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This seminar will look at the genre of American Autobiography. We will take a historical approach, but also confront systematic question: What is autobiography? What is the relation between narrative (language) and the self? Which roles do specific religious and literary traditions play in the forms of autobiographical writing, i.e. which role do cultural scripts play? What is the status of the author, the narrator and the persona? To what degree are autobiographies factual or fictional? How do autobiographical practices change through time? What are the roles of gender, ethnicity, class? Please start reading the text by Franklin, Jacobs, Stein, Kingston and Eggers during the Semester break (in this sequence) – it is quite a lot of reading! The other texts will be available as excerpts.
Please sign yourself up for this class in the virtual classroom in Moodle! The key is "jeune".
Reading:
• A reader with some theoretical texts will be available at Sprintout (S-Bahn Bögen) by April 1st.
• Jonathan Edwards (c. 1740), "Personal Narrative" (will be included in the reader).
• Benjamin Franklin (1791), Autobiography. New York: W.W. Norton, 2011.1
• Harriet Jacobs (1861), Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. Cambridge, Harvard UP, 2009.
• Mary Antin (1912), The Promised Land. (Excerpts will be included in the reader).
• Henry Adams (1918), The Education of Henry Adams. (Excerpts will be included in the reader).
• Gertrude Stein (1933), The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas. London: Penguin, 2001.
• Maxine Hong Kingston (1975), The Woman Warrior. London: Picador, 1981.
• Dave Eggers (2000), A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. New York: Vintage, 2001.
Course Requirements:
Each student is expected to post a one page contribution (either the theses of one of the theoretical texts or a review of one of the primary text) on Moodle one week prior to discussion in class. MAP: term paper (15 pages) or oral exam (reading list)—either/or in exchange with Modul 4 |
