Jack Kerouac and the American Spectacle

Resistance and Authenticity in Primitivism, Transcendence, and Communion
Erscheinungsjahr 2026
ISBN: 978-3-631-93414-2
Verlag: Peter Lang GmbH, Internationaler Verlag der Wissenschaften

Buch, Englisch, Band 19, 346 Seiten, Format (B × H): 148 mm x 210 mm, Gewicht: 516 g

Reihe: American Culture

This book explores the search for authenticity in the work of Jack Kerouac in the context of postwar American capitalism and the rise of the spectacle as a dominant mode of social mediation. It examines how Kerouac’s experimental prose, spiritual inquiry, and relational aesthetics function as strategies of resistance to cultural homogenization, existential alienation, and hyper-individualism. Drawing from philosophy, anthropology, media theory, cognitive and evolutionary science, and narratology, the study traces how Kerouac reimagines American identity through encounters with the Other, esoteric forms of knowledge, and intersubjective experience. Combining close textual analysis with a broad interdisciplinary lens, it considers how Kerouac’s liminal position—as both insider and outsider—enables a unique literary response to the anxieties of his time. By placing Kerouac in dialogue with thinkers such as Guy Debord, Jean Baudrillard, Friedrich Nietzsche, and C. G. Jung, this book sheds new light on the aesthetic, philosophical, and political dimensions of his work.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Hochard, Talal

Über Autor(innen)

Talal Hochard is Assistant Professor of American literature at the University of Réunion Island. He holds a joint PhD in U.S. literature from the University of Lorraine and Masaryk University. His research focuses on twentieth- and twenty-first-century U.S. literature and forms of literary and media resistance within the culture industry.