Running Through Heaven: Visions of Jack Kerouac
March 5 – May 16, 2026
Jack Kerouac is a defining author of postwar America: his life and work had an enormous influence on American culture from the late 1950s onwards. As The New York Times once noted, his enthusiastic embrace of Black, Latino, and gay culture; his enchantment with Zen Buddhism; the influence of drugs on his work; and the ecological bent of much of his writing all presage the social movements of the 1960s. These aspects are all fully present in his public and private writings more than a decade earlier. Kerouac’s writing offers more than a mere chronicle of youthful escapade; it is a map of spiritual and personal growth, a detailed rendering of his search for meaning in postwar America. Dedicating himself to his art when he was quite young, Kerouac sought meaning and purpose in his life through his engagement with both Western and Eastern thought.
- Jacob Loewentheil, Curator