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Auto/biography: Narratives of the Self (ENG4/5ABN)
Semester 1 / 2012

Texts

Deprofundis and other writings!$!Wilde, O.!$!Penguin!$!!$!
The confessions!$!Rousseau, J.J.!$!Penguin!$!!$!
Speak, memory!$!Nabakov, V.!$!Penguin!$!!$!
Incidents in the life of a slave girl!$!Jacobs, H.!$!Dover!$!!$!
Father and son!$!Gosse, E.!$!Penguin!$!!$!
Dora: an analysis of a case of hysteria!$!Freud, S.D.!$!Simon Schuster!$!!$!
An autobiography!$!Frame, J.!$!George Braziller!$!!$!
Autobiographies!$!Darwin, C.!$!Penguin!$!!$!

Description

People have written biographies and autobiographies for centuries, but only in recent years has the study of these forms become a major field of academic discussion and inquiry. The field opens up many important and interesting questions: What's the relationship between self-knowledge and the knowledge we have of others? How much can we in fact know about self or other? To what extent, and in what ways, does the sense of self we have derive from cultural norms and narratives? What sorts of plots do authors of biographies and autobiographies inherit or fashion in order to write narratives of the self? What role does ideology - gender, class, racial, colonial, ethnic - play in the narratives of self that we can, or might want to, write? In this subject we will discuss these and other issues in relation to a range of biographical and autobiographical texts.

Assessment

Class presentation and submission of written analysis of single text - 35%.

Extended essay on multiple texts (equiv 2500 words) - 65%

Other Details

Offered in: 2010, 2009
Levels: Undergraduate - Honours
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