Beat Studies Series

Beat writing is one of the most formative poetics of the mid- to late twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Its connections to emerging postmodernisms—which collapsed boundaries among genres such as fiction, verse, diary, and memoir; between private and public pronouncements; between fact and invention; between and among sexual identities and desires—coincided with social justice movements in the United States and abroad. Since the publication of “Howl” (Allen Ginsberg), On the Road (Jack Kerouac), and Naked Lunch (William S. Burroughs), followed in time by Dutchman (LeRoi Jones/Amiri Baraka), Dinners and Nightmares (Diane di Prima), Abomunist Manifesto (Bob Kaufman), The Tapestry and the Web (Joanne Kyger), Fast Speaking Woman (Anne Waldman), and more, Beat literary works have served as wisdom texts for many young people, particularly in the United States but also around the globe. This series, created through an alliance with the Beat Studies Association, will bring recognition to the decades of serious scholarship devoted to Beat literature and writers.

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