Pelton to Discuss On the Road to Mark Its 50th Anniversary
On Tuesday, October 30, Medaille will host a celebration of Jack Kerouac’s landmark novel, On the Road, in the Library at Huber Hall, Medaille College.
With the 50th anniversary of Kerouac’s famous book comes the release of The Original Scroll, an early version of the novel originally typed by Kerouac on a continuous paper scroll without paragraph breaks or fictionalization of the real people he was describing.
- The event will begin at 4:30 p.m. with a panel discussion on The Original Scroll and the Importance of Kerouac 50 Years Later.” Participants include:
Dr. Michael Basinski, curator, Poetry Collection, University at Buffalo;
Dr. Mark Gunther, assistant professor of Clinical Neurology and Psychiatry, University at Buffalo School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, Department of Neurology;
Dr. Jeannette Ludwig, associate professor of Romance Languages, University at Buffalo;
Dr. Ted Pelton, associate professor of English, Medaille College. - A Beat Generation Dinner (”The girls, Bev and Jean, had cooked up a snack of beans and franks…”) will follow from 5:45 - 6:25 p.m. Conversation (like about sexist assumptions…?) with the panelists will continue over dinner, and books and booksigning will be available.
- The event will conclude with a reading by Dr. Pelton at 6:30 p.m., from his novel, Malcolm & Jack (and Other Famous American Criminals). Pelton’s novel is being featured in tandem with On the Road: The Original Scroll on amazon.com during the month of October.
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October 16th, 2007 at 1:39 pm
Kerouac gives us a very different figure to look at in terms of where we come from as Americans in the last half-century. While the 1940s were a very important time in US history, when America’s ‘Greatest Generation’ made sacrifices that defeated Nazi fascism, the legacy that we have taken from this as a nation is a checkered one. In essence, we’ve tried over and over again to restage our great victory, when we truly were liberators of the oppressed in other nations, and where we received nothing but thanks and congratulations for our efforts in war. But our leaders since that time have put too much stock in war as a solution to problems, and as a result we’ve had Vietnam and now our disastrous, and seemingly endless, involvement in Iraq — a conflict we deliberately staged and began in an effort of national self-deception.
Kerouac, on the other hand, was a pacifist — almost a dirty word to Americans today. He represents a searching consciousness, one that doesn’t start with all the answers, but goes out looking for the truth — in other people, in places he hasn’t been, in generally trusting humanity. Kerouac doesn’t give us answers; rather, he proposes an openness toward the world that’s based on seeking and questioning. That’s why I think we celebrate him today, even though he had a hard time getting his books into print when he wrote them. Maybe we have caught up now to a point where Kerouac’s openness and optimism can give us meaning, now that we have travelled very far down the wrong road…
October 21st, 2007 at 9:52 pm
Great. Add me (if you wish)to the list of panelists. Sounds like fun!