Comments on: DIY Beat Criticism

By: Mike

Mike — Thu, 27 Dec 2012 17:21:21 +0000

A very entertaining rant, and your main point (as I see it) is well taken: academic beat criticism tends to ignore the messy materiality and eccentricity of Beat texts. Academics need to get their hands dirty by: 1) getting into the archive more–and more creatively; and 2) allowing the texts to speak, without having to make them “acceptable” through the use of current fashions in theory and politics.

Your point about the academic labor system is also a very good one.

Thanks Jed–

Mike

By: DSW

DSW — Thu, 13 Dec 2012 10:02:49 +0000

I think from reading this that you’d enjoy Larry Beckett’s Beat Poetry – which is entirely devoted to the poetics of the Beat Generation and giving it the literary credit it deserves.

By: jed

jed — Thu, 13 Dec 2012 04:09:47 +0000

A big omission in this piece that I have to correct. Retaking the Universe strikes me as a collection deep in theory that gets it right. Davis Schneiderman also does the type of creative work that I am calling for on top of it all as well as being on point with the technology.

http://davisschneiderman.com/

Check out his work if you havent already.

By: jed

jed — Wed, 12 Dec 2012 18:30:35 +0000

Rob,

I am not really concerned with painstaking accuracy or thorough editing. Foucault played loose with the facts for example. The superior level of Milton scholarship is based on the fact that Milton scholars have looked at Milton from every possible facet and are always looking for new ways to analyze any aspect of Milton. It has less to do with painstaking accuracy than complete coverage. Beat criticism is rather monotonous in its approach it seems to me. There is lots of applied theory and establishing territory but little in hardcore archival research. This is standard for Milton. Your Lost Years is an exception and a classic in Burroughs scholarship because it gets dirty and turns over all available stones. There is little to no scholarship in Beat book arts, distribution and book production like McGann. This is standard for Milton as well. From what I can tell, Beat criticism is not technologically saavy in using all avaiable media and technology. Milton scholars are pioneers in electronic databases and scanning for example. In particular I would love to see much more creative criticism in approaching Beat Literature, something like Ronald Johnson did with Milton’s Paradise Lost in RADIOS for example.

I could do with less rigor (mortis) and more obsession and creativity.

By: wally reverie

wally reverie — Wed, 12 Dec 2012 17:59:13 +0000

“the beat movement” was a category on “jeopardy’ yesterday. all “the answer is” were answered by contestants except for the one “answer is” “who is william s. burroughs?”:i liked hearing alex trebek say “and that author’s name is william s. burroughs, like the adding machine””

By: Rob Johnson

Rob Johnson — Wed, 12 Dec 2012 05:08:59 +0000

Let me add one more thought. I don’t know the Nancy Grace article you discuss, but I can say that I’ve recently been working on an article Nancy is overseeing, and the review process on that has been the most rigorous I’ve ever encountered. Beat scholars aren’t quite up to the level of Milton scholars, perhaps, in the painstaking accuracy of their work, but we are getting there, and it is perhaps the nature of the material under discussion–so much of it spontaneously composed or otherwise experimental in nature–that has led to some lapses, a kind of imitative fallacy. I don’t know if we are taking Beat literature too seriously or not seriously enough. I do agree with you that more of that kind of spontaneity and originality–a criticism that befits the subject–is needed.

By: Rob Johnson

Rob Johnson — Wed, 12 Dec 2012 04:42:10 +0000

Aside from the unwarranted snipe at Nancy Grace’s posted syllabus (God, I hope no one ever pays close attention to mine), I agree with the general argument here. I think we must have been in grad school around the same time and got our fill of theory. I’ve always fallen on the side of scholarship over theory, and so much Beat scholarship falls into the theory camp that I find myself rarely able to get through it. Oliver Harris’s Naked Lunch at 50 has several articles that are exceptions to this, and Todd’s book is another good example. What I liked most about it, other than the qualities you mention, is that it’s also clearly a personal book to him. What could be more Beat? Beat scholarship does need to be much more of the roll your sleeves up type. Go to the archives, interview people, find overlooked material, as you say. A friend of mine, for example, just interviewed the daughter of Alene Lee (Mardou Fox in the Subterraneans and one of WSB’s typists, if I’m not mistaken). She had all kinds of great stories her mother told her about Jack Kerouac, Lucien Carr, and Ginsberg–can’t reveal it, I’ll let him publish it all. But that’s the kind of scholarship I admire. One of my favorite critical books is Daniel Hoffman’s Poe Poe Poe Poe Poe Poe Poe (I think there are seven Poes in the title). It’s personal, scholarly, and brilliantly insightful as well as a great pleasure to read. The best biography of Kerouac is Jack’s Book, approached in a unique Beat-inspired style. There are many topics of the type you described in your Yugen examples out there ready to be written. It does take some imagination, creativity, hard work, and sometimes travel money. I’ve been lecturing on the Beats and the Kennedy Assassination lately, and I’m writing about it as well, a topic I came across while editing a book called “The Beatest State in the Union”: Texas Beat Generation Writers. It just fell into my lap. Along the way I fell upon fascinating information about Thomas Parkinson, as well as some of the same material about C. Wright Mills Todd Tietchen writes about. I’m not trying to set myself up as some kind of examplar; it’s just that you are right–stop trying to re-interpret stuff that’s already been done and get out there and find something original and scholarly. Anyway, great work as usual Jed, and if we need an example of what you are looking for in Beat scholarship, well, we can start with you . . .