Olympia Press was a Paris-based publisher, launched in 1953 by Maurice Girodias as a rebranded version of the Obelisk Press he inherited from his father Jack Kahane . It published a mix of erotic fiction and avant-garde literary fiction , and is best known for issuing the first printed edition of Vladimir Nabokov 's Lolita .
113-635: In its heyday during the mid-fifties Olympia Press specialized in books which could not be published (without legal action) in the English-speaking world. Early on, Girodias relied on the permissive attitudes of the French to publish sexually explicit books in both French and English. The French began to ban and seize the press’ books in the late fifties. Precisely 94 Olympia Press publications were promoted and packaged as "Traveller's Companion" books, usually with simple text-only covers, and each book in
226-576: A heroin addiction that would affect him for the rest of his life. In 1943, while living in New York City, he befriended Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac . This liaison would become the foundation of the Beat Generation , later a defining influence on the 1960s counterculture . Burroughs found success with his confessional first novel, Junkie (1953), but is perhaps best known for his third novel, Naked Lunch (1959). It became
339-458: A "family where displays of affection were considered embarrassing." During his childhood, Burroughs developed a lifelong interest in magic and the occult , which would eventually find their way repeatedly into his writings. Significantly, he later described how, as a child, he'd seen an apparition of a green reindeer in the woods, which he identified as a totem animal , as well as a vision of ghostly grey figures at play in his bedroom. As
452-704: A 21-acre (8.5 ha) campus in the Longwood Medical and Academic Area in Boston , about 3.3 miles (5.3 km) south of the Cambridge campus. Several Harvard-affiliated hospitals and research institutes are also in Longwood, including Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center , Boston Children's Hospital , Brigham and Women's Hospital , Dana–Farber Cancer Institute , Joslin Diabetes Center , and
565-763: A 358-acre (145 ha) campus in the Allston section of Boston across the John W. Weeks Bridge , which crosses the Charles River and connects the Allston and Cambridge campuses. The university is actively expanding into Allston, where it now owns more land than in Cambridge. Plans include new construction and renovation for the Business School, a hotel and conference center, graduate student housing, Harvard Stadium, and other athletics facilities. In 2021,
678-554: A Free Society , was published by Harvard faculty, which remains one of the most important works in curriculum studies , and women were first admitted to the medical school . Between 1945 and 1960, admissions were standardized to open the university to a more diverse group of students. Following the end of World War II , for example, special exams were developed so veterans could be considered for admission. No longer drawing mostly from prestigious prep schools in New England ,
791-639: A best-selling anthology containing material from some of Olympia's most popular works, including material by Burroughs, Miller, Trocchi and others. Another well-known collection was The Best of Olympia , first published by the Olympia Press in 1963 and reprinted by New English Library in 1966. Other incarnations of the company, some with Girodias' support, emerged in Germany, Italy, and the United Kingdom. Olympia Press has been re-established and
904-671: A boy, Burroughs lived on Pershing Avenue (now Pershing Place) in St. Louis's Central West End . He attended John Burroughs School in St. Louis, where his first published essay – "Personal Magnetism", which revolved around telepathic mind-control – was printed in the John Burroughs Review in 1929. He then attended the Los Alamos Ranch School in New Mexico, which was stressful for him. The school
1017-591: A circle of exiles, homosexuals, and runaways. There, he met Ilse Klapper, born Herzfeld (1900–1982), a German Jewish woman fleeing her country's Nazi government. The two were never romantically involved, but Burroughs married her, in Croatia , against the wishes of his parents, to allow her to gain a visa to the United States. She made her way to New York City, and eventually divorced Burroughs, although they remained friends for many years. After returning to
1130-415: A collection of short stories, was published. Under the strong influence of a marijuana confection known as majoun and a German-made opioid called Eukodol , Burroughs settled in to write. Eventually, Ginsberg and Kerouac, who had traveled to Tangier in 1957, helped Burroughs type, edit, and arrange these episodes into Naked Lunch . Whereas Junkie and Queer were conventional in style, Naked Lunch
1243-428: A critical book on Scientology , Inside Scientology/Dianetics by Robert Kaufman. The South African poet Sinclair Beiles was an editor at the publisher. Other authors included Alexander Trocchi , Iris Owens (Harriet Daimler) and John Stevenson (Marcus Van Heller). Girodias had troubled dealings with his authors including copyright issues. Nabokov was dissatisfied with the copyediting, assignment of copyright and
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#17327911205151356-576: A divorce from Ilse Klapper. Meanwhile, Vollmer's addiction led to a temporary psychosis that resulted in her admission to Bellevue Hospital , which endangered the custody of her child. Upon hearing this, Burroughs immediately returned to New York City to gain her release, asking her to marry him. Their marriage was never formalized, but she lived as his common-law wife . They returned to St. Louis to visit Burroughs's parents and then moved with her daughter to Texas. Vollmer soon became pregnant with Burroughs's child. Their son, William S. Burroughs Jr. ,
1469-443: A factor in her willingness to take part in the risky William Tell stunt. After leaving Mexico, Burroughs drifted through South America for several months, seeking out a drug called yagé , which promised to give the user telepathic abilities. A book composed of letters between Burroughs and Ginsberg, The Yage Letters , was published in 1963 by City Lights Books . In 2006, a re-edited version, The Yage Letters Redux , showed that
1582-700: A family friend, who was also a neurologist at a psychiatric treatment center, Burroughs waited five months in limbo at Jefferson Barracks outside St. Louis before being discharged. During that time he met a Chicago soldier also awaiting release, and once Burroughs was free, he moved to Chicago and held a variety of jobs, including one as an exterminator . When two of his friends from St. Louis – University of Chicago student Lucien Carr and his admirer, David Kammerer – left for New York City, Burroughs followed. In 1945, Burroughs began living with Joan Vollmer Adams in an apartment they shared with Jack Kerouac and Edie Parker , Kerouac's first wife. Vollmer Adams
1695-521: A fellow student. Yet, according to his own account, he left voluntarily: "During the Easter vacation of my second year I persuaded my family to let me stay in St. Louis." Burroughs finished high school at Taylor School in Clayton , Missouri, and in 1932 left home to pursue an arts degree at Harvard University , where he was affiliated with Adams House . During the summers, he worked as a cub reporter for
1808-687: A large advance from Playboy to write an article about his trip back to St. Louis, one that was eventually published in The Paris Review , after Burroughs refused to alter the style for Playboy ’s publishers. In 1968 Burroughs joined Jean Genet , John Sack , and Terry Southern in covering the 1968 Democratic National Convention for Esquire magazine. Southern and Burroughs, who had first become acquainted in London, would remain lifelong friends and collaborators. In 1972, Burroughs and Southern unsuccessfully attempted to adapt Naked Lunch for
1921-441: A monthly allowance of $ 200 out of their earnings from Cobblestone Gardens, a substantial sum in those days. It was enough to keep him going, and indeed it guaranteed his survival for the next twenty-five years, arriving with welcome regularity. The allowance was a ticket to freedom; it allowed him to live where he wanted to and to forgo employment. Burroughs's parents sold the rights to his grandfather's invention and had no share in
2034-532: A party above the Bounty Bar in Mexico City, a drunk Burroughs allegedly took his handgun from his travel bag and told his wife, "It's time for our William Tell act ." There is no indication that they had performed such an action previously. Vollmer, who was also drinking heavily and undergoing amphetamine withdrawal, allegedly obliged him by putting a highball glass on her head. Burroughs shot Vollmer in
2147-530: A quarterly journal partially subsidized by the university, promised to publish more excerpts from Naked Lunch , but he was fired from his position in 1958 after Chicago Daily News columnist Jack Mabley called the first excerpt obscene. Rosenthal went on to publish more in his newly created literary journal Big Table No. 1 ; however, the United States Postmaster General ruled that copies could not be mailed to subscribers on
2260-638: A rundown hotel in the Latin Quarter of Paris in 1959 when Naked Lunch was still looking for a publisher. Tangier , with its political unrest, and criminals with whom he had become involved, became dangerous to Burroughs. He went to Paris to meet Ginsberg and talk with Olympia Press . He left behind a criminal charge which eventually caught up with him in Paris. Paul Lund, a British former career criminal and cigarette smuggler whom Burroughs met in Tangier,
2373-505: A shamanic ceremony with the explicit aim of exorcising the Ugly Spirit. Oliver Harris has questioned Burroughs's claim that Vollmer's death catalysed his writing, highlighting the importance for Queer of Burroughs's traumatic relationship with the boyfriend fictionalized in the story as Eugene Allerton, rather than Burroughs's shooting of Vollmer. In any case, he had begun to write in 1945. Burroughs and Kerouac collaborated on And
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#17327911205152486-588: A suspended sentence, since a literary career, according to Ted Morgan, is a respected profession in France. The " Beat Hotel " was a typical European-style boarding house hotel, with common toilets on every floor, and a small place for personal cooking in the room. Life there was documented by the photographer Harold Chapman , who lived in the attic room. This shabby, inexpensive hotel was populated by Gregory Corso , Ginsberg and Peter Orlovsky for several months after Naked Lunch first appeared. Burroughs's time at
2599-587: A union. Bacow retired in June 2023, and on July 1 Claudine Gay , a Harvard professor in the Government and African American Studies departments and Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences , became Harvard's 30th president. In January 2024, just six months into her presidency, Gay resigned following allegations of antisemitism and plagiarism . Gay was succeeded by Alan Garber , the university's provost, who
2712-567: A vacation financed from his parents' continuing support. He found Rome and Ansen's company dreary and, inspired by Paul Bowles ' fiction, he decided to head for the Tangier International Zone , where he rented a room and began to write a large body of text that he personally referred to as Interzone . To Burroughs, all signs directed a return to Tangier, a city where drugs were freely available and where financial support from his family would continue. He realized that in
2825-437: Is closer to the medieval model than to modern psychological explanations ... I mean a definite possessing entity." Burroughs' writing was intended as a form of "sorcery", in his own words – to disrupt language via methods such as the cut-up technique , and thus protect himself from possession. Later in life, Burroughs described the Ugly Spirit as "Monopolistic, acquisitive evil. Ugly evil. The ugly American", and took part in
2938-572: Is currently operating out of Washington, London, and Frankfurt. William S. Burroughs William Seward Burroughs II ( / ˈ b ʌr oʊ z / ; February 5, 1914 – August 2, 1997) was an American writer and visual artist. He is widely considered a primary figure of the Beat Generation and a major postmodern author who influenced popular culture and literature. Burroughs wrote 18 novels and novellas, six collections of short stories, and four collections of essays. Five books of his interviews and correspondences have also been published. He
3051-477: Is the world's largest academic library . Harvard alumni, faculty, and researchers include 188 living billionaires , eight U.S. presidents , 24 heads of state and 31 heads of government , founders of notable companies, Nobel laureates , Fields Medalists , members of Congress , MacArthur Fellows , Rhodes Scholars , Marshall Scholars , Turing Award Recipients , Pulitzer Prize recipients, and Fulbright Scholars ; by most metrics, Harvard University ranks among
3164-476: The St. Louis Post-Dispatch , covering the police docket. He disliked the work, and refused to cover some events, like the death of a drowned child. He lost his virginity in an East St. Louis, Illinois , brothel that summer with a female prostitute whom he regularly patronized. While at Harvard, Burroughs made trips to New York City and was introduced to the gay subculture there. He visited lesbian dives, piano bars, and
3277-525: The American Revolution . In the 19th century, Harvard was influenced by Enlightenment Age ideas, including reason and free will, which were widespread among Congregational ministers and which placed these ministers and their congregations at odds with more traditionalist, Calvinist pastors and clergies. Following the death of Hollis Professor of Divinity David Tappan in 1803 and that of Joseph Willard , Harvard's eleventh president,
3390-691: The Burroughs Corporation , and a nephew of public relations manager Ivy Lee . Burroughs attended Harvard University , where he studied English, then anthropology as a postgraduate, and went on to medical school in Vienna. In 1942, he enlisted in the U.S. Army to serve during World War II. After being turned down by both the Office of Strategic Services and the Navy , he veered into substance abuse, beginning with morphine and developing
3503-565: The Burroughs Corporation . Shortly before the 1929 stock market crash , they sold their stock for $ 200,000 (equivalent to approximately $ 3,500,000 in today's funds ). After Burroughs graduated from Harvard, his formal education ended, except for brief flirtations with graduate study of anthropology at Columbia and medicine in Vienna, Austria. He traveled to Europe and became involved in Austrian and Hungarian Weimar -era gay culture ; he picked up young men in steam baths in Vienna and moved in
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3616-533: The Carnegie Classification . The medical school consistently ranks first among medical schools for research, and biomedical research is an area of particular strength for the university. More than 11,000 faculty and 1,600 graduate students conduct research at the medical school and its 15 affiliated hospitals and research institutes. In 2019, the medical school and its affiliates attracted $ 1.65 billion in competitive research grants from
3729-494: The Darfur genocide , and tobacco , fossil fuel , and private prison industries. In the late 1980s, during the disinvestment from South Africa movement, student activists erected a symbolic shanty town on Harvard Yard and blockaded a speech by South African Vice Consul Duke Kent-Brown. The university eventually reduced its South African holdings by $ 230 million , out of a total of $ 400 million , in response to
3842-452: The Faculty of Arts and Sciences , including Sever Hall , Harvard Hall , and freshman dormitories . Upperclassmen live in the twelve residential houses , located south of Harvard Yard near the Charles River and on Radcliffe Quadrangle , which formerly housed Radcliffe College students. Each house is a community of undergraduates, faculty deans, and resident tutors, with its own dining hall, library, and recreational facilities. Also on
3955-614: The Graduate School of Arts and Sciences , the John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) , and the Division of Continuing Education , which includes Harvard Summer School and Harvard Extension School . There are nine other graduate and professional faculties and a faculty attacked to the Harvard Radcliffe Institute . There are four Harvard joint programs with MIT , which include
4068-466: The Harlem and Greenwich Village homosexual underground with Richard Stern, a wealthy friend from Kansas City . They would drive from Boston to New York in a reckless fashion. Once, Stern scared Burroughs so badly that he asked to be let out of the vehicle. Burroughs graduated from Harvard in 1936. According to Ted Morgan's Literary Outlaw , His parents, upon his graduation, had decided to give him
4181-648: The Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences expanded into the new Allston-based Science and Engineering Complex (SEC), which is more than 500,000 square feet in size. SEC is adjacent to the Enterprise Research Campus, the Business School, and Harvard Innovation Labs, and designed to encourage technology- and life science-focused startups and collaborations with mature companies. The university's schools of Medicine , Dental Medicine , and Public Health are located on
4294-697: The Harvard–MIT Program in Health Sciences and Technology , the Broad Institute , The Observatory of Economic Complexity , and edX . The university maintains 12 schools, which include: Harvard is a founding member of the Association of American Universities and a preeminent research university with "very high" research activity (R1) and comprehensive doctoral programs across the arts, sciences, engineering, and medicine, according to
4407-672: The National Institutes of Health , more than twice that of any other university. Harvard Library , the largest academic library in the world with 20.4 million holdings, is centered in Widener Library in Harvard Yard . It includes 25 individual Harvard libraries around the world with a combined staff of more than 800 librarians and personnel. Houghton Library , the Arthur and Elizabeth Schlesinger Library on
4520-661: The Puritan clergyman John Harvard , it is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States. Its influence, wealth, and rankings have made it one of the most prestigious universities in the world. Harvard was founded and authorized by the Massachusetts General Court , the governing legislature of colonial -era Massachusetts Bay Colony . While never formally affiliated with any denomination , Harvard trained Congregational clergy until its curriculum and student body were gradually secularized in
4633-592: The Tangier International Zone in Morocco , and traveled in the Amazon rainforest — and featured these places in many of his novels and stories. With Brion Gysin , Burroughs popularized the cut-up , an aleatory literary technique , featuring heavily in such works of his as The Nova Trilogy (1961–1964). His writing also engages frequent mystical , occult , or otherwise magical themes, constant preoccupations in both his fiction and real life. In 1983, Burroughs
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4746-826: The Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering . Additional affiliates, including Massachusetts General Hospital , are located throughout Greater Boston . Harvard owns Dumbarton Oaks , a research library in Washington, D.C., Harvard Forest in Petersham, Massachusetts , Concord Field Station in Estabrook Woods in Concord, Massachusetts , the Villa I Tatti research center in Florence , Italy, and
4859-457: The avant garde little magazine Nomad at the beginning of the 1960s. Burroughs left Paris for London in 1960 to visit Dr. Dent, a well-known English medical doctor who spearheaded a reputedly painless heroin withdrawal treatment using the drug apomorphine . Dent's apomorphine cure was also used to treat alcoholism, although it was held by several people who undertook it to be no more than straightforward aversion therapy. Burroughs, however,
4972-579: The counterculture of the 1960s , but also literary critics such as Mary McCarthy . Once published in the United States, Naked Lunch was prosecuted as obscene by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, followed by other states. In 1966, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court declared the work "not obscene" on the basis of criteria developed largely to defend the book. The case against Burroughs's novel still stands as
5085-529: The 18th century. By the 19th century, Harvard emerged as the most prominent academic and cultural institution among the Boston elite . Following the American Civil War , under Harvard president Charles William Eliot 's long tenure from 1869 to 1909, Harvard developed multiple professional schools, which transformed it into a modern research university . In 1900, Harvard co-founded the Association of American Universities . James B. Conant led
5198-416: The 1960s and Holt, Rinehart & Winston in the 1980s. The cut-up method, because of its random or mechanical basis for text generation, combined with the possibilities of mixing in text written by other writers, deemphasizes the traditional role of the writer as creator or originator of a string of words, while simultaneously exalting the importance of the writer's sensibility as an editor. In this sense,
5311-413: The 20th century, as its endowment burgeoned and prominent intellectuals and professors affiliated with it, Harvard University's reputation as one of the world's most prestigious universities grew notably. The university's enrollment also underwent substantial growth, a product of both the founding of new graduate academic programs and an expansion of the undergraduate college . Radcliffe College emerged as
5424-508: The Beat Hotel was dominated by occult experiments – " mirror-gazing , scrying , trance and telepathy , all fuelled by a wide variety of mind-altering drugs". Later, Burroughs would describe "visions" obtained by staring into the mirror for hours at a time – his hands transformed into tentacles, or his whole image transforming into some strange entity, or visions of far-off places, or of other people rapidly undergoing metamorphosis. It
5537-613: The Burroughs Adding Machine company, which evolved into the Burroughs Corporation . His mother was Laura Hammond Lee Burroughs, whose brother, Ivy Lee , was an advertising pioneer later employed as a publicist for the Rockefellers. His father ran an antiques and gift shop, Cobblestone Gardens, in St. Louis and later in Palm Beach, Florida , when they relocated. Burroughs would later write of growing up in
5650-974: The Center for Hellenic Studies in Greece. https://greece.chs.harvard.edu the Harvard Shanghai Center in Shanghai , China, and Arnold Arboretum in the Jamaica Plain neighborhood of Boston. Harvard is governed by a combination of its Board of Overseers and the President and Fellows of Harvard College , which is also known as the Harvard Corporation. These two bodies, in turn, appoint the President of Harvard University . There are 16,000 staff and faculty, including 2,400 professors, lecturers, and instructors. Harvard has
5763-680: The Hippos Were Boiled in Their Tanks , a mystery novel loosely based on the Carr–Kammerer situation and that at the time remained unpublished. Years later, in the documentary What Happened to Kerouac? , Burroughs described it as "not a very distinguished work". An excerpt of this work, in which Burroughs and Kerouac wrote alternating chapters, was finally published in Word Virus , a compendium of William Burroughs's writing that
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#17327911205155876-732: The History of Women in America, and the Harvard University Archives consist principally of rare and unique materials. The nation's oldest collection of maps, gazetteers, and atlases is stored in Pusey Library on Harvard Yard , which is open to the public. The largest collection of East-Asian language material outside of East Asia is held in Harvard-Yenching Library . Other major libraries in
5989-697: The Moka coffee bar and the London HQ of Scientology. Burroughs himself related the Moka coffee bar incident: Here is a sample operation carried out against the Moka Bar at 29 Frith Street, London, W1, beginning on August 3, 1972. Reverse Thursday. Reason for operation was outrageous and unprovoked discourtesy and poisonous cheesecake. Now to close in on the Moka Bar. Record. Take pictures. Stand around outside. Let them see me. They are seething around in there ... Playback would come later with more pictures ... Playback
6102-503: The Moroccan culture he had found an environment that synchronized with his temperament and afforded no hindrances to pursuing his interests and indulging in his chosen activities. He left for Tangier in November 1954 and spent the next four years there working on the fiction that would later become Naked Lunch , as well as attempting to write commercial articles about Tangier. He sent these writings to Ginsberg, his literary agent for Junkie , but none were published until 1989 when Interzone ,
6215-450: The Second World War," while Norman Mailer declared him "the only American writer who may be conceivably possessed by genius." Burroughs was born in 1914, the younger of two sons born to Mortimer Perry Burroughs (June 16, 1885 – January 5, 1965) and Laura Hammon Lee (August 5, 1888 – October 20, 1970). Of prominent English ancestry , his family lived in St. Louis, Missouri . His grandfather, William Seward Burroughs I , had founded
6328-417: The U.S. customs would search him very thoroughly on arrival. He claims he went through the most excruciating two months of opiate withdrawal while seeing his son through his trial and sentencing, traveling with Billy to Lexington, Kentucky from Miami to ensure that his son entered the hospital that he had once spent time in as a volunteer admission. Earlier, Burroughs revisited St. Louis, Missouri, taking
6441-436: The United States on several occasions, including one time escorting his son to the Lexington Narcotics Farm and Prison after the younger Burroughs had been convicted of prescription fraud in Florida. In the "Afterword" to the compilation of his son's two previously published novels Speed and Kentucky Ham , Burroughs writes that he thought he had a "small habit" and left London quickly without any narcotics because he suspected
6554-412: The United States, he held a string of uninteresting jobs. In 1939, his mental health became a concern for his parents, especially after he deliberately severed the last joint of his left little finger at the knuckle to impress a man with whom he was infatuated. This event made its way into his early fiction as the short story "The Finger". Burroughs enlisted in the U.S. Army early in 1942, shortly after
6667-399: The basis of obscenity laws. John Ciardi did get a copy and wrote a positive review of the work, prompting a telegram from Allen Ginsberg praising the review. This controversy made Naked Lunch interesting to Girodias again, and he published the novel in 1959. After the novel was published, it became notorious across Europe and the United States, garnering interest from not just members of
6780-404: The bombing of Pearl Harbor brought the United States into World War II . But when he was classified as a 1-A infantry, not an officer, he became dejected. His mother recognized her son's depression and got Burroughs a civilian disability discharge – a release from duty based on the premise that he should have not been allowed to enlist due to previous mental instability. After being evaluated by
6893-472: The churches when our present ministers shall lie in the dust." In its early years, the college trained many Puritan ministers and offered a classical curriculum based on the English university model many colonial-era Massachusetts leaders experienced at the University of Cambridge , where many of them studied prior to immigrating to British America . Harvard never formally affiliated with any particular Protestant denomination, but its curriculum conformed to
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#17327911205157006-413: The constant threat of possession, and a constant need to escape from possession, from Control. So the death of Joan brought me in contact with the invader, the Ugly Spirit, and maneuvered me into a life long struggle, in which I have had no choice except to write my way out. As Burroughs makes clear, he meant this reference to "possession" to be taken absolutely literally, stating: "My concept of possession
7119-413: The cut-up method may be considered as analogous to the collage method in the visual arts. New restored editions of The Nova Trilogy (or Cut-Up Trilogy), edited by Oliver Harris (President of the European Beat Studies Network ) and published in 2014, included notes and materials to reveal the care with which Burroughs used his methods and the complex histories of his manuscripts. Burroughs moved into
7232-454: The cut-up technique that influenced all of Burroughs's subsequent fiction to a degree. During Burroughs's friendship and artistic collaborations with Gysin and Ian Sommerville , the technique was combined with images, Gysin's paintings, and sound, via Somerville's tape recorders. Burroughs was so dedicated to the cut-up method that he often defended his use of the technique before editors and publishers, most notably Dick Seaver at Grove Press in
7345-409: The female counterpart of Harvard College, becoming one of the most prominent schools in the nation for women. In 1923, a year after the percentage of Jewish students at Harvard reached 20%, A. Lawrence Lowell , the university's 22nd president, unsuccessfully proposed capping the admission of Jewish students to 15% of the undergraduate population. Lowell also refused to mandate forced desegregation in
7458-455: The following year, a struggle broke out over their replacements. In 1805, Henry Ware was elected to replace Tappan as Hollis chair. Two years later, in 1807, liberal Samuel Webber was appointed as Harvard's 13th president, representing a shift from traditional ideas at Harvard to more liberal and Arminian ideas. In 1816, Harvard University launched new language programs in the study of French and Spanish , and appointed George Ticknor
7571-507: The following year. In 1638, the university acquired British North America 's first known printing press . The same year, on his deathbed, John Harvard , a Puritan clergyman who emigrated to the colony from England, bequeathed the emerging college £780 and his library of some 320 volumes; the following year, it was named Harvard College . In 1643, a Harvard publication defined the college's purpose: "advance learning and perpetuate it to posterity, dreading to leave an illiterate ministry to
7684-594: The head, killing her almost immediately. Soon after the incident, Burroughs changed his account, claiming that he had dropped his gun and it had accidentally fired. Burroughs spent 13 days in jail before his brother came to Mexico City and bribed Mexican lawyers and officials to release Burroughs on bail while he awaited trial for the killing, which was ruled culpable homicide . Vollmer's daughter, Julie Adams, went to live with her grandmother, and William S. Burroughs Jr. went to St. Louis to live with his grandparents. Burroughs reported every Monday morning to
7797-507: The initial plan. International rights to the work were sold soon after, and Burroughs used the $ 3,000 advance from Grove Press to buy drugs (equivalent to approximately $ 31,000 in today's funds ). Naked Lunch was featured in a 1959 Life magazine cover story, partly as an article that highlighted the growing Beat literary movement. During this time Burroughs found an outlet for material otherwise rendered unpublishable in Jeff Nuttall 's My Own Mag . Also, poetry by Burroughs appeared in
7910-403: The jail in Mexico City while his prominent Mexican attorney worked to resolve the case. According to James Grauerholz , two witnesses had agreed to testify that the gun had fired accidentally while he was checking to see if it was loaded, with ballistics experts bribed to support this story. Nevertheless, the trial was continuously delayed and Burroughs began to write what would eventually become
8023-486: The largest university endowment in the world, valued at about $ 50.7 billion as of 2023. During the recession of 2007–2009 , it suffered significant losses that forced large budget cuts, in particular temporarily halting construction on the Allston Science Complex. The endowment has since recovered. About $ 2 billion of investment income is annually distributed to fund operations. Harvard's ability to fund its degree and financial aid programs depends on
8136-432: The last obscenity trial against a work of literature – that is, a work consisting of words only, and not including illustrations or photographs – prosecuted in the United States. The Word Hoard , the collection of manuscripts that produced Naked Lunch , also produced parts of the later works The Soft Machine (1961), The Ticket That Exploded (1962), and Nova Express (1964). These novels feature extensive use of
8249-511: The late 19th century, Harvard University's graduate schools began admitting women in small numbers. In 1900, Harvard became a founding member of the Association of American Universities . For the first few decades of the 20th century, the Harvard student body was predominantly "old-stock, high-status Protestants , especially Episcopalians , Congregationalists , and Presbyterians ," according to sociologist and author Jerome Karabel . Over
8362-713: The length of his charge's statute of limitations . Burroughs also attended classes at the Mexico City College in 1950, studying Spanish, as well as Mesoamerican manuscripts ( codices ) and the Mayan language with R. H. Barlow . Their life in Mexico was by all accounts an unhappy one. Without heroin and suffering from Benzedrine abuse, Burroughs began to pursue other men as his libido returned, while Vollmer, feeling abandoned, started to drink heavily and mock Burroughs openly. One night, while drinking with friends at
8475-474: The letters were largely fictionalised from Burroughs's notes. Burroughs described Vollmer's death as a pivotal event in his life, and one that provoked his writing by exposing him to the risk of possession by a malevolent entity he called "the Ugly Spirit": I am forced to the appalling conclusion that I would never have become a writer but for Joan's death, and to a realization of the extent to which this event has motivated and formulated my writing. I live with
8588-553: The main campus in Cambridge are the Law , Divinity (theology), Engineering and Applied Science , Design (architecture), Education , Kennedy (public policy), and Extension schools, and Harvard Radcliffe Institute in Radcliffe Yard. Harvard also has commercial real estate holdings in Cambridge. Harvard Business School , Harvard Innovation Labs , and many athletics facilities, including Harvard Stadium , are located on
8701-465: The main campus, a 209-acre (85 ha) in Cambridge centered on Harvard Yard ; an adjoining campus immediately across Charles River in the Allston neighborhood of Boston ; and the medical campus in Boston's Longwood Medical Area . Harvard's endowment , valued at $ 50.7 billion , makes it the wealthiest academic institution in the world. Harvard Library , with more than 20 million volumes,
8814-653: The manuscript was eventually published in November ;2008 by Grove Press and Penguin Books . During this time, Burroughs began using morphine and became addicted. He eventually sold heroin in Greenwich Village to support his habit. Vollmer also became an addict, but her drug of choice was Benzedrine , an amphetamine sold over the counter at that time. Because of her addiction and social circle, her husband immediately divorced her after returning from
8927-406: The midst of this personal turmoil, Burroughs managed to complete two works: a novel written in screenplay format, The Last Words of Dutch Schultz (1969); and the traditional prose-format novel The Wild Boys (1971). It was during his time in London that Burroughs began using his " playback " technique in an attempt to place curses on various people and places who had drawn his ire, including
9040-815: The painting of Brion Gysin." The two would cultivate a long-term friendship that revolved around a mutual interest in artworks and cut-up techniques. Scenes were slid together with little care for narrative. Excerpts from Naked Lunch were first published in the United States in 1958. The novel was initially rejected by City Lights Books , the publisher of Ginsberg's Howl ; and Olympia Press publisher Maurice Girodias , who had published English-language novels in France that were controversial for their subjective views of sex and antisocial characters. Nevertheless, Ginsberg managed to get excerpts published in Black Mountain Review and Chicago Review in 1958. Irving Rosenthal, student editor of Chicago Review ,
9153-573: The pen name William Lee, retitling it Junkie: Confessions of an Unredeemed Drug Addict (it was later republished as Junkie , then in 1977 as Junky , and finally in 2003 as Junky: the definitive text of 'Junk', edited by Oliver Harris). During 1953, Burroughs was at loose ends. Due to legal problems, he was unable to live in the cities toward which he was most inclined. He spent time with his parents in Palm Beach, Florida , and in New York City with Allen Ginsberg. When Ginsberg refused his romantic advances, Burroughs went to Rome to meet Alan Ansen on
9266-536: The performance of its endowment; a poor performance in fiscal year 2016 forced a 4.4% cut in the number of graduate students funded by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences . Endowment income is critical, as only 22% of revenue is from students' tuition, fees, room, and board. Since the 1970s, several student-led campaigns have advocated divesting Harvard's endowment from controversial holdings, including investments in South Africa during apartheid , Sudan during
9379-467: The press's literary reputation. The press engaged in a long-running dispute over the rights to The Ginger Man ended with Donleavy's wife Mary buying out Girodias at what was intended to be a closed auction. Forced to leave France in 1963, Girodias briefly reestablished Olympia Press in New York in the 1960s, and in London in the early 1970s. Grove Press in the U.S. would later print The Olympia Reader,
9492-432: The pressure. Harvard is a large, highly residential research university offering 50 undergraduate majors, 134 graduate degrees, and 32 professional degrees. During the 2018–2019 academic year, Harvard granted 1,665 baccalaureate degrees, 1,013 graduate degrees, and 5,695 professional degrees. Harvard College , the four-year, full-time undergraduate program, has a liberal arts and sciences focus. To graduate in
9605-480: The rest of his life. Vollmer's death also resonated with Allen Ginsberg , who wrote of her in Dream Record: June 8, 1955, "Joan, what kind of knowledge have the dead? Can you still love your mortal acquaintances? What do you remember of us?" In Burroughs: The Movie , Ginsberg claimed that Vollmer had seemed possibly suicidal in the weeks leading up to her death, and he suggested that this may have been
9718-461: The screen in conjunction with American game-show producer Chuck Barris . Burroughs supported himself and his addiction by publishing pieces in small literary presses. His avant-garde reputation grew internationally as hippies and college students discovered his earlier works. He developed a close friendship with Antony Balch and lived with a young hustler named John Brady who continuously brought home young women despite Burroughs's protestations. In
9831-723: The series was numbered. The "Ophelia Press" line of erotica was far larger, using the same design, but pink covers instead of green. Olympia Press was the first publisher willing to print William S. Burroughs 's avant-garde, sexually explicit Naked Lunch , which soon became famous. Other notable works included J. P. Donleavy 's The Ginger Man ; Samuel Beckett 's French trilogy Molloy , Malone Dies , and The Unnamable ; Henry Miller's trilogy The Rosy Crucifixion , consisting of Sexus, Nexus and Plexus; A Tale of Satisfied Desire by Georges Bataille ; Story of O by Pauline Réage ; Terry Southern and Mason Hoffenberg 's Candy ; Alex Austin's The Blue Guitar and Eleanore ; and
9944-436: The short novel Queer while awaiting his trial. Upon Burroughs's attorney fleeing Mexico in light of his own legal problems, Burroughs decided, according to Ted Morgan , to "skip" and return to the United States. He was convicted in absentia of homicide and was given a two-year suspended sentence. Although Burroughs was writing before his murder of Joan Vollmer, this event marked him and, biographers argue, his work for
10057-481: The subject of one of the last major literary censorship cases in the United States after its US publisher, Grove Press , was sued for violating a Massachusetts obscenity statute. Burroughs is believed to have killed his second wife, Joan Vollmer , in 1951 in Mexico City. He initially claimed that he had accidentally shot her while drunkenly attempting a "William Tell" stunt . He later told investigators that he had been showing his pistol to friends when it fell and hit
10170-423: The surrounding Harvard Square neighborhood. The Yard houses several Harvard buildings, including four of the university's libraries, Houghton , Lamont , Pusey , and Widener . Also on Harvard Yard are Massachusetts Hall , built between 1718 and 1720 and the university's oldest still standing building, Memorial Church , and University Hall Harvard Yard and adjacent areas include the main academic buildings of
10283-499: The table, firing the bullet that killed Vollmer. After he fled Mexico back to the United States, he was convicted of manslaughter in absentia and received a two-year suspended sentence. Much of Burroughs's work is highly experimental and features unreliable narrators , but it is also semi-autobiographical, often drawing from his experiences as a heroin addict. He lived at various times in Mexico City , London , Paris , and
10396-460: The tenets of Puritanism. In 1650, the charter for Harvard Corporation , the college's governing body, was granted. From 1681 to 1701, Increase Mather , a Puritan clergyman, served as Harvard's sixth president . In 1708, John Leverett became Harvard's seventh president and the first president who was not also a clergyman. Harvard faculty and students largely supported the Patriot cause during
10509-498: The top universities in the world in each of these categories. Harvard students and alumni have also collectively won 10 Academy Awards and 110 Olympic medals , including 46 gold. Harvard was founded in 1636 during the colonial , pre- Revolutionary era by vote of the Great and General Court of Massachusetts Bay Colony , one of the original Thirteen Colonies of British America . Its first headmaster, Nathaniel Eaton , took office
10622-498: The undergraduate college became accessible to striving middle class students from public schools; many more Jews and Catholics were admitted, but still few Blacks, Hispanics, or Asians versus the representation of these groups in the general U.S. population. Over the second half of the 20th century, however, the university became incrementally more diverse. Between 1971 and 1999, Harvard controlled undergraduate admission, instruction, and housing for Radcliffe's women; in 1999, Radcliffe
10735-496: The university through the Great Depression and World War II , and liberalized admissions after the war. The university has ten academic faculties and a faculty attached to Harvard Radcliffe Institute . The Faculty of Arts and Sciences offers study in a wide range of undergraduate and graduate academic disciplines , and other faculties offer graduate degrees, including professional degrees. Harvard has three campuses:
10848-400: The university's freshman dormitories , writing that, "We owe to the colored man the same opportunities for education that we do to the white man, but we do not owe to him to force him and the white into social relations that are not, or may not be, mutually congenial." Between 1933 and 1953, Harvard University was led by James B. Conant , the university's 23rd president, who reinvigorated
10961-428: The university's creative scholarship in an effort to guarantee Harvard's preeminence among the nation and world's emerging research institutions. Conant viewed higher education as a vehicle of opportunity for the talented rather than an entitlement for the wealthy, and devised programs to identify, recruit, and support talented youth. In 1945, under Conant's leadership, an influential 268-page report, General Education in
11074-531: The university's first professor for these language programs. From 1869 to 1909, Charles William Eliot , Harvard University's 21st president, decreased the historically favored position of Christianity in the curriculum, opening it to student self-direction. Though Eliot was an influential figure in the secularization of U.S. higher education, he was motivated primarily by Transcendentalist and Unitarian convictions influenced by William Ellery Channing , Ralph Waldo Emerson , and others, rather than secularism. In
11187-507: The usual four years, undergraduates normally take four courses per semester. In most majors, an honors degree requires advanced coursework and a senior thesis. Though some introductory courses have large enrollments, the median class size is 12 students. The Faculty of Arts and Sciences , with an academic staff of 1,211 as of 2019, is the largest Harvard faculty, and has primary responsibility for instruction in Harvard College ,
11300-508: The war. With urging from Allen Ginsberg , and also perhaps Kerouac, Burroughs became intellectually and emotionally linked with Vollmer and by summer 1945, had moved in with Vollmer and her daughter. In spring 1946, Burroughs was arrested for forging a narcotics prescription. Vollmer asked her psychiatrist, Lewis Wolberg , to sign a surety bond for Burroughs's release. As part of his release, Burroughs returned to St. Louis under his parents' care, after which he left for Mexico to get
11413-519: Was a boarding school for the wealthy, "where the spindly sons of the rich could be transformed into manly specimens". Burroughs kept journals documenting an erotic attachment to another boy. According to his own account, he destroyed these later, ashamed of their content. He kept his sexual orientation concealed from his family well into adulthood. A common story says that he was expelled from Los Alamos after taking chloral hydrate in Santa Fe with
11526-520: Was appointed interim president. In August 2024, the university announced that Garber would be appointed Harvard's 31st president through the end of the 2026–27 academic year. The 209-acre (85 ha) main campus of Harvard University is centered on Harvard Yard , colloquially known as "the Yard," in Cambridge, Massachusetts , about 3 miles (5 km) west-northwest of downtown Boston , and extending to
11639-499: Was arrested on suspicion of importing narcotics into France. Lund gave up Burroughs, and evidence implicated Burroughs in the importation of narcotics into France. When the Moroccan authorities forwarded their investigation to French officials, Burroughs faced criminal charges in Paris for conspiracy to import opiates. It was during this impending case that Maurice Girodias published Naked Lunch ; its appearance helped to get Burroughs
11752-638: Was born in 1947. The family moved briefly to New Orleans in 1948. In New Orleans, police stopped Burroughs's car one evening. They found an unregistered handgun belonging to him as well as a letter from Ginsberg that contained details about the sale of marijuana. The police then searched Burroughs’s home, where they discovered his stash of drugs and half a dozen or more firearms. Burroughs fled to Mexico to escape possible detention in Louisiana's Angola State Prison . Vollmer and their children followed him. Burroughs planned to stay in Mexico for at least five years,
11865-472: Was carried out a number of times with more pictures. Their business fell off. They kept shorter and shorter hours. October 30, 1972, the Moka Bar closed. The location was taken over by the Queen's Snack Bar. Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts , United States. Founded October 28, 1636, and named for its first benefactor,
11978-410: Was convinced. Following his first cure, he wrote a detailed appreciation of apomorphine and other cures, which he submitted to The British Journal of Addiction (Vol. 53, 1956) under the title "Letter From A Master Addict To Dangerous Drugs"; this letter is appended to many editions of Naked Lunch . Though he ultimately relapsed, Burroughs ended up working out of London for six years, traveling back to
12091-616: Was elected to the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters . In 1984, he was awarded the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by France. Jack Kerouac called Burroughs the "greatest satirical writer since Jonathan Swift "; he owed this reputation to his "lifelong subversion" of the moral, political, and economic systems of modern American society, articulated in often darkly humorous sardonicism . J. G. Ballard considered Burroughs to be "the most important writer to emerge since
12204-458: Was formally merged into Harvard University. On July 1, 2007, Drew Gilpin Faust , dean of Harvard Radcliffe Institute , was appointed Harvard's 28th and the university's first female president. On July 1, 2018, Faust retired and joined the board of Goldman Sachs , and Lawrence Bacow became Harvard's 29th president . In February 2023, approximately 6,000 Harvard workers attempted to organize
12317-473: Was from this febrile atmosphere that the famous cut-up technique emerged. The actual process by which Naked Lunch was published was partly a function of its "cut-up" presentation to the printer. Girodias had given Burroughs only ten days to prepare the manuscript for print galleys, and Burroughs sent over the manuscript in pieces, preparing the parts in no particular order. When it was published in this authentically random manner, Burroughs liked it better than
12430-590: Was his first venture into a nonlinear style. After the publication of Naked Lunch , a book whose creation was to a certain extent the result of a series of contingencies, Burroughs was exposed to Brion Gysin 's cut-up technique at the Beat Hotel in Paris in October 1959. He began slicing up phrases and words to create new sentences. At the Beat Hotel, Burroughs discovered "a port of entry" into Gysin's canvases: "I don't think I had ever seen painting until I saw
12543-468: Was initially briefly known by the pen name William Lee . He also collaborated on projects and recordings with numerous performers and musicians, made many appearances in films, and created and exhibited thousands of visual artworks, including his celebrated "shotgun art." Burroughs was born into a wealthy family in St. Louis, Missouri . He was a grandson of inventor William Seward Burroughs I , who founded
12656-510: Was married to a G.I. with whom she had a young daughter, Julie Adams. Burroughs and Kerouac got into trouble with the law for failing to report a murder involving Lucien Carr , who had killed David Kammerer in a confrontation over Kammerer's incessant and unwanted advances. This incident inspired Burroughs and Kerouac to collaborate on a novel titled And the Hippos Were Boiled in Their Tanks , completed in 1945. The two fledgling authors were unable to get it published during their lifetimes, but
12769-417: Was published by his biographer after his death in 1997. The complete novel was finally published by Grove Press in 2008. Before killing Vollmer, Burroughs had largely completed his first novel, Junkie , which he wrote at the urging of Allen Ginsberg , who was instrumental in getting the work published as a cheap mass-market paperback. Ace Books published the novel in 1953 as part of an Ace Double under
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