Countering the counterculture : rereading postwar American dissent from Jack Kerouac to Tomas Rivera / Manuel Luis Martinez.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Martínez, Manuel Luis.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

American literature--20th century--History and criticism.

American literature.

Beats (Persons).

American literature--Mexican American authors--History and criticism.

Literature and society--United States--History--20th century.

Literature and society.

Counterculture--United States--History--20th century.

Counterculture.

Mexican Americans--Intellectual life.

Mexican Americans.

Mexican Americans in literature.

Social problems in literature.

Libertarianism in literature.

Dissenters in literature.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (365 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Madison : University of Wisconsin Press, c2003.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Rebelling against bourgeois vacuity and taking their countercultural critique on the road, the Beat writers and artists have long symbolized a spirit of freedom and radical democracy. Manuel Martinez offers an eye-opening challenge to this characterization of the Beats, juxtaposing them against Chicano nationalists like Raul Salinas, Jose Montoya, Luis Valdez, and Oscar Acosta and Mexican migrant writers in the United States, like Tomas Rivera and Ernesto Galarza. In an innovative rereading of American radical politics and culture of the 1950s and 1960s, Martinez uncovers reactionary, neoromantic, and sometimes racist strains in the Beats' vision of freedom, and he brings to the fore the complex stances of Latinos on participant democracy and progressive culture. He analyzes the ways that Beats, Chicanos, and migrant writers conceived of and articulated social and political perspectives. He contends that both the Beats' extreme individualism and the Chicano nationalists' narrow vision of citizenship are betrayals of the democratic ideal, but that the migrant writers presented a distinctly radical and inclusive vision of democracy that was truly countercultural.

Contents:

Intro

Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction: Dissent and the American Culture of Mobility

Part 1. The Roots of Postwar Dissent and the Counterculture

1. "No Fear Like Invasion": Movement, Absorption, and Stasis Horror in the Beat Vision

2. "With Imperious Eye": Kerouac's Fellaheen Western

3. Civitas and Its Discontents: The Lone Hunter Pleads the Fourth

Part 2. The Americano Narrative: Postwar Mexican American Dissent and Community

4. Historian with a Sour Stomach: Zeta's Americano Journey

5. Mapping el Movimiento: Somewhere between América and Aztlan

6. Arriving at el Pueblo Libre: The Insistence of Americanismo

Notes

Bibliography

Index.

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references (p. 335-348) and index.

ISBN:

9786612269431

9780299192839

0299192830

9781282269439

1282269437

OCLC:

658188038