ENH4050

American autobiography

E Barry

12 points
* 2 hours per week
* Second semester
* Clayton

Objectives On the successful completion of this subject students should have gained a familiarity with a broad spectrum of American autobiographical narratives ranging across historical periods; cultural and racial backgrounds and gender representation; an understanding of the ways in which the self is constructed in literature; a grasp of the relevant theoretical approaches to the genre; an ability to conduct research and to present the results of it, both orally and in writing.

Synopsis This subject will explore the nature of the autobiographical impulse in American literature in all its diversity, from the eighteenth century through to the present. The set texts will allow an examination of the ways in which the self is constructed in literature, and the roles that gender, race and class play in that construction. In other words, the emphasis of the subject will be as much on the nature of the autobiographical process as on its particularly American forms. But it will also relate this construction of the self to the American cult of individualism, and examine how such personal writing might relate to a `national' literature. The subject will examine a wide range of autobiographical acts, in the light of each one's historical\cultural contexts and of contemporary theory regarding this narrative mode. Some comparisons will be made to self-portraiture in painting and photography.

Assessment Seminar paper (15 minutes, 2000 words): 15%
* Seminar paper/essay (2000 words): 25%
* Research essay (5000 words): 50%
* Seminar participation: 10%

Prescribed texts

Adams H The education of Henry Adams
Addams J Twenty years at Hull-House
Andrews W (ed.) Classic American autobiographies Signet
Haley A The autobiography of Malcolm X
Hurston Z N Dust tracks on the road
Kingston M H The woman warrior
Nabokov V Speak, memory
Stein G The autobiography of Alice B Toklas
Thoreau H Walden
Wolff T This boy's life Picador

Recommended texts

Adams T D Telling lies in modern American autobiography
Benstock S Theory and practice of women's autobiographical writing
Bercovitch S The puritan origins of the American self
Folkenflick R The culture of autobiography
Heilbrun C Writing a woman's life
Leibiwitz H Fabricating lives: Explorations in American autobiography
Olney J Autobiography: Essays theoretical and critical