WILLIAM BURROUGHS (1914 - 1997)

A selective list of open access literary criticism on William Burroughs, favoring signed articles by recognized scholars, articles published in reviewed sources, and web sites that adhere to the MLA Guidelines for Authors of Web Pages


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Literary Criticism and Analysis

Campbell, James. This Is the Beat Generation. Publisher's web page and an excerpt from the first chapter

Dellamora, Richard. Review of Dellamora's Postmodern Apocalypse: Theory and Cultural Practice at the End. ("Queer Apocalypse: Framing William Burroughs.") Postmodern Culture v.6 n.3 (May, 1996), reviewed by James Berger

Hibbard, Allen, ed. A review of Hibbard's Conversations with William S. Burroughs. (2000) Review by Mary Sands in Jack Magazine, issue 7

Joselit, David. Burroughs's virology - mixed media, William Burroughs, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, California. In Art in America, Nov, 1996

Lardas, John. A review of The Bop Apocalypse: The Religious Visions of Kerouac, Ginsberg and Burroughs. (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2001). Reviewed in College Literature, Fall 2002 by Chandarlapaty, Raj

Mikriammos, Philippe. The Last European Interview: An Interview with William Burroughs. The Review of Contemporary Fiction," Spring 1984, Volume 4

Murphy, Timothy S. Introduction to William Burroughs from the Literary Encyclopedia, 21 March 2002. On The Naked Lunch (1959); The Nova Trilogy (1961)

Pallanck, Laura. William S. Burroughs, on Burroughs as a collagist. Remix, March 1, 2005

Punday, Daniel. "Narrative after deconstruction: structure and the negative poetics of William Burroughs's 'Cities of the Red Night.'" In Style, Spring, 1995

Wood, Brent. "Bring on the Noise! William S. Burroughs and Music in the Expanded Field." Review of Burroughs' Dead City Radio. In Postmodern Culture Volume 5, 1994-1995


Introductory, Overview, Web Sites

RealityStudio, a William S. Burroughs Community, contains excellent material on Burroughs, including early essays by Marshall McLuhan, Joan Didion, and Terry Southern, notes on collecting Burroughs, interviews, and more

A primary and secondary bibliography for William Burroughs from Professor Paul P. Reuben

Guardian (UK) obituary for William Burroughs, by James Campbell, August 4, 1997

William S. Burroughs - 1914-1997. Brief memoir of Burroughs by a fellow author. In The Advocate, Jan 20, 1998 by Gary Indiana

Naked Lunch movie review. In National Review, March 2, 1992 by John Simon

Author J.G. Ballard discusses the work of Burroughs in an interview in Salon magazine

Author David Gates on the influence of the Beats on younger writers, in Salon Magazine

About a documentary that films the last meeting of Paul Bowles, Allen Ginsberg, and Burroughs

A review of The Naked Lunch by Mary McCarthy, originally pub. in 1963 in The NY Review of Books

An M.A. thesis on the publishing history of Beat writers, by Michael Hayward (1991)

Article on Burroughs' wife, Joan Vollmer by Duncan Campbell Crary in Salvage Magazine, Jan. 2003

Site from the Naropa Institute's School of Disembodied Poetics contains audio files of lectures given at Naropa by William Burroughs and others. The Naropa Archive Project is preserving and providing access to over 3500 recordings made at Naropa since 1974


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