Self-Impersonation: Autobiography, Memoir, Fictional Autobiography

Catalog description

Memoirists, autobiographers and novelists are commonly advised or advise others to "write what you know." But how do you know what you know? And what, when it comes down to it, are "you" once you are put on the page, a human document? This course will examine the intersecting genres of fiction, autobiography, and memoir. Topics will include the literary construction of selfhood and its constituent categories; the role of language in the development of the self; the relational nature of the self (vis-à-vis the family, "society," God); the cultural status of "individuality"; conceptions of childhood; race, nationality, and sexuality; and the role of individual testimony in our understanding of family, religious, historical, and cultural identity.