Autobiography and American Literature

Module code: EN3111

Module co-ordinator: Nick Everett

American culture has always attached great value to the individual and autobiography – in one form or another – has always flourished in the United States. In this module we will read a number of modern and contemporary American autobiographical works, examining the various literary, cultural, and political purposes behind the selves and lives they present. Students will produce short first-person fictional or autobiographical pieces of their own that are coordinated with the autobiographical works we are studying.

Aims

The critical and creative aspects of the module are mutually supportive: creative writing suggests alternate ways of exploring the primary works and critical issues, and primary works provide both stimulus and guidance for creative writing.

The reading and writing on the module will be organised under four broad categories of autobiography, all of them prominent in American literature:

  • Conversion narratives describing moments of realisation or transformation in the author's life
  • Political narratives seeking to use a personal story to analyse a social issue
  • Thematic autobiographies exploring the significance of an interest, activity, illness, another person, etc., in the author's life
  • Experimental, postmodernist approaches to the representation of selves and lives that implicitly question the purposes and effects of conventional realist autobiography

We will read classics in each category and then compose short examples of our own. Works studied will include:

  • Henry Adams's The Education of Henry Adams (1907)
  • Richard Wright's Black Boy (1945)
  • Vladimir Nabokov's Speak, Memory (1967)
  • Joe Brainard's I Remember (1975)
  • Lyn Hejinian's My Life (1987)

Learning

The module will be taught in weekly two-hour sessions. These will alternate between seminars in which we discuss the primary works and workshops in which we read and discuss creative exercises by students. By the end of the module, students will have...

  • Situated a variety of American autobiographical works in their literary, cultural, and historical contexts
  • Demonstrated competence in basic skills of written first-person narrative
  • Explored issues of autobiography, particularly of representing individual selves and lives, both creatively and analytically

Assessment

  • An essay of no more than 2,000 words on some aspect of American autobiography
  • A portfolio of one, two, or three creative exercises (1,500-2,000 words total)
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