Questioning conformity: The Beats and New York intellectuals in the postwar years
LE3 .A278 2011
2011
Dennis, Michael
Acadia University
Bachelor of Arts
Honours
History
History & Classics
The Beat Generation was a group of writers and poets that transcended the middle-class conformity and affluence of postwar America and found inspiration in the subcultures that existed on the margins of society. Jack Kerouac, William S. Burroughs, and Allen Ginsberg created literature that advocated alcohol and drugs, jazz music, minority cultures, and Eastern religion in order to separate themselves from the mainstream and live alternatively. The New York intellectuals were a group of largely Jewish ex-radicals that became influential literary and social critics in the liberal consensus of the postwar years. After the realization of Stalinist totalitarianism, they adopted a virulently anti-communist worldview and advocated the merits of American liberalism, but remained critical of the mass conformity among the white middle class. The New York intellectuals ultimately dismissed the Beats and their literature as anti-intellectual and incapable of enforcing significant change to postwar conformity and affluence. However, the Beats’ literature has continued to resonate with youth through the years and continues to be studied into the twenty-first century. This thesis will argue that in failing to support the Beats and their literature, the New York intellectuals missed an opportunity to endorse the only literary and cultural rebellion of the postwar years.
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https://scholar.acadiau.ca/islandora/object/theses:778