William S. Burroughs and the Wreckers of Civilization
Arthur Versluis
Journal for the Study of Radicalism 2025 DOI: 10.14321/jstudradi.19.1.0037 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Key points | Argues that radicalism scholarship has focused overwhelmingly on political activists and only occasionally on literary authors, and proposes that William S. Burroughs's life and work be examined in terms of occultism and religious, social, and political radicalism. |
Abstract
The majority of scholarship on radicalism focuses on political activists, and only occasionally on literary authors. This is, of course, to be expected, because there is so much to be explored in areas ranging from anarchism, communism, environmental activism, terrorism, and communalism, to name those types of radicalism discussed in the nearly twenty years of JSR articles thus far. At the same time, only a handful of JSR articles have looked into radical literary figures. In what follows, we will look into the life and work of novelist William S. Burroughs (1914–1997) in terms of occultism and religious, social, and political radicalism.