The Apocatastasis of Community in Late Burroughs
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John Vanderheide
The experimental novels of William S. Burroughs approach the idea of community from a functionalist perspective. For Burroughs, any form of organized communal life must be understood as “an artifact designed for a purpose.” Throughout his career, Burroughs opposed “control societies” that exploit the many to empower the few with alternative “partisan” formations that strive to realize the evolutionary potential of the human species. But to appreciate fully Burroughs's vision of both control societies and their revolutionary counterparts, readers need to familiarize themselves with the complex “mythology” that the novels embody. This mythology both diagnoses the reason for humanity's “fall” into control, and suggests the remedy by which it can wrest itself free. Burroughs constructs this remedy – the purpose of the revolutionary community – as a kind of “apocatastasis,” a concept that has had divergent applications in both “pagan” and Christian metaphysics. Burroughs exploits various elements of both applications to produce a unique theological-political notion that contemporary enlightenment thinking would do well to incorporate into its critical arsenal.
© Copyright 2008 by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG, D-10785 Berlin
Articles in the same Issue
- Introduction. Identity, Community, and Comparative Literature
- Cosmopolitanism and Identity: Challenges for Comparative Literature
- Narrative Identification
- The Formative Influence of Literature. Analogical Thinking, Statements, and Identification
- Grillparzer's “The Poor Musician”: The Artist-Hermit in Search of a Community
- The Apocatastasis of Community in Late Burroughs
- The Condition of “East Asia” Discourse. Theory and Practice of De-homogenization
- First Nations Identity, Contemporary Interpretive Communities, and Nomadic Legacies
- Conditions of Identity in Writing or: about a Genocide
- (Mis)taken Identities. Myths of Origin in a South African Familienroman
- Aufklärerische Metaphysik. Walter Benjamin zu Nikolaj Lesskov und Johann Peter Hebel
- Krieg und Gartenpartys. Oberflächen des Politischen bei Rainer Maria Rilke
- Rezensionen
Articles in the same Issue
- Introduction. Identity, Community, and Comparative Literature
- Cosmopolitanism and Identity: Challenges for Comparative Literature
- Narrative Identification
- The Formative Influence of Literature. Analogical Thinking, Statements, and Identification
- Grillparzer's “The Poor Musician”: The Artist-Hermit in Search of a Community
- The Apocatastasis of Community in Late Burroughs
- The Condition of “East Asia” Discourse. Theory and Practice of De-homogenization
- First Nations Identity, Contemporary Interpretive Communities, and Nomadic Legacies
- Conditions of Identity in Writing or: about a Genocide
- (Mis)taken Identities. Myths of Origin in a South African Familienroman
- Aufklärerische Metaphysik. Walter Benjamin zu Nikolaj Lesskov und Johann Peter Hebel
- Krieg und Gartenpartys. Oberflächen des Politischen bei Rainer Maria Rilke
- Rezensionen
