Name:

Antonio José Bonome García (UDC)

Dissertation title:

Study on the Relation Between Word and Image in the Works of William S. Burroughs. Multimodality and Interdisciplinarity in His Artistic Production

Name of the advisor:

Prof. Dr. José María Paz Gago

Line of research:

Literaturas e Culturas Galega e Portuguesa e Literatura Medieval

Abstract:

A look to William S. Burroughs’ creative process reveals that this author, during a big part of his career, linked his consciousness to a set of cybernetic tools to produce text and create his own semiotic system. Brion Gysin’s cut-up method gave Burroughs a contingency mechanism with which to examine the use and abuse of a discourse aimed at programming the subject. The intensive practice of a visual and literary collage led him to a review of the word in terms of addiction, devil possession and infection to be neutralised. His techniques of dissection, juxtaposition and transposition of contents to different media generated complex textualities and a series of explanatory essays considered today both writing manuals and political manifestos. An interesting example of Burroughs’ manual was The Revised Boy Scout Manual, text which includes some proposals of semiotic and urban guerrilla. On a process-based level, the rizhomatic aspects of his writing can be detected in related works such as The Wild Boys, where he fictionalises contents present in The Revised Scout Manual, or in his collaboration with the illustrator Malcolm McNeill in the graphic novel Ah Pook is Here. The very organisation of his Wild Boys, gangs of teenagers that, as his texts, seem to exist in a condition of autopoeisis, could be a good metaphor to describe a good-sized portion of Burroughs’ body of work.

Program:

2015-2016

Keywords:

Burroughs, creative writing, compared literature

Translation:

Original language