Abstract
Jack Kerouac, the author of On The Road, was a central figure of the Beat Generation, a generation which rebelled against middle-class conformity in post–World War II America. Kerouac described himself as “a religious wanderer” (Kerouac 2006: 2), but an examination of his texts and life suggest his travels may also be understood as tourism. Viewed through the prism of tourism, this study will argue, for example, that MacCannell’s notion of the tourist’s quest for reality and authenticity (MacCannell 1989: 3) provides some insight into why Kerouac wrote that just south of Macon, Georgia, he and his travelling companion Neal Cassady stopped and got out of the car, “and suddenly both of us were stoned with joy to realize that in the darkness all around us was fragrant green grass and the smell of fresh manure and warm waters” (Kerouac 1957: 115). As Kerouac rebelled against being, as one of his protagonists in The Dharma Bums put it, “imprisoned in a system of work, produce, consume, work, produce, consume” (Kerouac 2006: 73) he travelled across America on a rapidly improving network of highways, turning “mobility into a retreat” (Holladay and Holton 2009: 42). Kerouac alternately identified himself as a hobo (Kerouac 1973: 181) and “not a real hobo” (Kerouac 1973: 173), but this article asks whether Kerouac’s travels were those of the last in a line of wanderers rebelling against conformity and modernization or a precursor of mobile mass tourism in America.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Boniface, Priscilla, and Peter J. Fowler. 1993. Heritage and tourism in ‘the global village.’ New York: Routledge.
Bruner, Edward M. 2005. Culture on tour: Ethnographies of travel. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
Bukowski, Charles. 1975. Factotum. Santa Rosa: Black Sparrow Press.
Bukowski, Charles. 1990. Septuagenarian stew: Stories and poems. Santa Rosa: Black Sparrow Press.
Cassady, Carolyn. 1976. Heart beat: My life with jack and neal. Berkeley: Creative Arts Book Company.
Cassady, Carolyn. 1991. Off the road: My years with cassady, kerouac, and ginsberg. New York: Penguin Books.
Charters, Ann. 1974. Kerouac: A biography. New York: Warner Paperback.
Coleman, Simon, and Mike Crang. 2003. Tourism: Between place and performance. Oxford: Berghahn.
Debord, Guy. 2006. Society of the spectacle. New York: Rebel Press.
Feied, Frederick. 2000. No pie in the sky: The hobo as American cultural hero in the works of Jack London, John Dos Passos, and Jack London. San Jose: Authors Choice Press.
Fife, Wayne. 2004. Penetrating types: Conflating modernist and postmodernist tourism on the great northern peninsula of Newfoundland. Journal of American Folklore 117 (464): 147–167.
Gewirtz, Issac. 2008. Beatific soul: Jack Kerouac on the road. New York: Scala Publishers.
Holladay, Hilary, and Robert Holton. 2009. What’s your road, man? critical essay on Jack Kerouac’s On The Road. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press.
Jewesbury, Daniel. 2003. Tourist:pioneer:hybrid: London Bridge, the Mirage in the Arizona Desert in Visual culture and tourism, ed. D. Crouch and N. Lubbren, 223–239, Oxford: Berg.
Kerouac, Jack. 1957. On the Road. New York: Viking Press (Signet).
Kerouac, Jack. 1966. Satori in Paris. New York: Grove Press.
Kerouac, Jack. 1971. The Subterraneans. New York: Grove Press.
Kerouac, Jack. 1972. Visions of Cody. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Kerouac, Jack. 1973. Lonesome Traveler. New York: Ballantine Books.
Kerouac, Jack. 1992. Tristessa. New York: Penguin Books.
Kerouac, Jack. 2006. The Dharma Bums. New York: Penguin Books.
Knabb, Ken. 2005. Guy Debord: Complete cinematic works—Scripts, stills, documents (translated and edited by Ken Kanbb). Oakland, CA: AK Press.
Lofgren, Orvar. 1999. On holiday: A history of vacationing. Berkeley: University of California Press.
London, Jack. 2004. The Road. Fairfield, IA. 1st World Library—Literary Society.
MacCannell, Dean. 1989. The tourist: A new theory of the leisure class. New York: Schocken Books.
MacCannell, Dean. 2001. The commodification of culture. In Hosts and guests revisited: Tourism issues of the 21st century, ed. Valene E. Smith and Maryann Brent, 380–390. New York: Cognizant Communications Corp.
McCullough, David. 1992. Truman. New York: Simon and Schuster.
Merrifield, Andy. 2005. Guy Debord. London: Reaktion Books.
Miles, Barry. 2005. Charles Bukowski. London: Virgin Books.
Overton, James. 1996. ‘Introduction,’ and ‘promoting the “real” Newfoundland: Culture as tourist commodity,’ in Making a world of difference: Essays on tourism, culture, and development in Newfoundland, 1–42 and 101–123. St. John’s: ISER Books.
Plant, Sadie. 1992. The most radical gesture: The situationist international in a post modern age. New York: Routledge.
Prisig, Robert. 1999. Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance: An inquiry into values. New York: Harper Torch.
Raskin, Johan. 2008. The radical Jack London: Writings on war and revolution. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Richardson, Mark. 2008. Zen and now: On the trail of Robert Prisig and the art of motorcycle maintenance. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.
Riesman, David, Nathan Glazer, and Reuel Denney. 1961. The lonely crowd. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Shinder, Jason. 2006. The poem that changed america: Howl fifty years later. New York: Farrar Straus, and Giroux.
Smith, Valene L. 1989. Hosts and guests: The anthropology of tourism, 2nd ed. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Stronza, Amanda. 2001. Anthropology of tourism: Forging new ground for ecotourism and other alternatives. Annual Review of Anthropology 30: 261–283.
Tucker, Hazel. 2001. Tourists and troglodytes: Negotiating for sustainability. Annals of Tourism Research 28 (4): 868–891.
Urry, John. 1997. The tourist gaze: Leisure and travel in contemporary societies. London: Sage Publications.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Bill, R. Traveller or tourist? Jack Kerouac and the commodification of culture. Dialect Anthropol 34, 395–417 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10624-010-9157-y
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10624-010-9157-y