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In the latter half of the 20th-century and into the 21st, William Burroughs, Samuel Delany, and bioartists such as Oron Catts, Orlan, and Stelarc have all attempted to create works which respond to the increasing biopoliticization of contemporary society. The biopolitics of today seek to regularize life and structure it according to the imperatives of economic thought, a process by which the human becomes the Foucauldian homo oeconomicus. This restricted logic of biopolitics desperately tries to cover the explosive excess of the world today, what Bataille calls general economy. The artists under consideration in this work attempt to uncover this state of excess. While they are typically seen as exploring fantastic realms of the transgressive or, in the case of bioartists, attempting to emulate science fiction, in fact it is their realism which provokes. These artists reveal the heterological body, that which cannot be contained or described by the biopolitical regime. In so doing, they rewrite our standards of taste and point the way to understandings of the human that have been otherwise unavailable to us. William Burroughs in Naked Lunch highlights the manipulability of affect in contemporary society through the reduction of the human to bare life. He uses the figure of flesh/meat as a way of depicting the heterogeneous body and to generate a counter-affect, or free-floating affect, which unlike typical affect, is not worked up into emotion. Samuel Delany, too, describes the heterogeneous or destabilized body in the heterotopia of his novel Dhalgren. While Burroughs is unable or unwilling to gesture towards the potentially radical implications of the heterogeneous body, Delany proposes a new model of community that rests upon the revelation of the heterogeneous body, a community which acts as one informed by an affirmative biopolitics. Bioart, a somewhat vexed genre of art, attempts to construct artworks that both utilize and critique new science and technology of the body. The life sciences are complicit in the rise of the biopolitical state and further the view of the human as constrained by its material substrate. Fetishistic bioart problematically reproduces a fascination with the life sciences and advanced technology. However, the bioart which I call sacred has a demystifying effect and attempts to use the knowledge gained by the life sciences to expand our understanding of the human, going beyond the bounds of that very knowledge itself. / English

This dissertation examines the techniques and themes of William Burroughs by placing him in the American Pragmatist tradition. Chapter One presents a pragmatic critical approach to literature based on Richard Rorty and John Dewey, focusing on the primacy of narration over argumentation, redescription and dialectic, the importance of texts as experiences, the end-products of textual experiences, and the role of critic as guide to experience rather than judge. Chapter Two uses this pragmatic critical lens to focus on the writing techniques of William Burroughs as a part of the American Pragmatist tradition, with most of the focus on his controversial cut-up technique. Burroughs is a writer who upsets many of the traditional expectations of the literary writing community, just as Rorty challenges the conventions of the philosophical discourse community. Chapter Three places Burroughs within a liberal democratic tradition with respect to Rorty and John Stuart Mill. Burroughs is a champion of individual liberty; this chapter shows how Burroughs' works are meant to edify readers about the social, political, biological, and technological systems which work to control individuals and limit their liberties and understandings. The chapter also shows how Burroughs' works help liberate readers from all control systems, and examines the alternative societies he envisions which work to uphold, rather than subvert, the freedom of human beings. Chapter Four concludes by suggesting some of the implications of Burroughs' work in literature, society, and politics, and by showing the value and importance of Pragmatism to the study of American literature and culture.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-25T20:21:06Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Wander Wilson Chaves Junior.pdf: 4677188 bytes, checksum: 1e766a16295097c3df5665183cc24c3b (MD5) Previous issue date: 2014-02-20 / Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico / William Burroughs was a beat writer known by his intense relation with psychoactive substances and by his effusive critics over values with universal claims. Together with his beat friends, he invented a lifestyle that confronted the United States society of his days by certain material divestment and the incorporation of cultural elements and social types considered morally reprehensible, rejected or stigmatized such as junkies, gays, blacks and indigenous people. Among the beats, friendship was a way of life invention. Burroughs presents his courage of truth by clashing with the prohibitionism, attacking the medical concept of addiction and elaborating a life from knowledges and techniques of the users of psychoactive substances. In literature, he has been known by an intense experimentation of forms of writing and by his reflections about virus, control and language. Writing has gone through his life, first as a way of transforming the horror at the accident that culminated in his wife Joan Vollmer s death, passing by the transformation of the subject in Junky and as everyday exercises to elaborate a thought by images and a space-silence writing. He elaborated a life against controls and viruses. This research deals with Burroughs s scripture-life by means of the genealogy and the Michel Foucault s notion of aesthetics of existence from two issues: drugs and language. It is an analysis about the life elaboration of William Burroughs and a work from his existence / William Burroughs foi um escritor beat que ficou conhecido por sua intensa relação com substâncias psicoativas e por desempenhar uma crítica voraz a valores com pretensão universal, como os conceitos de vício, drogas e crime. Junto aos seus amigos beats, inventou um estilo de vida que afrontava a sociedade estadunidense de seu tempo, a partir de certo despojamento material e incorporação de elementos culturais e tipos sociais considerados moralmente reprováveis, rejeitados ou estigmatizados como os junkies, os gays, os negros e os indígenas. Entre os beats, a amizade era uma forma de invenção de vida. Burroughs apresenta uma coragem da verdade ao entrar em choque direto com o proibicionismo, agredindo o conceito médico de vício e elaborando uma vida a partir de saberes e técnicas dos usuários de substâncias psicoativas. Na literatura, ficou conhecido por uma intensa experimentação de formas de escrita, e pelas reflexões sobre vírus, controle e linguagem. A escrita atravessou a sua vida, primeiro como forma de transformar o horror pelo acidente que culminou na morte de Joan Vollmer - com quem era casado -, perpassando a transformação do sujeito na escrita de Junky e como exercícios cotidianos para elaborar um pensamento por imagens e uma escrita espaço-silêncio. Elaborou uma vida contra controles e vírus. Esta pesquisa se debruça sobre a escritura-vida de Burroughs por meio da genealogia e da noção de estética da existência de Michel Foucault a partir de dois temas: drogas e linguagem. Trata-se de uma análise sobre a elaboração de vida de William Burroughs e um trabalho a partir de sua existência

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-26T14:54:38Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Wander Wilson Chaves Junior.pdf: 4677188 bytes, checksum: 1e766a16295097c3df5665183cc24c3b (MD5) Previous issue date: 2014-02-20 / Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico / William Burroughs was a beat writer known by his intense relation with psychoactive substances and by his effusive critics over values with universal claims. Together with his beat friends, he invented a lifestyle that confronted the United States society of his days by certain material divestment and the incorporation of cultural elements and social types considered morally reprehensible, rejected or stigmatized such as junkies, gays, blacks and indigenous people. Among the beats, friendship was a way of life invention. Burroughs presents his courage of truth by clashing with the prohibitionism, attacking the medical concept of addiction and elaborating a life from knowledges and techniques of the users of psychoactive substances. In literature, he has been known by an intense experimentation of forms of writing and by his reflections about virus, control and language. Writing has gone through his life, first as a way of transforming the horror at the accident that culminated in his wife Joan Vollmer s death, passing by the transformation of the subject in Junky and as everyday exercises to elaborate a thought by images and a space-silence writing. He elaborated a life against controls and viruses. This research deals with Burroughs s scripture-life by means of the genealogy and the Michel Foucault s notion of aesthetics of existence from two issues: drugs and language. It is an analysis about the life elaboration of William Burroughs and a work from his existence / William Burroughs foi um escritor beat que ficou conhecido por sua intensa relação com substâncias psicoativas e por desempenhar uma crítica voraz a valores com pretensão universal, como os conceitos de vício, drogas e crime. Junto aos seus amigos beats, inventou um estilo de vida que afrontava a sociedade estadunidense de seu tempo, a partir de certo despojamento material e incorporação de elementos culturais e tipos sociais considerados moralmente reprováveis, rejeitados ou estigmatizados como os junkies, os gays, os negros e os indígenas. Entre os beats, a amizade era uma forma de invenção de vida. Burroughs apresenta uma coragem da verdade ao entrar em choque direto com o proibicionismo, agredindo o conceito médico de vício e elaborando uma vida a partir de saberes e técnicas dos usuários de substâncias psicoativas. Na literatura, ficou conhecido por uma intensa experimentação de formas de escrita, e pelas reflexões sobre vírus, controle e linguagem. A escrita atravessou a sua vida, primeiro como forma de transformar o horror pelo acidente que culminou na morte de Joan Vollmer - com quem era casado -, perpassando a transformação do sujeito na escrita de Junky e como exercícios cotidianos para elaborar um pensamento por imagens e uma escrita espaço-silêncio. Elaborou uma vida contra controles e vírus. Esta pesquisa se debruça sobre a escritura-vida de Burroughs por meio da genealogia e da noção de estética da existência de Michel Foucault a partir de dois temas: drogas e linguagem. Trata-se de uma análise sobre a elaboração de vida de William Burroughs e um trabalho a partir de sua existência

My thesis explores the role of religion and spirituality in the work of the Beat Generation, a mid-twentieth century American literary movement. I focus on four major Beat authors: William S. Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, and Gregory Corso. Through a close reading of their work, I identify the major religious and spiritual attitudes that shape their texts. All four authors’ religious and spiritual beliefs form a challenge to the Modern Western worldview of rationality, embracing systems of belief which allow for experiences that cannot be empirically explained. They also assert the primacy of the individual—a major American value—in a society which the authors believed to encroach upon individual agency. Ginsberg, Kerouac, and Corso are also strongly influenced by established religious traditions: an aspect of their work that is currently overlooked in Beat criticism. Burroughs’ belief in a magical universe shapes his work. Ginsberg is heavily influenced by the Jewish exegetical tradition. Kerouac and Corso’s work contains Catholic themes. My study rectifies some tendencies in current criticism which I find problematic: a dismissal of the Beats as a countercultural phenomenon rather than a literary movement, a tendency to frame Beat religion and spirituality in vague language, and a tendency to focus solely on Buddhism within the movement. My study illustrates that the Beat authors’ work contains serious religious and spiritual content, that they take part in American religious and literary traditions, and that the authors engage with major social issues of the post-war period.

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L’analyse des processus de création de l’écrivain américain William Burroughs et de l’artiste brésilien Cildo Meireles construit deux figures exemplaires de l’artiste en tant que sujet politique. Les choix faits par ces deux artistes pendant le processus de réalisation de leurs œuvres déclarent en effet leur position face à la littérature, à l’art et à la réalité. Ils les construisent en tant que sujets-artistes et produisent des rencontres qui (re) configurent l’espace artistique. Ils renouvellent les pratiques de création. Nous étudions ces processus avec pour outils différentes notions théoriques. Outre celle de la politique, qui, selon Jacques Rancière, est le processus de l’égalité ; celle du sujet, définie par Alain Badiou, comme une construction qui se produit quand un événement arrive ; et celle de choix qui, selon Slavoj Zizek, ne laisse pas intacte la subjectivité du sujet. Nous essayons ainsi de définir le caractère politique des choix faits par ces deux artistes et de mettre en évidence l’idée de l’art et de la politique que leurs œuvres mobilisent.Nous étudions le processus de création de Burroughs, de son premier roman jusqu’à la découverte du cut-up et l’écriture de son texte Last Words. Nous analysons le processus de création des œuvres de Meireles : Insertions dans les circuits idéologiques, œuvre qui se constitue dans un processus en marche ; et Le sermon sur la montagne : Fiat lux. Construction d’une situation : transformation d’un espace en une bombe potentielle.Malgré leurs différences, ces œuvres ont une procédure de réalisation similaire, une sorte de travail tabulaire, de collage d’éléments hétérogènes. / The analysis of the creation process of both Americain writer Willam Burroughs and Brazilian artist Cildo Meireles construct two exemplary figures of the artist as political subject. The choices made by these artistes during the process of realization of their works declare indeed their position on literature, art and reality. Their choices construct them as artists-subjects and produce encounters that (re) configure the art space. They renew the creative practices. We study these processes with some theoretical tools: such as the notion of politics which according to Jacques Rancière, is the process of equality; the notion of subject, defined by Alain Badiou as a construction that is produced when an event happens; and the notions of choice which, according to Slavoj Zizek, does not leave intact the subjectivity of the subject. Thus we try to define the political nature of the choices made by these artists and to highlight the idea of art and politics that their works mobilize. We study the process of creation of Burroughs, from his first novel until his discovery of cut-up technique and the writing of his text Last Words. We analyze the process of creation of Meireles’s works: Insertions into Ideological Circuits, a work that is established as a running process and The Sermon on the Mount: Fiat Lux that is the construction of a situation. It is the transformation of a space into a potential bomb. Despite their differences these works have a similar implementations procedures a kind of a tabular work, a collage of heterogeneous elements.

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