Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism | Burroughs, William S. - Steven Shaviro (essay date 1995)

Steven Shaviro (essay date 1995)

SOURCE: Shaviro, Steven. “Two Lessons from Burroughs.” In Posthuman Bodies, edited by Judith Halberstam and Ira Livingston, pp. 38-54. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1995.

[In the following essay, Shaviro explores Burroughs's place in the “landscape of postmodern biology.”]

Seattle, 1993. Don't believe the hype. I find myself stranded in this obsessively health-minded, puritanical, routinized, and relentlessly cheerful city, lifelines cut, lost without my vital supply of counteracting stimulants. Yes, some of the bands are still great, despite the insidious pressures of fame: Nirvana, Mudhoney, Seven-Year Bitch. But otherwise, nothing. I strain to hear the echo of Burroughs's silent scream: “What scared you all into time? Into body? Into shit? I will tell you: the word.” But does anyone even remember? These prefabricated combinations of words, and these carefully crafted, HWP...

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