An On & Off Beat: Kerouac's Beat Etymologies


If one does a search in the MLA database for “off-beat” as a title word, the number of hits is limited to four different entries. This can mean one of two things: Either the notion of “off-beat” is seriously under-theorized and something needs urgently to be done about it; or else the notion of “off-beat” is completely marginal to literary and cultural criticism and should best remain so. This talk proceeds in the belief that the former is closer to the truth and that a venture off the beaten track is always worthwhile, and not merely another exercise in academic beating off. Let us therefore examine the etymologies of beat and off-beat, and use them for a discussion of Jack Kerouac and his cultural politics and poetics.

Was Kerouac a cool Beat road-tripper, womanizer and drinker of rot-gut wine?



Or - was Kerouac the sensitive writer type, intelligent, rugged, yet handsome?



Or – was Kerouac a Mama's Boy and a pussycat?



The truth lies somewhere in-between:

Kerouac was an On Again - Off Again Beat…

Slides
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