ENGL 6619

Writing on Tape in the 60s, 70s, 80s: Art and Politics of the Overdub

Course Description

Course information provided by the 2026-2027 Catalog.

This class examines the centrality of audiotape to the aesthetic and political cultures of the late Cold War period. After writing On the Road in the mid-1950s, Jack Kerouac spent twenty years writing a novel that tried, in part, to emulate in literary writing the properties and capacities of tape recording. By the time Visions of Cody was finally published in 1972, audiotape had become an aesthetic medium in its own right, its capacity for editing inspiring revolutions in music, art, and writing. From its very inception, however, it was also an instrument of political communication and surveillance. With an eye to the state and another to the field of music, this class will focus on the way literary writing responded to and incorporated the new technology.

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