Retaking The Universe: William S. Burroughs in the Age of Globalization [Paperback]

Davis Schneiderman (Author), Philip Walsh (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0745320813 | ISBN-13: 978-0745320816 | Publication Date: May 20, 2004

William S. Burroughs is one of America's most influential and widely studied writers. A leading member of the Beat movement, his books and essays continue to attract a wide readership. His films, paintings, recordings and other projects that grew out of his literary production, together with his iconic persona as a counter-culture (anti-)hero, mean his work has become a broad cultural phenomenon. This collection of essays by leading scholars offers an interdisciplinary consideration of Burroughs's art. It links his lived experience to his many major prose works written from 1953 on, as well his sound, cinema and media projects. Moving beyond the merely literary, the contributors argue for the continuing social and political relevance of Burroughs's work for the emerging global order. Themes include: Burroughs and contemporary theory; debates on 'reality'; violence; magic and mysticism ; cybernetic cultures; language and technology; control and transformation; transgression and addiction; the limits of prose; image politics and the avant-garde.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Davis Schneiderman is Chair of the American Studies Program and an Assistant Professor of English at Lake Forest College, Illinois. He is currently engaged in research on Burroughs's connections to literary plagiarism and issues of digital copyright.Philip Walsh is Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology/Anthropology at the State University of New York, College at Cortland. He is author of Skepticism, Modernity and Critical Theory.

Product Details

• Paperback: 328 pages
• Publisher: Pluto Press (May 20, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0745320813
• ISBN-13: 978-0745320816
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.3 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.1 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #752,034 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Davis Schneiderman is a multimedia artist and writer whose works include the current or forthcoming novels Drain (Triquarterly/Northwestern), Blank: a novel (Jaded Ibis), Multifesto: A Henri d'Mescan Reader (Spuyten Duyvil), DIS (BlazeVox) and Abecedarium (Chiasmus, w/Carlos Hernandez); the co-edited collections Retaking the Universe: Williams S. Burroughs in the Age of Globalization (Pluto) and The Exquisite Corpse: Chance and Collaboration in Surrealism's Parlor Game (Nebraska, 2009); and the audiocollage Memorials to Future Catastrophes (Jaded Ibis). His creative work has been accepted by numerous publications including Fiction International, The Chicago Tribune, The Iowa Review, and Exquisite Corpse. He is Director of Lake Forest College Press/&NOW Books (lakeforest.edu/press), where he co-edits the series The &NOW AWARDS: The Best Innovative Writing; he also directs the NEH-funded Virtual Burnham Initiative (vbi.lakeforest.edu).

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Accessible Studies of Burroughs, February 2, 2009

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WaxNostalgic (Nom De Plume) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Retaking The Universe: William S. Burroughs in the Age of Globalization (Paperback)

This text joins what appears to be a growing number of books collecting critical essays on Burroughs' work.

The attempts to address Burroughs' relevance in the "Age of Globalization" are tenuous at best; Some authors wisely avoid the subject altogether, while others make a very shoddy job of it. It seems this was a term employed just to sell the concept of the book.

The earlier essays in the text, drawing parallels betweens Burroughs' work and other contemporary movements (Surrealism, Dadaism, etc.) are the most valuable.

Halfway through the book, however, one author writes his essay in a way that can only be described as "fan fiction," and things start to go downhill from there. I actually had to stop reading the book toward the very end, in the middle of a ridiculous essay that tried to connect dots between Burroughs and Crowley. There may be some connections worth mentioning between the two, but they were not at all well illustrated here; citing trends in the comic book industry didn't help the authors' cause or credibility. This, after a too long (and very messy) essay that tried to squeeze Burroughs' humor through some of the most excruciatingly dull scholarly language...

That aside, the book was not a total waste of time for this long-time Burroughs scholar. Start with the "At The Front" collection for a much better survey of Burroughs essays through the years.

8 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars All agents defect - wouldn't you?, February 2, 2005

By 

Simon Strong "The World's Most Obscure Experi... (Melbourne, Australia) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Retaking The Universe: William S. Burroughs in the Age of Globalization (Paperback)

Even the best ¨critical¨ ¨theory¨ is just stuff that's been made up to sound big and clever - and this anthology's no different. Some of the pieces are better than others - in that they correlate more with my personal prejudices. One might expect a book about WSB and Globalisation to critique Burroughs's engagement with the Control Machine: Nike/Gap ads, work with corp-rockers U2 blah blah, publication by Murdoch and so on. Strangely this is all omitted. There's not much point pretending it didn't happen just coz it's too hard for you. At least WSB never pretended he was a lefty like these guys do.