BA, MA (Paris, France), MA (Ottawa)
Dissertation: For the Road. Towards a definition of Counterculture
Examining Committee:
Ihor Junyk (Supervisor), Jonathan Bordo, Michael Epp
External Examiner: Erik Mortenson (Lake Michigan College)
Internal Examiner: Hugh Hodges
Chair: Karleen Pendleton-Jimenez
Abstract
For the Road is a study of the modes of transmission of ideas within the Counterculture in its different forms. It is a genealogy of movements that define themselves “against” what is established as “Culture”. The philosophy of the Beat Generation does not come out of nowhere and in turn, many recent movements are indebted to the Beat Generation. The goal of this dissertation is to formulate a theory of Counterculture as a whole using various “lenses” such as Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies. The foundation of the argument starts with the Beat Generation. The Beats, often perceived as the founding fathers of the Counterculture had predecessors. The first parts of this dissertation deal with the idea of transmission and the way the Beats reformulated the ideas of their predecessors to make these ideas relevant again in the context of the mid-twentieth century. The dissertation then deals with the successors of the Beats who themselves reformulated the ideas that the Beats had once “re-invented” in the context of the late twentieth century and the beginning of the twenty-first. The dissertation then shifts to a much wider understanding of the notion of Counterculture. The Counterculture has always existed and its incarnations have either faded away or have been co-opted by the impersonal forces of mainstream Culture. The last part of the dissertation, the creative writing project, is an attempt to re-create a Counterculture, one that would always have the potential to be born again while remaining free from the shackles of mainstream Culture. This last part puts theory into practice, using such concepts as Barthes’ death of the author and Proudhon’s reinvention of the concept of property, including intellectual property.