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In this course, we will read life writing and explore this term in relation to literary and theoretical concepts of subjectivity and authorship in the 20th century. As a more flexible term, life writing encompasses various types of texts that take on the writing of a life or the Self: both the more conventional autobiography, biography, memoir, diaristic, and letter writing, but also hybrid forms such as autofiction, fictional autobiography/biography, graphic memoirs, auto theory, etc.
We will read a range of different texts: memoir, poetry, personal essay, autofiction, graphic novel, etc. To consider the relationship between aesthetics and politics in life writing, we will look at how these texts discuss gender, race, and class dynamics, and how they reflect on imperialism and colonialism. In addition to literary texts, we will also engage with theoretical writing on subjectivity throughout the century, including canonical texts in life writing studies, and selected gender, queer, and postcolonial theory. Special attention will be paid to issues of gender, sexuality, race, class, and their relation to concepts of the “Self,” identity, subjectivity, and embodiment.
In preparation for the seminar, you can acquire and start reading the following texts:
Bryher, Development and Two Selves (1920 and 1923 respectively; republished as Bryher: Two Novels – Development and Two Selves by The University of Wisconsin Press in 2020)
Jeanette Winterson, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit (1985)
Note: Additional texts will be announced at the beginning of the course. Shorter texts and theoretical texts will be available on Moodle, but the above texts need to be acquired. They are available in paperback, in the HU library, as well as through the online library Internet Archive (archive.org) with a user account. |
