Articles

OLIVER HARRIS

These articles reflect my ongoing interest in Beat literature, alongside occasional forays into other areas of 20th-century writing and culture

A full list of my articles
YearArticle
2022“Making Dead Fingers Talk,” in Burroughs Unbound: William S. Burroughs and the Performance of Writing, edited by S.E. Gontarski (New York: Bloomsbury): 121-65.
2021 “The Persian Connection,” Introduction to Naked Lunch, by William Burroughs, translated into Farsi by Farid Ghadami (Tehran: Hermand Publishing). 400 pages. Introduction 1-10. Also published online
2021“State-of-the-Field: Survey of Current Scholars,” Journal of Beat Studies, 8: 78.
2020“DANGER Sign: William Burroughs Against the Academy,” Soft Need 23 (Basel: Expanded Media Editions): 78-83.
2020Beat Literature in a Divided Europe (book review feature), Recherche littéraire/Literary Research 36 (Fall 2020): 257-63.
2019“Cutting Up the Century,” in William S. Burroughs, Cutting Up the Century. Eds. Joan Hawkins and Alex Wermer-Colan (Indiana UP): 28-49.
2019“Burroughs and Biography: An Interview with Barry Miles,” in William S. Burroughs, Cutting Up the Century. Eds. Joan Hawkins and Alex Wermer- Colan (Indiana UP): 57-72.
2019“Cross the Wounded Galaxies: A Conversation About The Cut-Up Trilogy,” in William S. Burroughs, Cutting Up the Century. Eds. Joan Hawkins and Alex Wermer-Colan (Indiana UP): 305-317.
2018“William Burroughs’ Cut-Ups Lost and Found in Translation,” L’Esprit Créateur 58.4 (Winter 2018): 31-48.
2017Editor’s Introduction to “Global Beat Studies,” Special Issue of CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture 18.5 (December 2016), eds. Oliver Harris and Polina Mackay.
2017“Ham and Eggs and Hermeneutics: Re-Reading Hemingway’s ‘The Killers,’” Journal of Modern Literature, “Special Issue: Revisiting Modernist Classics” 40.2 (Winter 2017): 41-59.
2017Tribute to Ann Charters. Journal of Beat Studies. 5 (2017): 17.
2017“The European Beat Studies Network Interview.” Beat Scene 86: 48-50.
2016“Und pfft – weg ist es,” in Udo Breger, Road Stops: Stationen einer Lebensreise mit Burroughs, Gysin und vielen anderen (Basel: Imago/ Mondial, 2016): 83-88.
2016“William Burroughs: Beating Postmodernism,” in The Cambridge Companion to the Beats ed. Steven Belleto (CUP): 123-36.
2015“Gateway Drug,” Introduction to A Man Called Burroughs Photographic Exhibition catalogue (London: Aloes Books).
2014Review Essay, William S. Burroughs: Scientologist! by David Wills, Journal of Beat Studies vol. 3: 123-26.
2014“‘Problems after a certain point are insoluble’: An Interview with William Burroughs,” Beat Scene 71: 52-55.
2013Review Essay, Scripting Hitchcock by Walter Raubicheck and Walter Srebnick, The Journal of Screenwriting 4.2 (2013): 43-46.
2012“Minute Particulars of the Counter-Culture: Time, Life, and the Photo-poetics of Allen Ginsberg,” Comparative American Studies 10.1 (March 2012): 3-29.
2010“William Burroughs” entry in The Encyclopedia of Twentieth-Century Fiction, ed. Patrick O’Donnell (Wiley-Blackwell): 476-78.
2010“The Beat Hotel / Cut-Up Headquarters,” Fabrikzeitung (Zurich), 264.
2010“Cutting Up the Corpse,” in Davis Schneiderman et al, The Exquisite Corpse: Chance and Collaboration in Surrealism’s Parlor Game (Lincoln: U of Nebraska P): 82-103.
2009“The Beginnings of ‘Naked Lunch, an endless novel,’” in Harris and MacFadyen (Eds.) Naked Lunch@50: Anniversary Essays (Southern Illinois UP): 14-25.
2008“Everything Lost: The Latin American Notebook of William S. Burroughs – The Inside Story,” Beat Scene, 56: 38-45.
2007“William Burroughs,” entry in Kurt Hemmer (Ed.) The Encyclopaedia of Beat Literature. New York: Facts on File: 31-37. With Rob Johnson, “Queer” (267-70) and ‘Yage Letters’ (355-56).
2006“Not Burroughs’ Final Fix: Materializing The Yage Letters.” Postmodern Culture 16.3 (January 2006): 8,500 words.
2005“‘Burroughs is a poet too, really’: The Poetics of Minutes to Go.” Edinburgh Review 114: 24-36.
2005“William Burroughs,” entry in William Lawlor (Ed.) Beat Culture: Lifestyles, Icons, and Impact (Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 2005): 29-43.
2005“Killing the Killers: Hemingway, Hollywood, and Death,” in David Seed (Ed.) Literature and the Visual Media (Cambridge: D.S. Brewer): 74-95.
2004“’Virus X’: Kerouac’s Visions of Burroughs,” in J. Skerl (Ed.) Reconstructing the Beats (New York: St. Martin’s Press): 203-15.
2004“Cutting Up Politics,” in Davis Schneiderman and Philip Walsh (Eds.) Retaking the Universe: William S. Burroughs in the Age of Globalisation (London: Pluto): 175-200.
2003“Junky at Fifty,” Beat Scene, 43: 36-37.
2003“Film Noir Fascination: Outside History but Historically So.” Cinema Journal 41.3 (Fall): 3-24.
2002“Film Noir et la fascination nocturne,” Les Cahiers de CIRCAV 13: 143-68.
2001“Out of Epistolary Practice: Email from Emerson, Post-Cards to Pynchon,” American Literary History, 13, 1: 158-68.
2000“Beating the Academy,” College Literature, 27, 1: 195-212.
2000“Cold War Correspondents: Ginsberg, Kerouac, Cassady and The Political Economy of Beat Letters,” Twentieth Century Literature, 46, 2: 171-92.
1999“Apocalypse-Burroughs-Cage-Dada-Encounter: A Cut-Up ABCDE,” Burroughs/Cage (Lyme Regis): 9-16.
1999“‘Can You See A Virus?’ The Queer Cold War of William Burroughs,” Journal of American Studies (Cambridge), 33, 2: 243-66.
1999“Queer Shoulders, Queer Wheel: Homosexuality and Beat Textual Politics,” in C. Van Minnen et al (Eds) Beat Culture: The 1950s and Beyond (Amsterdam: VU Press): 221-40.
1998“In hope he is still alive,” in In Memoriam: William Burroughs (Exeter: Stride Publications): 112.
1997“Naming Names: The Beat Hall of Fame,” OverHere: A European Journal of American Culture (Nottingham), 17, 1: 218-25.
1996“The Beat Generation” and “William Burroughs,” in The Reader’s Guide to Literature in English (London: Fitzroy Dearbon): 59-60 and 111-12.
1996/97 “It’s no calligraphy for school children,” Connotations: A Journal for Critical Debate (New York/Munster) 6 3: 337-53.
1991“Cut-Up Closure: The Return to Narrative,” in Jennie Skerl & Robin Lydenberg (eds.) William S. Burroughs At the Front: Critical Reception 1959-1989 (Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP): 251-62.