Alessandra Occhiolini examines Jean Stein’s oral biography of the Warhol Superstar, reflecting on mental illness through the intertwined perspectives of subject and scholar.

Edie Sedgwick left Andy Warhol’s orbit in 1966 and died of a drug overdose five years later at the age of 28. When the renowned journalist and editor Jean Stein approached her family to write her life story, their question—“Why would you want to write about somebody who was sick?”—became the driving force behind Edie: An American Biography, a polyvocal portrait drawing on voices from family, friends, and acquaintances. Drawing on Stein’s papers housed in the Library’s Berg Collection, Diamonstein-Spielvogel Fellow Alessandra Occhiolini explores how Stein confronted mental illness while also living with chronic depression, tracing connections from Jean on Edie to herself on Jean and the ongoing dialog between writer, subject, and archive.

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ABOUT THE SPEAKERS

Alessandra Occhiolini is a writer and PhD candidate at CUNY's Graduate Center, as well as a former Diamonstein-Spielvogel Fellow at the New York Public Library. Her work examines disability, eugenics, and temporality in 20th century American film. You can read her critical and creative work in CUSP, LARB’s Avidly, The Journal of Multimodal Rhetorics, and Back Patio Press. She dreamed of being Lana Turner but ended up here, which works out pretty well given her aversion to tabloid scandal.

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Alessandra Occhiolini © Alex Irklievski