Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

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Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

• When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.

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Sociopolitical Context

• ON THE ONE HAND,
• Nixons Foreign and Domestic Policies

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On the Other Hand

• exuberant counter-culture
• 1960s cliches Haight/Ashbury
• after the 1960s comes Fear and Loathing
• (utopian gt dystopia)

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Lets all start a band.
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Sex, Drugs, and Rock-and-Roll

• romantic ecstasy
• primitivism the authenticity of the id
• published in Rolling Stone
• gathers no moss, apart from society
• mick jagger et alia the bad boys
• magazine as institutionalized rebellion
• to maintain authenticity, ratchet up rebellion

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Literary Form

• What is Gonzo?
• be an anti-intellectual intellectual
• mock your doctorate
• allude to Søren Kierkegaard
• the fact/fiction divide ironic self-reference
• the politics of the road novel
• from suburban houses
• from communal obligation

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Gonzo (wikipedia definition)

• Gonzo is a style of reportage, filmmaking, or any
  form of multimedia production in which the
  reporter, filmmaker or author is intrinsically
  enmeshed with the subject action (rather than
  being a passive observer), popularized by Hunter
  S. Thompson.
• 1) embedded subject pomo crisis of
  subjectivity, 2) counter-cultural mischief
  ludic New Left resistance, 3) naturalization or
  popularization of modernist writing stylesdrug
  induced stream of consciousness