Aesthetic representation and political economy in the beat narrative: Structures of feeling in the post-World War II generation

This interdisciplinary project, which primarily uses cultural studies methodologies, explores the role of the literary text in relation to both Karl Marx\u27s material conception of history, as well as Raymond William\u27s idea of a structure of feeling. Using the novels published by Jack Kerouac and William S. Burroughs in the 1950s (specifically, On the Road, Dharma Bums, and Naked Lunch), the intent is to gain some understanding of the relationship between the historical moment in which these texts were written and the material conditions affecting both culture and society during the immediate post-World War II era. It will focus largely on the intersectionality between aesthetic representation and political economy during the transition from the modern to the post-modern and the industrial to the post-industrial