ABSTRACT

Whiteness is a structural location of advantage or privilege and a seemingly universal set of unmarked and unnamed cultural practices that upholds the status quo. Mischief and drinking are not the property of Whites, but excessive drinking and pranking with little consequence prepares the students for living within, instead of interrupting or questioning, a status quo White supremacist society—where they will receive every advantage and benefit of doubt. Miles quickly cultivates friendships with the Colonel, Takumi, and Alaska, with whom he engages in a series of pranks and experiments with alcohol. The parties and pranks are seemingly endless in Looking for Alaska. Miles uses discourses of universalism learned in a world religions course to rethink his responsibility for Alaska’s death. The novel ends with Miles and company honoring Alaska’s memory by executing the most epic prank in Culver Creek Academy’s history that she herself devised.