McTyeire Fireside Chat “ The Beat Hotel in Paris, Americans acting badly in the City of Light”
McTyeire Fireside Chat “ The Beat Hotel in Paris, Americans acting badly in the City of Light”
Thursday, September 20, 7-8pm
McTyeire International House, Fireside Lounge
By Professor Bob Barsky, College of Arts and Science and Vanderbilt Law School
Prof. Barsky will take you on a journey to a bohemian Parisian paradise where freedom of thought produced some of the most passionate and creative work:
The approach I’ll take in my discussion of the Beat Hotel in Paris is consistent with the life led there by Allen Ginsberg, Gregory Corso and William S. Burroughs: “The cheap rent and permissive atmosphere fostered a climate of freedom and creativity unfettered by financial concerns. As non-French speakers, they had no involvement with French culture and the issues of the day, nor were they restricted by rules with which the French lived, simply because they were ignorant of them. As Jean-Jacques Lebel put it, “They were on an island, isolated in this magic little paradise full of rats and bad smells. But it was paradisiacal because it gave them the green light to be themselves without having to confront America.” The Beat Hotel offered the freedom to be idle or to work with passionate intensity, to while away the day in cafés or to talk through the night. It was a place where ideas could be developed in a community removed from conventional morality in the manner of the residents of the famous Impasse du Doyenné, the first bohemian colony. The assumption of course is that this idealized distinctive non-authoritarian setting will lead to the deepest, most passionate and most creative work we can do, individually, and as a group, in the course of our Fireside Talk.
For more information contact: anja.bandas@vanderbilt.edu