CAMILLE PAGLIA UNMASKED

Your piece on Camille Paglia was par for the course (“The Many Masks of Camille Paglia,” by Deanne Stillman, Feb. 16). I have read several such profiles and the writers, yours included, invariably link her with a “new right” or the “feminist backlash.”

But Paglia is not easily categorized, nor is her popularity due solely to clever media manipulation. She is a breath of fresh air: tough, original and wildly audacious. Her contemporaries, meanwhile, are indistinguishable clones, all repeating the same tired company line. Paglia is the female Norman Mailer and I, for one, am glad she’s around.

DARYL HANEY

Los Angeles