While working on her fiction, 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.
Leta 1959 se je odselila v New York in naslednjih sedem let preživela s Fornésom, zopet je pridobila skrbništvo nad svojim sinom in učila na univerzah, medtem ko je njen literarni ugled rasel.