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European Beat Studies Network (EBSN)
Membership
Over 400
President
Oliver Harris[1]
Staff
8
Websiteebsn.eu

The European Beat Studies Network (EBSN) and association (EBSN,e.V.,) is a charitable organization and network founded in 2010 by scholars Polina Mackay and Professor Oliver Harris. It comprises an international community of scholars and students, writers and artists with an interest in the broad field of Beat culture and the writers and artists associated with the Beat Generation. It holds annual conferences and promotes research and collaboration in the field of Beat Studies and the arts.[2][3][4] It is particularly transnational in focus, as Dr. Chad Weidner writes: 'The impetus of the European Beat Studies Network (EBSN) provides an additional forum for transnational angles into the Beats.'[5]

Board and membership

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The EBSN is run by a board of eight that includes Beat scholars Paul Aliferis, Benjamin J. Heal, Estíbaliz Encarnación-Pinedo, Raven See, Chad Weidner and Florian Zappe. Art historian Frida Forsgren stepped down from the board in 2020. [6][7] Current membership stands at over four hundred, drawn from across Europe and around the world.[8]

President - Professor Oliver Harris

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Professor Harris, a William Burroughs scholar, has done much to promote and develop the EBSN.[9] The Jewish Telegraph notes that Harris and colleagues 'set up the European Beat Studies Network because they had found previous academic conferences boring', with the 2016 Manchester Conference described as 'the largest conference of scholars, poets, filmmakers and musical performers interested in the Beat Generation.'[10] In a 2014 interview with Frank Rynne published on the official William S. Burroughs website Harris describes the aim of the EBSN:

Across Europe there's so much interest in the Beats--broadly defined--and the EBSN has a mission to put them in touch with one another. I'm especially keen to break down the usual academic groupings and the Anglo-American divide from non-English speakers, although the barriers are so longstanding it's not easy. It's also hard because the EBSN is free and open to all. No fees - but also no income, so it's literally a labour of love.[11]

The EBSN is frequently discussed and endorsed in both popular and scholarly works such as Professor Andrew Lees' memoir Mentored by a Madman: The William Burroughs Experiment (2016) and Kerouac on Record: A Literary Soundtrack (2018). Simon Warner, an editor of the latter, writes in his acknowledgments thanking 'those involved in Popular Music Studies and Beat Studies (with special reference to the European Beat Studies Network) - for their continued efforts to open up new and interesting areas of inquiry,' while Lees writes that 'Oliver Harris encouraged me to look at Burroughs' work from a scientific viewpoint and invited me to join a group of deadbeats (the European Beat Studies Network) whose imagination knows no limits.'[12][13]

Conferences

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The core function of the EBSN is to facilitate, promote and manage its annual conference, which has been held in the Netherlands, Denmark, Morocco, Belgium, England and France. The Tangier, Morocco conference received significant media attention in Huffington Post Morocco and El Mundo.[14][15][16] A review of the Brussels, Belgium conference was published in the American Studies journal Transatlantica.[17] Notable keynote speakers and performers appearing at previous conferences include Beat poet and Naropa Institute founder Anne Waldman, poet Robert Gibbons, musician, author and broadcaster CP Lee, noted neurologist Professor Andrew Lees, writer and academic Anouar Majid, noted English Beat poets Libby Houston and Pete Brown, and folk singer-songwriter Eric Andersen.[18][19][20][21]

Publications

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Essays derived from papers presented at the 2011 EBSN conference in Middelburg, the Netherlands, were published in a 2013 edition of the Journal of Comparative American Studies.[22] Essays derived from papers presented at the 2014 EBSN conference in Tangier, Morocco, were published in a 2016 EBSN special issue of the Purdue University Press Q2 rated Journal CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture, edited by EBSN founders Oliver Harris and Polina Mackay.[23] The EBSN website also contains original scholarship including one of the last interviews with Carolyn Cassady, and many reviews of works of Beat and related scholarship, such as Alexander Adams' review of Iain Sinclair's American Smoke, referenced on Sinclair's website.[24][25]

References

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  1. ^ "Keele University Staff Page". Retrieved 2017-03-18.
  2. ^ "Beatdom Literary Journal". 2016-08-07. Retrieved 2017-03-18.
  3. ^ "Beat Movement; Encyclopedia Britannica". Retrieved 2018-01-16.
  4. ^ "European Beat Studies Network (EBSN)". Retrieved 2017-03-18.
  5. ^ Weidner, Chad (2016). The Green Ghost: William Burroughs and the Ecological Mind. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press. p. 9. ISBN 9780809334865.
  6. ^ Belletto, Steven, ed. (2017). The Cambridge Companion to the Beats. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. vii, ix.
  7. ^ Fazzino, Jimmy (2016). World Beats: Beat Generation Writing and the Worlding of U.S. Literature. Dartmouth: New England University Press. p. 194. ISBN 9781611688986.
  8. ^ "Membership". 2010-10-13. Retrieved 2017-05-26.
  9. ^ "Live webchat with William Burroughs expert Oliver Harris". TheGuardian.com. 25 February 2014. Retrieved 2017-05-26.
  10. ^ Yaffe, Simon (2016-06-24). "Salford Jew published notorious 1959 novel". Jewish Telegraph. Manchester.
  11. ^ "Storming the Citadels of Enlightenment Oliver Harris interviewed by Frank Rynne". Retrieved 2017-05-26.
  12. ^ Lees, Andrew (2017). Mentored by a Madman: The William Burroughs Experiment. London: Notting Hill Editions. p. 211.
  13. ^ Sampas, Jim; Warner, Simon, eds. (2018). Kerouac on Record: A Literary Soundtrack. New York: Bloomsbury Academic. p. ix.
  14. ^ "Guessous, Sana, "William Burroughs, Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg: Quand Tanger accueillait la Beat Generation"". HuffPost Maroc, 24-11-2014. 2014-11-22. Retrieved 2017-03-18.
  15. ^ "Mendoza, Javier, "Tánger, patria emocional y generación 'beat'"". El Mundo, 22-11-2014. 2014-11-22. Retrieved 2017-03-18.
  16. ^ "European Beat Studies Network Conference June 2016". The John Rylands Research Institute. Retrieved 2018-03-18.
  17. ^ Pacini, Peggy; Aublet, Anna (2015-12-15). "Pacini, Peggy & Aublet, Anna "4ème conférence annuelle du réseau européen des études sur la Beat Generation (EBSN)"". Transatlantica. Revue d'Études Américaines. American Studies Journal (2). doi:10.4000/transatlantica.7660. Retrieved 2017-03-18.
  18. ^ "The Official Website of Anne Waldman". Retrieved 2017-03-18.
  19. ^ "European Beat Studies Network (EBSN) Conference Page, Manchester 2016". 2015-11-05. Retrieved 2017-03-18.
  20. ^ "Anouar Majid gives keynote at European Beat Studies Network Conference". University of New England, November 20, 2014. Retrieved 2018-03-18.
  21. ^ "I had the distinct honor..." Tingitana, 2015. Retrieved 2018-03-18.
  22. ^ Mackay, Polina; Weidner, Chad, eds. (2013-11-18). "Introduction: The Beat Generation and Europe". Comparative American Studies. 11 (3): 221–226. doi:10.1179/1477570013Z.00000000042. S2CID 145194295.
  23. ^ Mackay, Polina; Harris, Oliver, eds. (2016-12-01). "Introduction to Global Beat Studies". CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture. 18 (5). doi:10.7771/1481-4374.2980.
  24. ^ "Carolyn Cassady interviewed by Polina Mackay". 2012-07-11. Retrieved 2017-05-26.
  25. ^ "American Smoke Review – European Beat Studies Network". 11 March 2014. Retrieved 2017-05-26.
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