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Events
Jan. 9 | Call for papers: Identities and Technocultures
A 2-day conference about American culture and technologies that examines how new technologies dominate and define Americaness in the US and abroad. Co-sponsored by the University of Iowa Center for Ethnic Studies and the Arts (CESA) and the Mid-America American Studies Association (MAASA).
Resources: Abstracts of American Studies Dissertations
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Madigan, Andrew J. "Countersystem Analysis & Social Criticism in the Works of Charles Bukowski, Jack Kerouac & J.D. Salinger," American Studies Program, Saint Louis University, March 1996.
Modernity has left us with anomie and desperation. Nietzsche proclaimed God dead; Camus, Beckett, and Sartre could not resurrect Him. Twentieth-century literature is preoccupied with the quest for meaning. The “knowledge” of meaninglessness and the rejection of God take place within the context of a search for meaning and God. Many cannot reconfigure a world fragmented by modern/post-modern criticism and nothing to replace the values rejected by such criticism. Bukowski, Kerouac and Salinger represent the quest for alternative values to replace those which have led to alienation and disbelief.
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