Camille Paglia is the University Professor of Humanities and Media Studies at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, where she has taught since 1984. She received her BA from the State University of New York at Binghamton in 1968 and her MPhil and PhD degrees from Yale University in 1971 and 1974, respectively. Her six books are Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson (1990); Sex, Art, and American Culture (1992); Vamps & Tramps: New Essays (1994); The Birds, a study of Alfred Hitchcock published in 1998 by the British Film Institute in its Film Classics Series; Break, Blow, Burn: Camille Paglia Reads Forty-Three of the World's Best Poems (2005); and Glittering Images: A Journey through Art from Egypt to Star Wars (2012). Her third essay collection is under contract to Pantheon Books.

Professor Paglia was a cofounding contributor and columnist for Salon.com, beginning with its debut issue in 1995. She has written numerous articles on art, literature, popular culture, feminism, politics, and religion for publications around the world. Her essay “Theater of Gender: David Bowie at the Climax of the Sexual Revolution” was commissioned by the Victoria & Albert Museum for the catalogue of its exhibition of Bowie costumes, which opened in London on March 2013 and is touring internationally.