Diane di Prima

A presente pesquisa visa analisar o papel da mulher da geração beat e o avanço literário pelo qual ela foi responsável, bem como a aceitação que teve dos membros do próprio grupo contracultural e da sociedade norte americana em que estava inserida. Com base em referencial teórico e na análise da obra Memórias de uma Beatnik de Diane di Prima, de gênero memorialístico, foi possível perceber como a autora narra não apenas suas experiências como integrante do movimento, mas também descreve sua dificuldade em ser aceita propriamente como escritora. Além da análise literária e do estudo dos elementos estéticos da obra, foi ainda apresentado neste trabalho um panorama histórico da geração beatnik a fim de podermos contextualizar o mundo, a sociedade e o grupo em que di Prima estava inserida.

A short talk on Diane di Prima's Revolutionary Letters and the radical possibilities of a didactic poetics.

Written for a panel convened by Tom Vandeputte for The Real Estate of Education at BAK Utrecht, on seminal texts of radical pedagogy from around 1970.

Margaret Fuller is often portrayed as a protégé of Ralph Waldo Emerson, and thus her close relationship with Emerson and her inclusion in the intellectual circle of the Transcendentalists can be interpreted as a sort of nepotism. However, a closer look at correspondence between Fuller and Emerson shows a lack of understanding about Fuller’s feminist ideas on Emerson’s part, and also reveals Fuller’s disappointment in the lack of fulfillment she experienced in her friendship with Emerson. The Transcendentalist movement rested on the desire of its participants to search for and be their true selves. Nevertheless, a frustrated and disappointed Fuller felt she could not be her true self around her friend and mentor. It is this frustration that led to Fuller’s separation from Emerson and the Transcendentalists. Ironically, the moment Fuller broke free from the confines of Emerson’s prescriptions, she became a true Transcendentalist and ultimately paved the way for women to define themselves outside the limits of patriarchal definitions of truth.
Starting with Fuller’s liberation from Emerson, this thesis illustrates the ways in which Fuller radically challenged the traditional separation of the mind and body—a separation Emerson advocates in Nature—and paved the way for other women to do the same. To explore Fuller’s influence on later manifestations of the Transcendentalist ideology among women writers, this thesis explores three memoirs written by women during three periods of significant development in the feminist movement. These comparisons reveal Fuller’s influence on the definitions of feminism, outline those previous definitions and the restrictions those definitions have had thus far on the feminist movement, and redefine feminism as a Transcendentalist pursuit.

This paper argues that the writers of the Beat Generation have been misrepresented in the popular culture, depicted as frivolous nihilists, and viewed as a literary movement with spiritual undertones, whereas they should instead be viewed as a spiritual movement with a strong literary tradition. Close readings of two Beat poets, Diane di Prima and Anne Waldman are undertaken with this premise, using Buddhist philosophies as an interpretive device to support this claim. Issues of performativity, feminist political activism, and humour are explored in a Buddhist context, and the relevance of the work of the Beats in the twenty first century is explored.