"We have been talking for more than an hour when I feel Paglia’s energy fading. Her answers get briefer; she struggles to focus."

"This brilliant mind has grown old. I feel I’ve stepped behind the Wizard of Oz’s curtain, but I wonder also whether her outspokenness was mainly an act. I mention her vile opinionated remark about Sinéad O’Connor deserving abuse and she says, 'I was doing my Oscar Wilde thing.' Paglia retired after almost 40 years, just before her college closed through lack of enrolment: no one wants an expensive arts degree that won’t lead to a high-paid job. Does she miss teaching? 'Absolutely. But one can’t go on.' Her arthritic knee is hell, but her bones are too brittle for a replacement op. A new generation of Sexual Personae fans write to her, asking her opinion on their work. Paglia thinks they are drawn by her enthusiasm, a rare trait in modern academia. 'It’s a terrible crime to have young people come to your classes and inject them with cynicism for the world.'"

Writes Janice Turner, in "Camille Paglia: 'The feminist establishment tried to dismiss me'/She was the notoriously outspoken academic who outraged feminists and attacked Madonna and Sinéad O’Connor. Now Camille Paglia’s book Sexual Personae is being reissued and she has a new generation of readers" (London Times).