KURT HEMMER
Courses Taught:
English 101: Composition
English 102: Composition
Literature 105: Poetry
Literature 112: Literature and Film
Literature 117: Crime Literature
The American Experience in Paris
Background:
PhD, English, Washington State University, 2000
Dissertation: "Cowboys Crashing: The Beat Generation and the American Western Outlaw"
MA, English, University of Connecticut, Storrs, 1996
MAT, English, Rhode Island College, 1994
BA, English, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, 1992
Interests:
Beat Generation Literature
Crime Literature
Existentialism
Film
History and Culture of Rock and Roll
Publications:
Editor of the Encyclopedia of Beat Literature. Facts On File, 2007.
"The Natives Are Getting Uppity: Tangier
and Naked Lunch." Naked Lunch
@ 50: Anniversary Essays. Ed. Oliver
Harris and Ian MacFadyen. Carbondale, IL:
Southern Illinois University Press, 2009.
65-72.
"Aestheticizing the Revolution: William S.
Burroughs in Tangier." Bowles/Beats/ Tangier.
Ed. Allen Hibbard and Barry Tharaud. Tangier:
ICPS, 2008. 99-106.
"Political Outlaws: Beat Cowboys." American
Studies Journal 50 (Fall 2007).
"The Prostitute Speaks: Brenda Frazer's Troia:
Mexican Memoirs." Paradoxa: Fifties
Fiction 18 (2003): 99-117.
"Barbarians in the Gates: Recent Beat Scholarship."
The Rocky Mountain Review 55.2 (2001):
81-8.
Presentations:
"Letter to Joan Burroughs." 50th Anniversary
Celebration of The Naked Lunch.
TH!NKART Salon, Chicago, IL. August 2009.
"Naked Lunch & Aurality: How
Cronenberg's Naked Lunch Can Help
Us Hear Burroughs-You Dig." Naked Lunch
@ 50 Symposium. University of London
Institute in Paris, Paris, France. July
2009.
"About 136 Rhetorical Questions for Michael
McClure (It's Either 136 or 142): An Introduction
for Michael McClure's Reading." The Beat
Generation Symposium. Columbia College,
Chicago, IL. October 2008.
"Infiltrating the Boy Gang: Women in the
Encyclopedia of Beat Literature."
The Beat Generation Symposium. Columbia
College, Chicago, IL. October 2008.
Screening of Rebel Roar: The Sound
of Michael McClure at 17th Edition
of the Berkeley Video & Film Festival. Berkeley,
CA. September 2008.f
Screening of As We Cover the Streets:
Janine Pommy Vega at the HOWL Festival-BoweryWomen:
Shoot the Poem! New York, NY. September
2007.
"Editing the Encyclopedia of Beat Literature."
Spring Liberal Arts Senior Faculty Lecture.
Harper College, Palatine, IL. April 2007.
"An African-American Vernacular English
Debate: Zora Neale Hurston vs. Richard Wright."
Alice Roberts's Linguistics 205. Harper
College, Palatine, IL. April 2007.
Screening of Rebel Roar: The Sound of Michael McClure at 18th Annual Lowell Celebrates Kerouac! Festival. Lowell, MA. October 2005.
Screening of Rebel Roar: The Sound
of Michael McClure at the Southwest/Texas
Popular Culture Association/American Culture
Association Conference. Albuquerque, NM.
February 2005.
"'The Natives are Getting Uppity': Burroughs,
Naked Lunch, and Morocco." Southwest/Texas
Popular Culture Association/American Culture
Association Conference. Albuquerque, NM.
February 2003.
"Outlaw as Simulacrum: Edward Dorn's Gunslinger."
Southwest/Texas Popular Culture Association
/American Culture Association Conference.
Albuquerque, NM. February 2002.
"The Birth and Death of the Beat Generation." Harper College. Palatine, IL. October 2001.
Chair: "'Beating' the System: Other Voices and Other Times in the Beat Movement." Fifth Congress of the Americas. Puebla, Mexico. October 2001.
"The Prostitute Speaks: Brenda Frazer's
Troia." Fifth Congress of the Americas.
Puebla, Mexico. October 2001.
"Re-Examining Kerouac's Pic." Beat Attitudes 2001. Lowell, MA. October 2001.
Chair: "Beat Generation and Counterculture: Burroughs." 2001 Regional Meeting SouthwestTexas Popular Culture/American Culture Associations. Albuquerque, NM. March 2001.
"Queer Outlaws: William S. Burroughs's
The Place of Dead Roads, Schizophrenics,
Nomads, and Rhizomes." 2001 Regional Meeting
Southwest/Texas PopularCulture/American
Culture Associations. Albuquerque, NM. March
2001.
Documentary DVDs with Tom Knoff:
"Wow!"-Ted Joans Lives!" (in production)
Rebel Roar: The Sound of Michael McClure.
Harper College, 2004
As We Cover the Streets: Janine Pommy
Vega. Harper College, 2003
Awards:
Disc Makers Award Berkeley Video & Film
Festival for Rebel Roar: The Sound of
Michael McClure 2008
Aurora Award Gold Documentary/Biography
for Rebel Roar: The Sound of Michael
McClure 2004
Aurora Award Platinum Best of Show Documentary/Biography
for As We Cover the Streets: Janine
Pommy Vega 2003
Sabbatical:
Spring 2008 to work with true crime author John Gilmore in North Hollywood, CA.
