With the publication of Rethinking Kerouac: Afterlives, Continuities, Reappraisals, the anthology’s co-editors discuss the past, present, and future of the author’s unsettled legacy
Jack Kerouac had a thing for numerology, as evidenced by his meticulous documentation of word counts and his conviction in the auspicious significance of round and prime numbers. No doubt the year 2025 would strike him as compelling for its implications.
But there are other signs that Kerouac is poised to experience a renaissance, beginning with the January publication of Rethinking Kerouac: Afterlives, Continuities, Reappraisals, edited by Erik Mortenson (Lake Michigan College) and Tomasz Sawczuk (University of Bialystok, Poland). Released just months after Steven Belletto’s The Cambridge Companion to Jack Kerouac, both collections serve as a collective rejoinder to some of the recent critical and cultural narratives that have weighed on Kerouac’s posthumous legacy.
Sawczuk and Mortenson first met at the 2018 European Beat Studies Network Conference in Vienna. Sawczuk’s work on Kerouac and Lacan (On the Road to Lost Fathers: Jack Kerouac in a Lacanian Perspective [2019]) interested Mortenson, as did the notion of co-editing another volume, as he did with Tony Trigilio in The Beats and the Academy: A Renegotiation (2023). “So much of what we do as academics is isolated— the myth of the scholar alone in the library hunched over the desk,” said Mortenson, “so for me, the chance to share ideas in a collaborative setting is always welcome.”
The project was conceived in commemoration of Kerouac’s centenary in 2022. It made sense to “celebrate Kerouac’s enduring influence on literary landscapes in America and worldwide,” said Mortenson. Moreover, he added, the current cultural moment seemed ripe for reassessing Kerouac in a way that transcended “beyond mere homage to critically engage with paradoxes inherent in Kerouac’s life and work.”
Indeed, as Sawczuk recently told Beat Spotlight, “What is no less important, the collection serves as a platform for both esteemed scholars and emergent voices in Kerouac Studies.” It’s a point driven home by the book’s price: at around $20, the cost is intended to reach enthusiasts and scholars alike, added Mortenson.
In celebration of the publication of Rethinking Kerouac, Sawczuk and Mortenson engaged in a dialogue about the intricacies of assembling this collection, the ongoing surprises Kerouac presents, and the evolving landscape of scholarship surrounding his work. Their conversation has been edited for publication.
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Mortenson: We should probably start by talking about the reasons we decided to produce Rethinking Kerouac and what we hope it achieves. Some of the recent “buzz” around Kerouac was certainly created by his centennial and the numerous talks and discussions it generated. But his appeal goes beyond this desire to “look back” one hundred years after his birth. Kerouac is not only a fascinating writer but a fascinating figure, and my hope for the volume is that it opens new ways of thinking about Kerouac and his work that go beyond uncritical celebration or complete dismissal. There has been excellent work done in the field of Kerouac Studies, from the groundbreaking work of Tim Hunt to the groundbreaking work of Hassan Melehy. Rethinking Kerouac attempts to offer what I hope are fruitful possibilities for this engaging writer going forward. Would you agree, Tomasz?
Sawczuk: I also consider it an accomplishment that the book bridges the gap between academic and non-academic readers of Kerouac. For academic audiences, it offers insights into how Kerouac’s works invite interpretations through cutting-edge critical frameworks, including affect theory, queer studies or indigenous studies, while non-academic readers will benefit from explorations of Kerouac’s rich legacy, ongoing global cultural impact, and lesser-known ventures into poetry, art, non-fiction, and screenwriting. Alongside Steven Belletto’s recent Cambridge Companion to Jack Kerouac (CUP, 2024), it attests to Kerouac’s continued influence and relevance. How do you think the two books compare, Erik?
Mortenson: What Belletto’s Companion and our Rethinking Kerouac both demonstrate is a continual fascination with a complicated writer who is both personally inspirational but also socially revealing. Working on my chapter for Belletto’s book, “Kerouac and Memory,” provided the opportunity to revisit a masterpiece of Kerouac’s corpus that seems to only grow richer and more poignant the older I become—Doctor Sax. This work, for me, not only raises meaningful questions about the passing of time and how we try to capture it but provides a unique glimpse into a Depression-era America that is both oddly familiar and strangely foreign. The richness of Kerouac’s work is its fundamental strength—every reader can find something to discover. The two volumes are, I believe, complementary. Belletto’s volume provides important context for appreciating the nuances of Kerouac’s work, while ours is meant to offer new ways of understanding Kerouac’s achievements.
Sawczuk: Both publications demonstrate that Kerouac’s body of work continues to inspire fresh interpretations and challenge contemporary readers to engage critically. On the one hand, urgent issues such as environmental collapse, forced displacement, the rise of populism and ideological extremism, and the uncertain futures of life, work, and art in an age of exponential AI growth ask about the relevance of Kerouac’s texts—a task which both volumes address.
On the other hand, a dimension that has long been overlooked is the emergence of artistic works, such as Ross Goodwin’s 1 the Road, that actively engage with Kerouac’s aesthetics and invite critical exploration. Additionally, Kerouac and his myth have steadily infiltrated new realms of popular culture. For instance, in one of my recent essays, “Digging the Digital: Beat Modalities and the Representation of the Beats in Video Games,” I examine the writer’s presence in interactive entertainment. So, Kerouac’s output and image are too expansive and dynamic to be simply written off.
Mortenson: Once Rethinking Kerouac started to come into focus, I was most surprised by an emphasis on Kerouac’s less-discussed works. Though we planned a volume that would engage the full spectrum of Kerouac’s corpus, contributors were eager to discuss both his earlier work that has more recently seen print as well as later works like Vanity of Duluoz or Pic that have received less attention over the years. I thought the contributors do a great job of not only revealing new understandings of these works but using them to “Rethink” the entirety of Kerouac. Despite writing a proposal, receiving abstracts, and editing chapters along the way, you never really know how an edited volume will look until you begin to assemble it.
Sawczuk: Conceptualizing this book and collaborating with our exceptional contributors made it abundantly clear how multifaceted Kerouac was as a writer and how diverse the potential directions for Kerouac Studies are. Erik, what would you say is the most valuable insight you gained from working on our project?
Mortenson: As an editor I am of course biased, but I found something intriguing in every one of these pieces! But to answer your question, I was amazed at the range of new “takes” on Kerouac. Contributors had interesting things to say, not only about more “classic” works but also about less-discussed topics. Again, I’m biased, but I think that every one of these essays could easily be a starting point for even more discussion and inquiry. What are your thoughts, Tomasz? Did editing the volume reveal anything particularly intriguing for you?
Sawczuk: Through the process of engaging with our collaborators’ fresh perspectives on Kerouac and shaping the book into its final form, I became increasingly struck by the profound complexity of Kerouac’s oeuvre and the vast potential for future explorations of his work. Echoing Erik, I believe every contribution in this collection offers compelling avenues for new discussions—whether it’s Brett Sigurdson’s insights into Kerouac’s ventures into screenwriting, Aldon Nielsen’s detailed examination of his poetic techniques, or the reflections of Kerouac’s translators on the global circulation of his writings.
Mortenson: What I also found interesting editing the volume is that many contributors have insightful analyses of race, gender, sexuality, and even class that are worth exploring in more depth. While they might not fully absolve Kerouac (and rightly so), they shed new light on such problems, pushing us beyond what I see as simple “knee-jerk” reactions that either ignore obvious misogyny and racism in Kerouac or write it off as “boys will be boys.”
For many readers, their response is to simply ignore such issues. Others argue that Kerouac lived in a different time, with different standards, so it’s not fair to judge him according to current expectations. Neither of these positions is satisfactory, and Kerouac and his work are indeed problematic at times—a point brought home to me re-reading Visions of Cody after many years and finding the derogative “C” word used to describe women throughout. Would I want my nine-year-old daughter reading this? What message would that send to her? That’s a question that kept coming up.
Sawczuk: Absolutely agreed. I also believe that we cannot simply turn a blind eye to Kerouac’s misogyny and exoticization of the racial Other, nor can we disavow entirely his works and his place in American literature. This raises one of the most pressing questions: how should we read and teach Kerouac today?
Furthermore, if Kerouac’s writing stirs up so much trouble, why does he retain such enduring iconicity and unrelenting global appeal among young readers and new generations of artists (let’s just recall Kristen Stewart’s outspoken admiration for On the Road or Benedict Cumberbatch wearing a Dior sweater featuring Kerouac’s image during the 2022 screening of Jane Campion’s The Power of the Dog)? With optimism, I hope Rethinking Kerouac serves as both a starting point and a valuable reference for further discussions on these complex issues.
Mortenson: It would be nice to see a panel, or a conference, or another edited volume even that directly takes on what to do with these issues that Kerouac and his work raise.
Sawczuk: There is still much to learn from Kerouac about negotiating languages and cultural codes. Similarly, the complexities of his fandom as well as the global reception and circulation of his works warrant critical attention—we address these themes in part through an interview with three Kerouac translators. And of course, there’s always more to explore when it comes to Kerouac the radical experimenter, relentlessly testing the boundaries of performance and writing. What about you, Erik? What new directions or ideas in Kerouac scholarship excite you the most right now?
Mortenson: As someone personally interested in reception, I’d like to see more on this as well. Kerouac is still an internationally known figure, which has always interested me. Why do readers continually return to Kerouac? What might he have to offer us into the 21st century? His work opens up any number of directions worthy of further investigation. Any of the essays in this volume, for instance, could easily be expanded upon—there is a lot more to say on all these topics. In that sense, the future of Kerouac Studies is bright, in my opinion.
Sawczuk: I’m more than sure that Kerouac Studies is in excellent hands with the younger generations of scholars, critics, and enthusiasts like Brett Sigurdson, Jean-Christophe Cloutier or Michael Millner.
Mortenson: The future of Kerouac is perhaps a bit more fraught. As previously mentioned, Kerouac’s work certainly raises problems in terms of its misogyny and occasional naïve racism. As critics, we would do well to address these issues head-on, as ignoring them is not a long-term solution. But I think it is also true that Kerouac will always appeal to readers looking for innovative work that questions the status quo. Kerouac will be continually rediscovered, which means his work will live on, as long as there are discontented young readers out there. His work should thus remain relevant for some time to come!
