to the Italian motorway network. The motorway runs to the west and south of the city, using extensive tunnelling to deal with the mountainous landscape.

The Trasporti Pubblici Luganesi (TPL) operate frequent inner city buses throughout Lugano and some of its closer neighbours. The Autolinee Regionali Luganesi (ARL) runs buses connecting Lugano with the districts of Davesco, Sonvico and the towns of Canobbio, Lamone and Tesserete, whilst the Società Navigazione del Lago di Lugano (SNL) runs buses to the lakeside districts of Gandria and Campione d'Italia, complementing its boat services to the same locations. TPL, ARL and SNL services operate from the Lugano Centro bus station.

Longer distance buses, as well as some local buses, are operated by PostBus Switzerland, known locally as the AutoPostale. Its Palm Express service connects Lugano railway station to St. Moritz. Other AutoPostale buses operate from an underground bus station and ticket office, located at Via Balestra 4 in the centre of Lugano. ASF Autolinee, an Italian bus company, operates an international bus route from Lugano to Menaggio, on the shores of Lake Como.

Shipping
Boats of the Società Navigazione del Lago di Lugano (SNL) provide services on Lake Lugano. Whilst these are principally provided for tourist purposes, they also connect Lugano with other lakeside communities. Several of the landing points are within the sparsely populated section of the municipality that lies on the east side of the lake and have no road access.

Culture
Lugano hosts the Swiss National Sound Archives, responsible for safeguarding the sound heritage of Switzerland.

The Palazzo dei Congressi is the performing arts centre for Lugano. It is the main venue for the Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana.

The Lugano Festival runs during April and May, followed by the related "Progetto Martha Argerich" in June. Estival Jazz arrives in July. Between July and August, there is the LongLake Festival, one of the greatest urban open-air happenings in Switzerland. During one month, the LongLake offers over 300 events in downtown Lugano. The Blues-to-Bop Festival arrives in late August and early September turns the town into a hive of activity as thousands crowd the streets and piazzas for free open-air concerts.

In 1956, the Teatro Kursaal in Lugano hosted the first Eurovision Song Contest.

The MASI (Museo d'Arte della Svizzera italiana) has two parallel objectives: the conservation and study of the Museum's permanent collection, which is above all made up of works belonging to the 19th and 20th centuries; and the planning and presentation of temporary exhibitions. It focuses on the art of the cantons of Ticino and Graubünden (Grigioni in Italian) and presents artists from the region on a regular basis. Lugano Arte e Cultura (LAC) is a cultural centre dedicated to music, visual and performance arts. It opened in 2015.

The district of Brè-Aldesago offers its visitors charming corners created by its characteristic stone buildings. The cobblestone streets of the town offer art enthusiasts an artistic path that is very interesting both because of the presence of national and international "names" and the combination of art and the environment.

Sports
Hockey Club Lugano (HCL) plays in the National League (NL), the top tier of Swiss hockey. They play at the Resega arena and have won seven national titles, having participated twice in the European Cup final round and once in the top four final in the Euroleague. In 1991, Lugano reached the final of the Spengler Cup and twice reached third place in the IIHF Continental Cup Superfinal.

FC Lugano plays in the Swiss Super League. They play at the Stadio Cornaredo and won the Swiss title in 1938, 1941 and 1949 and the Swiss Cup in 1931, 1968 and 1993. The Stadio Cornaredo is the largest stadium in Lugano, with space for 15,000 people. It hosted the Italy-Belgium match at the 1954 FIFA World Cup. According to some sources, Lugano is the smallest city ever to hold a World Cup match. Around the soccer field there is a gravel lane used during athletic contests and that, outside of official match and training hours, can be used by joggers free of charge. Next to the stadium are three small training fields. There are also two artificial grass fields: one for field hockey and one for soccer. There is also a skate park next to the stadium.

BC Lugano Tigers (former Basket Club Lugano) plays in the Swiss National League A (LNA). They play at the Elvetico gym, won the Swiss Cup in 2011 and have been Swiss LNA Champions in 2000, 2001, 2006 and 2010.

Lugano annually hosts the 20 km racewalk Gran Premio Città di Lugano Memorial Albisetti and the Ladies Open Lugano, an International level WTA tennis tournament. The city hosted the 1953 and 1996 UCI Road World Championships, as well as the 18th Chess Olympiad.

Lugano has traditionally been one of Switzerland's hubs in Water polo. The Società Nuoto Lugano won the Swiss Championship a total of 17 times.

People born in Lugano

 * Middle Ages
 * Giovanni Battista Trevano (c.1560–1644), an Italian-speaking architect who worked in Poland as a royal architect
 * Francesco Contin (1585–1654), a Swiss-Italian sculptor and architect
 * Giovanni Battista Discepoli (1590–1660) was a Swiss-Italian painter of the Baroque period
 * Gasparo Molo (15??-16??), goldsmith
 * Karl Konrad von Beroldingen (1624-1706) was Lugano's chancellor and general captain
 * Carlo Giuseppe Plura (1663–1737), a Swiss-Italian stucco artist and sculptor
 * Giovanni Maria Fontana (c.1670–after 1712) an Italian-Swiss architect, worked in Russia.
 * Giacomo Zanetti (c.1696–1735), an Italian master builder and architect
 * Domenico Reina (1796–1843) opera, a Swiss bel canto tenor and composer
 * 19th C
 * Carlo Bossoli (1815–1884), a Swiss-born Italian painter and lithographer of scenes from the Risorgimento
 * Domenico Giambonini (1868–1956), a Swiss sport shooter, bronze medallist in the 1920 Summer Olympics
 * 20th C
 * Leonardo Conti MD (1900–1945), the Reich Health Leader in Nazi Germany
 * Romano Amerio (1905–1997), a Catholic theologian
 * Niccolò Tucci (1908–1999), a short story writer and novelist who wrote in English and Italian
 * Lauro Amadò (1912–1971), also known as Lajo, a Swiss football player, played 54 games for the Swiss national football team
 * Mario Agliati (1922–2011), a Swiss-Italian journalist, writer and historian
 * Mario Comensoli (1922–1993), a Swiss painter of the realist movement
 * Sergio Mantegazza (born 1927), a Swiss-Italian businessman, chairman and owner of Globus a multinational travel company.
 * Duilio Arigoni (1928–2020), a Swiss chemist, worked on the biosynthetic pathways of many organic natural substances
 * Tito Tettamanti (born 1930), a Swiss lawyer, politician, and entrepreneur
 * Giulia Daneo Lorimer (1932–2021), Italian violinist and singer
 * Pietro Balestra (1935–2005) a Swiss economist specializing in econometrics
 * Franco Ambrosetti (born 1941), a jazz trumpeter, flugelhornist and composer
 * Christian Giordano (born 1945), a Swiss anthropologist and sociologist
 * Giorgio Giudici (born 1945), a Swiss architect and politician, Mayor of Lugano 1984–2013
 * Romolo Nottaris (born 1946), a Swiss rock climber, mountaineer and author of documentary films
 * Chiara Banchini (born 1946), Swiss Baroque violinist
 * Loris Kessel (1950–2010), a Swiss racing driver
 * Georg Heinrich Thyssen-Bornemisza (born 1950), manager
 * Luca Pianca (born 1958), a Swiss musician-lutenist whose specialty is archlute
 * Diego Fasolis (born 1958), a Swiss classical organist and conductor
 * Marco Borradori (1959–2021), a Swiss lawyer and politician, Mayor of Lugano 2013–2021
 * Mauro Gianetti (born 1964), a Swiss directeur sportif, former professional rider
 * Gianluca Barilari (born 1964), head coach of the Swiss national basketball team
 * Carlo Bonzanigo (born 1966), an Italian and Swiss car designer, works for Pininfarina and for Citroen Design.
 * Hardy Krüger junior (born 1968), German actor
 * Antonio Esposito (born 1972) is a Swiss-Italian former footballer, 320 games
 * Christian Rebecchi (born 1980), a Swiss painter and sculptor of the NEVERCREW artists duo
 * Joël Camathias (born 1981), a Swiss racing driver
 * Alberto Regazzoni (born 1983), a footballer, with over 440 games and 3 for the national side
 * Elly Schlein (born 1985), Italian politician
 * Stefano Comini (born 1990), a Swiss racing driver
 * Alex Fontana (born 1992), a Swiss racing driver

People who lived or died in Lugano

 * 19th C
 * Mikhail Bakunin (1814–1876), a Russian revolutionary anarchist and founder of collectivist anarchism
 * Enrico Bignami (1844–1921), an Italian merchant and editor of La Plebe, a socialist newspaper
 * Ferdinando Fontana (1850–1919), an Italian journalist, dramatist, poet and committed, passionate socialist
 * Hans Kundt (1869–1939), a German military officer, the primary military figure of Bolivia
 * Heinrich Thyssen (1875–1947), a German-Hungarian entrepreneur and art collector
 * Hermann Hesse (1877–1962), author and philosopher, won the Nobel Prize in 1946
 * Jurgis Šaulys (1879–1948), a Lithuanian economist, diplomat and politician; one of the twenty signatories to the 1918 Act of Independence of Lithuania
 * Wilhelm Backhaus (1884–1969) a German pianist and pedagogue.
 * Alfred Neumann (1895–1952) a German writer of novels, stories, poems, plays and films
 * 20th C
 * Rudolf Caracciola (1901–1959), German racing driver
 * Gustav Fröhlich (1902–1987), a German actor and film director
 * Ernst Marlier (1875–1948), German pharmaceutical manufacturer who built the Wannsee Villa, the venue of the Wannsee Conference.
 * Rainis (1865-1929), a Latvian poet, playwright, translator, and politician.
 * Aspazija (1865-1943), a Latvian poet and playwright.
 * Mariuccia Medici (1910–2012), an Italian-born Swiss actress on TV and in the theatre
 * Caterina Valente (Born 1931), Italian-French, multilingual singer, guitarist, dancer, and actress.
 * Mina (born 1940) (Anna Maria Mazzini), Italian singer
 * Steve Reid (1944–2010), an American jazz drummer and session drummer for Motown
 * Robert Palmer (1949–2003), an English singer-songwriter, musician and record producer
 * Behgjet Pacolli (born 1951), former President of Kosovo, a businessman with Mabetex Group
 * Ivo Pogorelić (born 1958), a Croatian pianist
 * Johann Sebastian Paetsch (born 1964), an American cellist and musician
 * Anna Kravtchenko (born 1976), a Ukrainian classical pianist with an international career
 * Alberto Contador (born 1982), Spanish professional cyclist, winner of the Tour de France, Vuelta a España and Giro d'Italia
 * Nicole Cooke MBE (born 1983), a Welsh former professional road bicycle racer, Commonwealth, Olympic and World road race champion

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Lugano


text:
Talk:All Species Foundation

It seems inevitable the two will cooperate.

I moved the above comment from the article as it seems to be one person's opinion. I don't see why it is inevitable. Angela

title: Talk:All Species Foundation


text:
Talk:Lie

Suggestion: Discussion or inclusion of the topic of "gaslighting"
Under the "Types and associated terms" section, there seems to be a lack of discussion around the aspect of gaslighting, where false or untrue narratives are presented to the other person(s) which often makes them question their own reality or truth. I feel this is a unique and important form of lying which is not currently in this section. Antiquetwerp (talk) 02:28, 18 August 2022 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion
The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion: Participate in the deletion discussion at the. —Community Tech bot (talk) 07:08, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
 * 1984first.jpg

Lie
Lying is bad.A lie is an assertion that is believed to be false, typically used with the purpose of deceiving or misleading someone. The practice of communicating lies is called lying. A person who communicates a lie may be termed a liar. .it is also bad because it is annoying not knowing if you can trust someone. It also makes you look bad A person that makes a lie is considered a liar.lying can be interpreted as deliberately false statements or misleading statements. The term lie also carries a negative connotation. In some cases depending on the lie a person can get arrested or charged a huge fine. Many cultures believe that lying is a sign of nonhuman behavior. Lying can be detected by observing nonverbal behaviors. An example of these behaviors are: not making eye contact,fidgeting, and stuttering. 2601:582:C100:4340:E9D3:17F0:2EE0:1538 (talk) 01:56, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

Image
I remember distinctly that the lead image for this article was Pinocchio.

Can someone please give me good reason as to why this was changed? This was a good, international, nonverbal representation of the concept at hand.

Now, it is a singer who is popular for the 2024 Eurovision.

I don't find this very sensible. — Urro[ talk ] [ edits ] ⋮ 02:28, 13 May 2024 (UTC)

— Urro[ talk ] [ edits ] ⋮ 00:01, 14 May 2024 (UTC)
 * I have changed it back. I wanted to give the article more currency and relevance to the present day, but your point about Pinocchio is valid. LeetToTheBeatMakeItRoar (talk) 16:47, 13 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Thank you! I appreciate it. Hopefully I did not sound too frustrated in my original response... I was rather confused.
 * I think that the image you used was not as timeless or global, but I otherwise understand the intention.
 * No problem, I am a new Wikipedia editor and always learning LeetToTheBeatMakeItRoar (talk) 06:38, 14 May 2024 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 2 June 2024
Companino = Companinon 2603:8000:D300:3650:54E:99BD:2917:FE0 (talk) 09:14, 2 June 2024 (UTC)
 * ✅   [[User:CanonNi ]]  (talk • contribs) 09:28, 2 June 2024 (UTC)

title: Talk:Lie


text:
Stabilizer

Stabilizer, stabiliser, stabilisation or stabilization may refer to:

Chemistry and food processing

 * Stabilizer (chemistry), a substance added to prevent unwanted change in state of another substance
 * Polymer stabilizers are stabilizers used specifically is plastic or other polymers
 * Stabilizer (food), a type of food additive
 * Wood stabilization, a wood preservation process to prevent distortion caused by moisture
 * Clarification and stabilization of wine

Mathematics

 * Stabilization (category theory)
 * Stabilizer subgroup

Technology

 * Buoyancy compensator (diving) adjusts buoyancy.
 * Stabilizer (aircraft), surfaces to help keep aircraft under control. Includes:
 * Vertical stabilizer of airplanes
 * Tailplane or horizontal stabilizer
 * Stabilizer (ship), fins on ships to counteract roll
 * Stabilizer, another name for bicycle training wheels
 * Stabilizers, the extendable legs mounted on a land vehicle which are folded out when stabilization is required; see Outrigger
 * Drilling stabilizer, part of the bottom hole assembly in oil drilling
 * Gyroscopic stabilizer (disambiguation), on ships and aircraft
 * Gun stabilizer, or gyrostabilizer, a device that helps a moving tank's gunner to aim the gun
 * Sway bar, a bar linking the two sides of an automotive suspension
 * Stabilization pond, a way of stabilizing wastewater
 * Voltage stabilizer, a system designed to automatically maintain a constant voltage

Photography

 * Camera stabilizer, an external mechanical device to stabilize the camera as a whole
 * Image stabilization, software or hardware that stabilizes the image

Other uses

 * Stabilization (architecture) of worn or damaged foundations of a structure
 * Stabilization (medical) is a process to help prevent shock in sick or injured people
 * Stabilization (warfare), part of counter-insurgency operations
 * Automatic stabilizer, an economics term
 * Crude oil stabilisation, part of an oil production plant
 * Mood stabilizer, a kind of psychiatric medication
 * Segmental stabilizers are the muscles which provide support across joints
 * Stabiliser cattle, a breed of beef cattle
 * Stabilizer code, a concept in quantum error correction
 * Stabilizers (band), am American band

title: Stabilizer


text:
Talk:Rosetta Project

=Removed from article:=

Untitled

 * This project will inevitably converge with the Wiktionary, which has the goal of producing a complete dictionary in every language, and would not be able to acquire the data for many languages, other than through the Rosetta Project.

And when did you get back from your trip in a time machine? --mav 21:37, 13 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Parts of the article are written in first-person plural as by the project directors or spokesmen. For NPOV should be rewritten. Also, there are unclear references maybe to documents at the RP site, or maybe to parts of this article someone meant to write and didn't finish. (e.g. "See the content section...") --Jim Henry 13:09, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I just looked at the Rosetta Project web site. It looks like some of the text of this article was copied from that site verbatim. We should make sure we have permission to use it, or else delete and rewrite as necessary. --Jim Henry 17:42, 9 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I added the "not to be confused with rosetta from apple" italic header at the top, because when I typed "Rosetta Project" into the search, I was brought to this page instead of the apple rosetta page.

Rosetta Disc on the Rosetta (spacecraft)
Rosetta disk goes back to the future

This ESA article says that a Rosetta Disc was mounted on the Rosetta (spacecraft).Though the inscriptions do not seem to look like the published pictures of the rosetta disc on this page and the Long Now foundations webpages. Would anyone know if its the a prototypr disc that was mounted on the craft or some other design? --58.107.3.49 (talk) 00:12, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

2,000 year life expectancy?
Where did the 2,000 year life expectancy factoid come from? Etched titanium with a black oxide coating should last indefinitely in any reasonable (as in buried somewhere that isn't an active volcano or subduction zone). Embed it in glass and it should last indefinitely. See Radioactive waste. --Guy Macon (talk) 20:54, 25 April 2016 (UTC)

External links modified
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 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20051216072752/http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=1443 to http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=1443

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Sources?
Recently

 * Some of these languages have fewer than one thousand speakers left. Others are considered to be dying out because government centralization and globalization are increasing the prevalence of English and other major languages.

was changed to

 * Some of these languages have fewer than one thousand speakers left. Others are considered to be dying out because language policy based on an official language is increasing the prevalence of major languages that are used as the medium of instruction in public schools and national media.

are there sources supporting either claim? --Guy Macon (talk) 14:48, 16 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Hmmm, this looks rather simplistic and could probably do with further investigation and rewriting, but the lead doesn't need citations. What this one probably needs is creation of a "Background" section, which includes appropriate sources re dying languages as well as a hatnote at the top leading to Language death (whose lead could also do with improvement!) and then updating the lead to better reflect the content of the article (as per WP:LEAD). Laterthanyouthink (talk) 00:08, 17 April 2019 (UTC)

title: Talk:Rosetta Project