Beat Studies Series

The Beat Generation is one of the most formidable literary movements of the mid- to late-twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Its innovative connections to emerging postmodernisms—collapsing boundaries among genres such as fiction, verse, and memoir; between private and public life; between fact and invention; between and among sexual identities and desires—coincided with social justice movements in the United States and abroad. Its radical experimental poetics challenged forms and rhetorics of conventional as well as speculative literary arts languages. The Beat Studies Book Series will deepen understandings of the Beat Generation, bringing fresh insights to the work of established Beat writers while also highlighting previously under-recognized Beat artists and under-studied dimensions of the Beat movement. Literature and artists aligned with contemporaneous movements, such as the New York School, Black Mountain writers, and those of the San Francisco Renaissance, as well as unaffiliated outsider artists of the period, are also included in the series. Above all, the series brings recognition to the decades of serious scholarship devoted to Beat literature and culture—and it is committed to providing a venue for new scholarship that will expand the field of Beat Studies and connect readers to the important work of emerging and established scholars in the field.

To submit a proposal for consideration in the series, please contact the series editors: Ronna C. Johnson and Steven Belletto.