The Paradox of Thanatos: Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg
From Self-Destruction to Self-Liberation
Tanguy Harma
The Paradox of Thanatos: Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg
From Self-Destruction to Self-Liberation
Tanguy Harma
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Omschrijving
What this book evidences is that the sacrosanct quest for transcendence staged by Kerouac and by Ginsberg is underpinned, primarily, by a trope of nullification that acts as a menace for the self.
“The Paradox of Thanatos takes a fresh look at the Beat Generation and its ambiguous aesthetic tenets. Shuttling back and forth between self-destruction and self-liberation, Kerouac and Ginsberg, who are at the center of this new study of 1950s American counterculture, have often been (mis-)understood as prophets of drugs, sex, and the doom of individual creativity. As Harma convincingly argues, however, while revelling in the destruction of the creative self by the stifling forces of mass-consumption and greed, the Beats also managed to forge a more positive vision, and thus carve out a spiritual space that allowed for transcendence and (aesthetic) redemption. Harma’s is a timely study that adds an important new angle on postwar American society and its countercultural critics.” —Klaus Benesch, Full Professor of English and American Studies; LMU, International Research Professor; LMU, The University of Munich
Educated in France and in the United Kingdom, Tanguy Harma received his PhD in English in 2018 from Goldsmiths, University of London. His international experience in higher education (University of Minnesota, Goldsmiths, University of Southampton) brought him this year to Istanbul Kültür University, where currently teaches in the Department of English Language and Literature and continues his exploration of the writings of the American counterculture.