Memory and Autobiography

by Leonor Arfuch

Memory and autobiography attempts to respond to questions that come up in regards to different narratives of the recent past. These narratives, subjective in nature, take on a different connotation once expressed as a collective attempt. Writings, films debates, works of art, and visuals all demonstrate the symptomatic signs of a pressing wound, the wound of an unresolved past.

How are memories and biographies interconnected? What forms does the autobiography take? How does narrative shape experience? What is the limit between testimony and fiction? These questions guide an exploration where non-conventional forms of testimony, autobiography, life narratives, literary auto fiction, and certain visual art practices come into play with the conflictive nature of the current world. This book seeks to surpass the fixed limits of genres and areas of research, taking a close look at objects, photographs, places, homes, and travels in a manner that goes beyond just historical events.

Routledge’s The Archive Project

The Routledge Auto|Biography Studies Reader

Edited by Ricia A. Chansky and Emily Hipchen

“The Routledge Auto/Biography Studies Reader collects together key theoretical essays in the field, creating a solid base for any critical study of autobiography, biography, or life writing. Beginning with a foreword by Sidonie Smith and a general introduction to the collection, the book is then divided into three sections—Foundations, Transformations, and Futures—each with its own introduction. Significant themes weave throughout the sections, including canonicity; genre, modality, and interdisciplinarity; reclamation of texts; disability and the contested body; trauma; agency, silence, and voicing; celebrity culture; digital lives; subjects in the margins; postcolonialism; posthumanism; and, ecocriticism. Attention has also been given to a variety of methodological approaches, such as archival research, genealogical study, DNA testing, autoethnography, testimonio, and oral history, among others.”

Auto/Biography across the Americas

Edited by Ricia Anne Chansky

Auto/biographical narratives of the Americas are marked by the underlying themes of movement and belonging. This collection proposes that the impact of the historic or contemporary movement of peoples to, in, and from the Americas―whether chosen or forced―motivates the ways in which identities are constructed in this contested space. Such movement results in a cyclical quest to belong, and to understand belonging, that reverberates through narratives of the Americas. The volume brings together essays written from diverse national, cultural, linguistic, and disciplinary perspectives to trace these transnational motifs in life writing across the Americas. Drawing on international scholars from the seemingly disparate regions of the Americas―North America, the Caribbean, and Latin America―this book extends critical theories of life writing beyond limiting national boundaries. The scholarship included approaches narrative inquiry from the fields of literature, linguistics, history, art history, sociology, anthropology, political science, pedagogy, gender studies, critical race studies, and indigenous studies. As a whole, this volume advances discourse in auto/biography studies, life writing, and identity studies by locating transnational themes in narratives of the Americas and placing them in international and interdisciplinary conversations.

Voicing Voluntary Childlessness: Narratives

of Non-Mothering in French

Natalie Edwards

The decision to reject motherhood is the subject of several key works of literature in French since the new millennium. This book explores how women narrate their decision not to mother, the issues that they face in doing so and the narrative techniques that they employ to justify their stories. It brings together authors who stake out a new terrain, creating a textual space in which to take ownership of their childlessness and call for new understandings of female identity beyond maternity.

Natalie Edwards is Senior Lecturer in French Studies and member of the Fay Gale Centre for Research on Gender at the University of Adelaide, Australia.

AFRO-CUBAN COSTUMBRISMO:  

FROM PLANTATIONS TO THE SLUMS

Rafael Ocasio

Costumbrismo, which refers to depictions of life in Latin America during the nineteenth century, introduced some of the earliest black themes in Cuban literature. Rafael Ocasio delves into this literature to offer up a new perspective on the development of Cuban identity, as influenced by black culture and religion, during the sugar cane boom.

Visit: http://www.upf.com/book.asp?id=OCASI003

Vida Por Escrito: Guia Do Acervo De Carolina Maria de Jesus

Sergio Barcellos, Brazil