Letters, 3707 The Letters of William S. Burroughs (1945-1959), edited and introduced by Oliver Harris (1993)

Over the border, in May 1952 Burroughs was himself reporting a purge of ``queers and hipsters '' that had taken place at Mexico City College, describing it as ``Un-Mexican'' but typically American, and concluding (Letters, 125) : ``They aim to incarcerate all undesirables, that is anyone who does not function as an interchangeable part in their antihuman Social Economic set-up.'' By de®nition, the queer and the hipster should represent, as Murphy claims, ``points of departure for an exacting critique of the social organisation of late capital.