ENGL 20142 - Autobiography and Subjectivity

Institution:

University of Notre Dame

Subject:

English

Description:

Life-writing is a capacious term that can be used to describe a variety of private and public statements about the self. Some of these are easily recognizable as artistic representations of subjectivity (for example, memoirs, diaries, letters, self-portraits) and some less so (for example, legal testimony, graphic novels, blogs, even medical forms have been read as part of the complex project of articulating subjectivity). This course will attend to a wide variety of forms of life-writing in order to trace shifting notions of what counts as a self and track the complex project of defining and representing subjectivity. A broad range of critical approaches to subjectivity and definitions of the autobiographical project will assist us as we attempt to map changing notions of the self. Many, but not all, of our primary materials will be drawn from the twentieth century, some from the current decade: texts may include selections of writings by Wordsworth and Rousseau, Art Spiegelman's graphic novel Maus, Harriet Jacobs' Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Virginia Woolf's Sketch of the Past, Maxine Hong Kingston's The Woman Warrior, selections from Samuel Delany's The Motion of Light in Water, Alison Bechdel's Fun Home, photography by Cindy Sherman, Jo Spence and others, self-portraits by Frieda Kahlo, considerations of Web projects, My Space sites, political and legal testimony or "witnessing," and other examples of autobiography "at work" will also be considered. Requirements: participation, short commentaries, and three essays: two around 5 pages, and one of eight to ten pages.

Credits:

3.00

Credit Hours:

Prerequisites:

Corequisites:

Exclusions:

Level:

Instructional Type:

Lecture

Notes:

Additional Information:

Historical Version(s):

Institution Website:

www.nd.edu

Phone Number:

(574) 631-5000

Regional Accreditation:

North Central Association of Colleges and Schools

Calendar System:

Semester

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