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Appropriating the Beats, Radicalising the Literary Biopic: Intersectional Politics and Ginsberg and Kerouac on Screen

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Screening the Author

Part of the book series: Palgrave Studies in Adaptation and Visual Culture ((PSADVC))

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Abstract

Shachar provides some ground-breaking analysis of films that have yet to receive critical analysis. These films include adaptations of the biographies and lives of the radical Beat authors, including Kill Your Darlings (2013), Howl (2010), On the Road (2012), and Big Sur (2013). Through an analysis of these films, she offers some original exploration of the literary biopic genre in relation to complex ideological concerns of intersectionality, religious thought in relation to Judaism, Buddhism, and Christianity as they merge with American national identity, and contemporary race and gender politics. Shachar concludes by arguing that these films meld the radical counterculture beliefs and ideas of the Beat authors of the 1950s and 1960s with a modern intersectional politics that both utilises and challenges the classic cinematic and cultural tropes of the literary biopic.

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Correspondence to Hila Shachar .

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Shachar, H. (2019). Appropriating the Beats, Radicalising the Literary Biopic: Intersectional Politics and Ginsberg and Kerouac on Screen. In: Screening the Author. Palgrave Studies in Adaptation and Visual Culture. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-18850-4_5

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