This paper will focus on the hospital (or Foucaultian “clinic”) as a contested, and often contradictory symbol in the political imaginary of the post-war period. Against the welfare state’s narrative of collective care, writers like... more
This paper will focus on the hospital (or Foucaultian “clinic”) as a contested, and often contradictory symbol in the political imaginary of the post-war period. Against the welfare state’s narrative of collective care, writers like Kesey, Quin and Burroughs mythologised the asylum as the logical totalitarian conclusion of growing State biopower. Nevertheless, hospital scenes remain a regular staple of Beat biographies; the nadir-point of lives arcing between adventure and misadventure. The paper goes on to analyse Alex Trocchi’s abortive Project Sigma (“an invisible insurrection of a million minds”) as a potential blueprint for deterritorialised, rhizomatic healthcare. Research drawn from the Jeff Nuttall archive at John Rylands, Manchester, reveals a membership list with an international network of Sigma collaborators; Burroughs to Burgess, Guy Debord to Doris Lessing. Proposals from R.D. Laing for nomadic, non-sited approaches to care are included in the archive alongside fevered correspondence revealing the chaos of Sigma in practice. The contradictions which hamstrung Sigma at once reflect the experience of a Beat generation liberated by post-war prosperity but constrained by its structures, while also prophesying contemporary national healthcare struggles in the context of globalised capitalism.
Presented at EBSN Conference at the Wonder Inn, Manchester June 2016.
