Relocating the American Dream : The America of the 1960s as Portrayed by the New Journalists Norman Mailer, Hunter S. Thompson, and Tom Wolfe

The concept of the American Dream was subject to a strong re-evaluation process in the 1960s, as counterculture became a prominent force in American society. A massive generation of young people, moved by the Vietnam War, the hippie movement, and psychedelic experimentation, created substantial social turbulence in their efforts to break out of conventional patterns and to create a new kind of society. This thesis outlines and analyses the concept of the American Dream in popular imagination through three works of new journalism. My primary data consists of Tom Wolfe’s The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test (1967), Hunter S. Thompson’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream (1971), and Norman Mailer’s Armies of the Night: History as a Novel, the Novel as History (1968). In defining the American Dream, I discuss the history of the concept as well as its manifestations in popular culture. Because of its elusive and amorphous nature, the concept of the American Dream can only be examined in cultural texts that portray the values, sentiments, and customs of a certain era. I have divided the analytical section of my thesis into three parts. In the first part I examine how the authors discuss the American society of their time in relation to ideology, capitalism, and the media. In the second part I focus on the Vietnam War and the controversy it creates in relation to the notions of freedom and patriotism. In the third part I discuss how the authors portray the countercultural visions of a better America that challenged the traditional interpretations of the American Dream. I also discuss the dark side of the new dream: the problems and disillusions that came with the effort to change the world. This thesis is an effort to trace the relocation of the American Dream in the context of the 1960s counterculture and new journalism. It hopes to provide a valuable addition to the cultural history of the sixties and to the effort of conceptualizing the American Dream.

De Las Vegas a Marina D'or. O como llegar desde el New Jornalism norteamericano de Hunter S. Thompson hasta la nueva narrativa española de Robert Juan-Cantavella

La corriente norteamericana llamada 'Nuevo periodismo', nacida en los años sesenta, supuso para la Periodística tradicional de Estados Unidos toda una revolución por la combinación de elementos literarios con otros propios de la investigación periodística. Hunter S. Thompson, autor de Miedo y asco en las Vegas (1971), con su periodismo gonzo, le iba a dar una vuelta más a la propuesta del New Journalism, llevando al extremo el proceso de inmersión, hasta implicarse personalmente en sus reportajes y acogiendo sobre todo influencias narrativas del movimiento Beat de los cincuenta. Casi 35 años después, en El Dorado, Juan-Cantavella hace un paralelismo entre Las Vegas y la ciudad de vacaciones en la costa mediterránea española, Marina D'Or y desarrolla en este ámbito una novela, protagonizada por su alter ego el periodista punk, Escargot. Novela, periodismo, gonzo, ficción, cuento, punk, ensayo, reportaje, 'aportaje', fragmentación discursiva, diálogos, monólogos interiores, descripciones, comunicados, telegramas, emails, notas de prensa, noticias radiofónicas, canciones, eslóganes, todo cabe para recrear géneros, para releer tradiciones periodísticas y literarias, y llegar a construir algo nuevo. Este trabajo analiza este proceso que va desde el periodismo gonzo, de Miedo y asco en Las Vegas a la narrativa española actual de El Dorado. Se ocupa de discernir los recursos literarios de que se sirve el periodista gonzo para construir sus reportajes y las herramientas periodísticas que nutren la 'narrativa punk' de Juan-Cantavella. Un ejemplo singular de simbiosis periodístico-literaria

De Las Vegas a Marina D'or. O como llegar desde el New Jornalism norteamericano de Hunter S. Thompson hasta la nueva narrativa española de Robert Juan-Cantavella

La corriente norteamericana llamada 'Nuevo periodismo', nacida en los años sesenta, supuso para la Periodística tradicional de Estados Unidos toda una revolución por la combinación de elementos literarios con otros propios de la investigación periodística. Hunter S. Thompson, autor de Miedo y asco en las Vegas (1971), con su periodismo gonzo, le iba a dar una vuelta más a la propuesta del New Journalism, llevando al extremo el proceso de inmersión, hasta implicarse personalmente en sus reportajes y acogiendo sobre todo influencias narrativas del movimiento Beat de los cincuenta. Casi 35 años después, en El Dorado, Juan-Cantavella hace un paralelismo entre Las Vegas y la ciudad de vacaciones en la costa mediterránea española, Marina D'Or y desarrolla en este ámbito una novela, protagonizada por su alter ego el periodista punk, Escargot. Novela, periodismo, gonzo, ficción, cuento, punk, ensayo, reportaje, 'aportaje', fragmentación discursiva, diálogos, monólogos interiores, descripciones, comunicados, telegramas, emails, notas de prensa, noticias radiofónicas, canciones, eslóganes, todo cabe para recrear géneros, para releer tradiciones periodísticas y literarias, y llegar a construir algo nuevo. Este trabajo analiza este proceso que va desde el periodismo gonzo, de Miedo y asco en Las Vegas a la narrativa española actual de El Dorado. Se ocupa de discernir los recursos literarios de que se sirve el periodista gonzo para construir sus reportajes y las herramientas periodísticas que nutren la 'narrativa punk' de Juan-Cantavella. Un ejemplo singular de simbiosis periodístico-literaria

De Las Vegas a Marina D'or. O como llegar desde el New Jornalism norteamericano de Hunter S. Thompson hasta la nueva narrativa española de Robert Juan-Cantavella

La corriente norteamericana llamada 'Nuevo periodismo', nacida en los años sesenta, supuso para la Periodística tradicional de Estados Unidos toda una revolución por la combinación de elementos literarios con otros propios de la investigación periodística. Hunter S. Thompson, autor de Miedo y asco en las Vegas (1971), con su periodismo gonzo, le iba a dar una vuelta más a la propuesta del New Journalism, llevando al extremo el proceso de inmersión, hasta implicarse personalmente en sus reportajes y acogiendo sobre todo influencias narrativas del movimiento Beat de los cincuenta. Casi 35 años después, en El Dorado, Juan-Cantavella hace un paralelismo entre Las Vegas y la ciudad de vacaciones en la costa mediterránea española, Marina D'Or y desarrolla en este ámbito una novela, protagonizada por su alter ego el periodista punk, Escargot. Novela, periodismo, gonzo, ficción, cuento, punk, ensayo, reportaje, 'aportaje', fragmentación discursiva, diálogos, monólogos interiores, descripciones, comunicados, telegramas, emails, notas de prensa, noticias radiofónicas, canciones, eslóganes, todo cabe para recrear géneros, para releer tradiciones periodísticas y literarias, y llegar a construir algo nuevo. Este trabajo analiza este proceso que va desde el periodismo gonzo, de Miedo y asco en Las Vegas a la narrativa española actual de El Dorado. Se ocupa de discernir los recursos literarios de que se sirve el periodista gonzo para construir sus reportajes y las herramientas periodísticas que nutren la 'narrativa punk' de Juan-Cantavella. Un ejemplo singular de simbiosis periodístico-literaria

Johnny be gonzo

The legend of Hunter S. Thompson*the great gonzo*has grown deeper and more layered since his death in February 2005 than it was even in his exotic and controversyfilled life. The most recent addition to the mythology*The Rum Diary(Bruce Robinson, 2011)*stars Johnny Depp, possibly Thompson’s greatest fan, and certainly a man dedicated to keeping the man’s memory alive. Not for the first time, Depp brings his A-list status and good looks to playing the Thompson character on the big screen. In Terry Gilliam’s adaptation of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998) he played the writer’s alter ego, Raoul Duke. Duke was Thompson, and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas a fictionalized account of what is generally accepted to have been a real-life episode. In The Rum Diary he plays Paul Kemp, the young journalist who lands a job as a crime reporter on a struggling Puerto Rican newspaper. Again, the protagonist is a version of Thompson himself, who did indeed spend time in 1960 working for the Puerto Rican press. Both films join Gonzo (Alex Gibney, 2008) to form a trilogy of Depp-infused movies about a journalist some regard as one of the greatest of the twentieth century, and others view as an overrated charlatan who leveraged his one big idea into a four decades-long career brought low by drugs, booze, dysfunctional sex and, finally, Hemingwayesque despair...

The disenfranchisement of prisoners : Roach v Electoral Commissioner & Anor - modernity v feudalism

David Brown takes a road trip to Canberra for the Roach fixture at the High Court where modernity is attempting a fight-back against the resurrection of civil death. With echoes of Hunter S Thompson as rugby league follower, the author recounts a trip to Canberra to observe a case in which Vickie Lee Roach, an Indigenous woman prisoner, challenged (successfully as it later turns out) the Howard government's 2006 legislation disenfranchising all serving prisoners.

Competition for Cooperation: variability, benefits and heritability of relational wealth in hunter-gatherers

Many defining human characteristics including theory of mind, culture and language relate to our sociality, and facilitate the formation and maintenance of cooperative relationships. Therefore, deciphering the context in which our sociality evolved is invaluable in understanding what makes us unique as a species. Much work has emphasised group-level competition, such as warfare, in moulding human cooperation and sociality. However, competition and cooperation also occur within groups; and inter-individual differences in sociality have reported fitness implications in numerous non-human taxa. Here we investigate whether differential access to cooperation (relational wealth) is likely to lead to variation in fitness at the individual level among BaYaka hunter-gatherers. Using economic gift games we find that relational wealth: a) displays individual-level variation; b) provides advantages in buffering food risk, and is positively associated with body mass index (BMI) and female fertility; c) is partially heritable. These results highlight that individual-level processes may have been fundamental in the extension of human cooperation beyond small units of related individuals, and in shaping our sociality. Additionally, the findings offer insight in to trends related to human sociality found from research in other fields such as psychology and epidemiology.

Nonprofit organisations face a restructuring state : the case of local social services in the Hunter region of New South Wales

This paper is concerned with certain of the characteristics of local social services, and their role in a restructuring Australian welfare state. I am particularly concerned with the distinctive gender characteristics of these organisations, because in comparison with most other organisations they have a feminised quality. This partly mirrors women's traditional role of undertaking the major part of the caring labour of society. However, simultaneously work in these organisation deviates from more traditional patterns where employed women occupy subordinate positions. In many community organisations, women occupy leadership roles. The analysis here is concerned with the apparently paradoxical nature of these organisations in their capacity to entrench traditional gender roles and to challenge these by allowing women to fill management positions. It is also concerned to examine whether changes that have been occurring in the community services sector over the last two decades are likely to enhance women's general position in the society, or diminish the power exercised by women. The paper draws in a preliminary way on a study of local services in the Hunter Region of NSW undertaken in the latter half of 1992. These preliminary findings are set against the broader picture of developments in the contemporary welfare state.

A meta-analysis of genome-wide association studies to identify prostate cancer susceptibility loci associated with aggressive and non-aggressive disease

Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have identified multiple common genetic variants associated with an increased risk of prostate cancer (PrCa), but these explain less than one-third of the heritability. To identify further susceptibility alleles, we conducted a meta-analysis of four GWAS including 5953 cases of aggressive PrCa and 11 463 controls (men without PrCa). We computed association tests for approximately 2.6 million SNPs and followed up the most significant SNPs by genotyping 49 121 samples in 29 studies through the international PRACTICAL and BPC3 consortia. We not only confirmed the association of a PrCa susceptibility locus, rs11672691 on chromosome 19, but also showed an association with aggressive PrCa [odds ratio = 1.12 (95% confidence interval 1.03-1.21), P = 1.4 × 10(-8)]. This report describes a genetic variant which is associated with aggressive PrCa, which is a type of PrCa associated with a poorer prognosis.

Identification of 23 new prostate cancer susceptibility loci using the iCOGS custom genotyping

Prostate cancer is the most frequently diagnosed cancer in males in developed countries. To identify common prostate cancer susceptibility alleles, we genotyped 211,155 SNPs on a custom Illumina array (iCOGS) in blood DNA from 25,074 prostate cancer cases and 24,272 controls from the international PRACTICAL Consortium. Twenty-three new prostate cancer susceptibility loci were identified at genome-wide significance (P < 5 × 10−8). More than 70 prostate cancer susceptibility loci, explaining ~30% of the familial risk for this disease, have now been identified. On the basis of combined risks conferred by the new and previously known risk loci, the top 1% of the risk distribution has a 4.7-fold higher risk than the average of the population being profiled. These results will facilitate population risk stratification for clinical studies.

The legacy of Ian Hunter's work on literature education and the history of reading practices : some preliminary remarks

Ian Hunter's early work on the history of literature education and the emergence of English as school subject issued a bold challenge to traditional accounts that have in the main focused on English either as knowledge of a particular field or as ideology. The alternative proposal put forward by Hunter and supported by detailed historical analysis is that English exists as a series of historically contingent techniques and practices for shaping the self-managing capacities of children. The challenge for the field is to advance this historical work and to examine possible implications for English teaching.

Mechanical stimulation of the pro-angiogenic capacity of human fracture haematoma: Involvement of VEGF mechano-regulation

Compromised angiogenesis appears to be a major limitation in various suboptimal bone healing situations. Appropriate mechanical stimuli support blood vessel formation in vivo and improve healing outcomes. However, the mechanisms responsible for this association are unclear. To address this question, the paracrine angiogenic potential of early human fracture haematoma and its responsiveness to mechanical loading, as well as angiogenic growth factors involved, were investigated in vitro. Human haematomas were collected from healthy patients undergoing surgery within 72. h after bone fracture. The haematomas were embedded in a fibrin matrix, and cultured in a bioreactor resembling the in vivo conditions of the early phase of bone healing (20 compression, 1. Hz) over 3. days. Conditioned medium (CM) from the bioreactor was then analyzed. The matrices were also incubated in fresh medium for a further 24. h to evaluate the persistence of the effects. Growth factor (GF) concentrations were measured in the CM by ELISAs. In vitro tube formation assays were conducted on Matrigel with the HMEC-1 cell line, with or without inhibition of vascular endothelial growth factor receptor 2 (VEGFR2). Cell numbers were quantified using an MTS test. In vitro endothelial tube formation was enhanced by CM from haematomas, compared to fibrin controls. The angiogenesis regulators, vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) and transforming growth factor β1 (TGF-β1), were released into the haematoma CM, but not angiopoietins 1 or 2 (Ang1, 2), basic fibroblast growth factor (bFGF) or platelet-derived growth factor (PDGF). Mechanical stimulation of haematomas, but not fibrin controls, further increased the induction of tube formation by their CM. The mechanically stimulated haematoma matrices retained their elevated pro-angiogenic capacity for 24. h. The pro-angiogenic effect was cancelled by inhibition of VEGFR2 signalling. VEGF concentrations in CM tended to be elevated by mechanical stimulation; this was significant in haematomas from younger, but not from older patients. Other GFs were not mechanically regulated. In conclusion, the paracrine pro-angiogenic capacity of early human haematomas is enhanced by mechanical stimulation. This effect lasts even after removing the mechanical stimulus and appears to be VEGFR2-dependent.

'The Australian we all aspire to be' : commemorative journalism and the death of the Crocodile Hunter

This article examines the news coverage the death of Steve Irwin, widely known as the Crocodile Hunter, generated in Australia. In line with past research on commemorative journalism, the study demonstrates the dominant discourses employed in the reporting of Irwin's death. It is argued that Australia's newspapers invoked a number of national myths, such as mateship, larrikinism and anti-elitism, in order to re-assert notions of Australian identity and social values and to deal with the grief over his loss. Most importantly, the study sheds new light on how news media deal with challenges to the dominant memorialising discourse. Past studies had not been able to investigate in much detail alternative discourses, but in examining Irwin's death, we are able to see how the media deal with such an unwanted interruption. It is argued that newspapers appropriated the alternative perspective within the mythical terms of their memorialising discourse, thereby not allowing it to disrupt the memorialisation itself and in fact further strengthening the process of mythologising the Crocodile Hunter.

Simultaneous estimation of hunting pressure, harvest and hunter success rates using WinBUGS

The use of hierarchical Bayesian spatial models in the analysis of ecological data is increasingly prevalent. The implementation of these models has been heretofore limited to specifically written software that required extensive programming knowledge to create. The advent of WinBUGS provides access to Bayesian hierarchical models for those without the programming expertise to create their own models and allows for the more rapid implementation of new models and data analysis. This facility is demonstrated here using data collected by the Missouri Department of Conservation for the Missouri Turkey Hunting Survey of 1996. Three models are considered, the first uses the collected data to estimate the success rate for individual hunters at the county level and incorporates a conditional autoregressive (CAR) spatial effect. The second model builds upon the first by simultaneously estimating the success rate and harvest at the county level, while the third estimates the success rate and hunting pressure at the county level. These models are discussed in detail as well as their implementation in WinBUGS and the issues arising therein. Future areas of application for WinBUGS and the latest developments in WinBUGS are discussed as well.