New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles: A Cultural Map of the Beat Generation

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Published: Dec 31, 2021
DOI: https://doi.org/10.47743/lincu-2021-2-0214
Keywords:
Beat Generation New York Los Angeles San Francisco space place social movements

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Andreea Cosma
Ovidius University, Constanta, Romania

Abstract

This paper explores the topographical and socio-cultural developments during the Golden Age in New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco, three Beat Generation epicenters, which determined the deconstruction of traditional norms. Modifications at both city and society levels were represented by the emergence of countercultures, such as the Beat. The visibility received by urban problems, due to the increase in social demonstrations and activism, fostered the formation of a unified front that demanded equality and encouraged social and political movements, such as the Civil Rights and the Second Wave Feminism. The socio-political challenges which the American society was confronted with from the 1950s to the 1970s in these three cities, also reveal a few problems regarding the status of the Beats as well as of minorities in metropolises.

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How to Cite
Cosma, A. “New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles: A Cultural Map of the Beat Generation”. Linguaculture, vol. 12, no. 2, Dec. 2021, pp. 19-31, doi:10.47743/lincu-2021-2-0214.
Issue
Vol. 12 No. 2 (2021)
Section
Literary and Cultural Studies
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Author Biography

Andreea Cosma, Ovidius University, Constanta, Romania

Andreea Cosma is a PhD student of Philology at Ovidius University Constanta, conducting research in geocritical readings of, and activist manifestations in, the literary works of the Beat writers under the supervision of Professor Adina Ciugureanu, PhD. Andreea Cosma has a BA in American Studies and an MA in Anglo-American Studies, both at Ovidius University. She is also an alumna of the SUSI program, Global Social Entrepreneurship Institute. Her most recent works are “Beat City: ‘Metamanifest Places’ at the Crossroads of Literature and Activism in the Beat Generation” (2019), published in The International Journal of Cross-Cultural Studies and Environmental Communication and “The Poet as Activist: Spaces of Protest in Allen Ginsberg’s Poetry” (2020), published in The Annals of ‘Ovidius’ University of Constanța: Philology Series.

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