Countering the Counterculture: Rereading Postwar American Dissent from Jack Kerouac to Tomás Rivera
Editorial Reviews
Book Description
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.
From the Back Cover
"A totally original and brilliant revision of American cultural studies and Chicano studies. It persuasively pairs the Beats with Chicano writers and activists through the metaphor and palpable reality of migratory movement and its meanings for the American experience."-José E. Limón, University of Texas at Austin
Countering the Counterculture: Rereading Postwar American Dissent from Jack Kerouac to Tomás Rivera
Countering the Counterculture: Rereading Postwar American Dissent from Jack Kerouac to Tomás Rivera,Manuel Luis Martinez,University of Wisconsin Press,0299192849,20th century,American - General,American - Hispanic American,American literature,Beat generation,Caribbean & Latin American,History and criticism,Literary Criticism,Literature - Classics / Criticism,Mexican American authors,Popular Culture - General
Countering the Counterculture: Rereading Postwar American Dissent from Jack Kerouac to Tomás Rivera
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