Course Schedule:

 

Week 1. Historical Context: When was the Beat era?

Assignment: Create a working timeline of the Beat era. When was it? What was happening culturally?

 

Week 2. Defining the Beat Generation

Read: Charters, “Introduction” from Beat Down to Your Soul

         Holmes, “This is the Beat Generation” (BD, 222)

         Lawson, “The Beats” (BD, 299)

Assignment: Blog post about defining the Beat Generation 

 

Week 3. Contexts: Hipsters, Beatniks, and White Negroes

Read: Broyard, “A Portrait of the Hipster” (BD, 42)

         Mailer, “The White Negro” (print), “Hipster and Beatnik” (BD, 328)

         Charters, “Hipsters, Flipsters, and Finger Poppin’ Daddies: A Note on 

         His Lordship, Lord Buckley, the Hippest of the Hipsters" (BD, 97). 

Assignment: Blog post about these subcultures 

 

Week 4. The Beats and Jazz

Read: Meltzer, “Poetry & Jazz” (BD, 397)

Watch: Kerouac, “San Francisco Scene”: https://vimeo.com/55816558

Assignment: Blog: Sounds of Change: The Beats and Jazz

 

Week 5. Jack Kerouac: On the Road

Read: On the Road, Part I & Part II

         Burroughs, “Remembering Jack Kerouac” (BD, 62)

         Charters, “With Jack Kerouac in Hyannis” (BD, 90)

Watch: Kerouac, King of the Beats (Netflix)

 

Week 6. Jack Kerouac: On the Road

Read: On the Road, Part III & Part IV

         Cassidy, Letter to Jack Kerouac, February 1951 (BD, 90)

         Millstein, Review of On the Road, September 1957 (BD, 409)

 

Week 7. Allen Ginsberg: Howl and Other Poems

Read: Williams, preface to Howl and Other Poems

Poems: “Howl”, “America”, “Sunflower Sutra”, “A Supermarket in California”, “Love Poem on Theme by Whitman”

         Ginsberg, “Poetry, Violence, and the Trembling Lambs” (BD, 219)

         Original print here. 

         Milosz, “To Allen Ginsberg” (BD, 413)

Assignment: Blog post about Ginsberg and his poems

 

Week 8. Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Other Beat Poets

Read: Bendich, “Award to Lawerence Ferlinghetti” (BD, 10)

         Bremser, “Poets and Odd Fellows” (BD,18)

         Ferlinghetti, “Note on Poetry in San Francisco” (BD, 168)

 

Week 9. “Beatniks” in the Media

Read: O’Neil, “The Only Rebellion Around” (BD, 424)

         Podhoretz, “The Know-Nothing Bohemians” (BD, 479)

         Life, “Squaresville, USA vs. Beatville”

         Time Magazine, “Fried Shoes,” “The Disorganization Man”

           McDarrah, “Anatomy of a Beatnik” (BD, 377)

Watch:  Pull My Daisy 

 

Week 10. William S. Burroughs: Naked Lunch

Read: Naked Lunch

         Douglas, “ ‘Punching a Hole in the Big Lie’: The Achievement of                    William S. Burroughs” (BD, 129)

         Kazin, “He’s Just Wild About Writing: W.S. Burroughs’ The Wild Boys”            (BD, 280)

         McCarthy, “Burroughs’ Naked Lunch” (BD, 355)

         Waldman, “Burroughs: ‘Hurry up. It’s time.” (BD, 598)

Assignment: Blog post 

 

Week. 11. Women’s Voices

Read: Waldman, foreward to Women of the Beat Generation

         Knight, “Sisters, Saints, and Sibyls,” introduction to Women of the Beat          Generation

         Johnson, from Minor Characters (BD, 251)

         Kyger, Poems: “Tapestry”, “It Is Lonely”, “My Father Died This Spring”            (BD, 297)

         Joan Haverty Kerouac, “Meeting Neal Cassidy” (BD, 285)

         DiPrima, “The Floating Bear, a newsletter”, “Rant” (BD, 116)

Assignment: Blog post 

 

Week. 12 The Beats in Hollywood

Watch: On the Road directed by Walter Salles

           Howl directed by Rob Epstein & Jeffrey Friedman

Assignment: How do the films work in relation to the written works? Consider film properties like camera angles, characters, etc.

 

 

Required Texts:

 

Ann Charters, Beat Down to Your Soul: What Was the Beat Generation?

 

Brenda Knight, Women of the Beat Generation

 

Jack Kerouac, On the Road

 

Allen Ginsberg, Howl and Other Poems

 

William S. Burroughs, Naked Lunch