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Prying Open My Third Eye: Drug Subculture in ...

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Prying Open My Third Eye: Drug Subculture in American Literature from the 1950s

Name:Personal
Gilmer, Lillian J. Role :Text(marcrelator)
creator

Name:Personal
Loffreda, Dr. Beth Role :Text(marcrelator)
contributor

typeOfResource
still image genre
Origin Information Place
Laramie, Wyoming
University of Wyoming (keyDate="yes")
2009-05-13

Language:Text
eng

Physical Description

born digtal

abstract
Literature represents culture, that of the mainstream and that of the underground, and the literature written by members of a subculture defined by drug use evolves into a complex consideration of difference in a conformist American society. Through the works of William S. Burroughs, Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg in the 1950s, Ken Kesey and Tom Wolfe in the 1960s, Hunter S. Thompson in the 1970s, and finally the contemporary novelists T. C. Boyle and Susan Choi, I traced the role of drug-related difference and its struggle within the mainstream cultural construct. Within these works I discovered a progressive theme of conflict between the two cultural entities. From a beginning entrenched in a willful separation from the ‘norm’ which resulted in anxiety, to an explosion of alternative thought bent on utilizing difference, to a resulting disillusionment when that difference proved largely ineffectual, and finally to a criticism of the past through distance, literature of the drug subculture examines the fissure in thought and action between an ‘other’ and the ‘norm.’ My findings were reinforced by secondary research including the critical responses to the authors themselves as well as books about the role of drugs in American society. note
From - Undergraduate Research Day 2009 - Celebration of Research - Abstracts
Subject
drug use

Subject
American society

Related Item:series Title Information
Undergrauate Research Day 2009

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http://digital.uwyo.edu/copyright.htm
Record Information languageOfCataloging :Text(ISO639-2B)
English :Code(ISO639-2B)
eng