Writing the Self: Autobiography

Catalog description

Autobiography holds a special place in its presentation of the writer's self, enlisting the reader's belief in the author's "confession" while crossing the line between fictional work and truth. This course examines autobiography and related genres, including memoir, diaries, and personal essays and considers their purpose: what do these authors reveal about themselves, and why? How much is convention, how much is truth? What impact do race, gender, class, nationhood, and ethnicity have on the construction of identity? Writers may include Franklin, Shepard, Douglass, Barnum, Johnson, Winnemucca, Zitkala-Sa, Malcolm X, Wright, Baldwin, Stein, Walker, and Cisneros.