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Towards a Theory of Life-Writing: Genre Blending provides a look into the rules of life-writing genre blending proposing a theory to explain and illustrate the main regulations governing such genre play. It centers on fact and fiction duality in the formation of auto/biofictional genres. This book investigates the existing developments in this field, and explores major criticism and lines of inquiry in order to arrive at the theory of life-writing genre play textuality. The specific interplay of the different generic characteristics develops a specific textuality at the heart of it. This is termed biofictional preservation (biopreservation) to explain the textual transformation and the shaping of the auto/biofictional genres. Written for undergraduate and graduate students, but also for the general readers, the book further exemplifies the theory in the analyses of different biofictions about the American authors F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway featuring overlapping and juxtaposed material. This volume aims to provide a theory of this specific textuality in order to better understand and approach the process in question as well as to open up new horizons for further study and exploration.
This volume applies the insight and methods of career construction theory to explore how autobiographical writing is used in different professional careers, from fiction and journalism to education and medicine. It draws attention to the fact that a career is a particular kind of artefact with distinctive properties and features that can be analysed and compared, and puts forward a new theory of the relationship between narrative methodology and the vocation of writing. Career construction theory emerged in the late twentieth century, when changes to the patterns of our working lives caused large numbers of people to seek new forms of vocational guidance to navigate those changes. It employs a narrative paradigm in which periods of uncertainty are treated as experiences akin to 'writer's block', experiences which can be overcome first by imagining new character arcs, then by narrating them and finally by performing them. By encouraging clients to see their careers as stories of which they are both the metaphorical authors and the main protagonists, career construction counsellors enable them to envisage the next chapter in those stories. But despite the authorial metaphor, career construction theory has not been widely applied to analysis of professional careers in writing. The chapters in this volume remedy that gap and in various ways apply the insights of career construction theory to analysing the relationship between writing and professional life in diverse careers where writing is used, from literature to journalism and from education to medicine. The chapters in this book were originally published in the journal, Life Writing.
An extraordinary debut novel that “hits that sweet spot where humor and melancholy comfortably coexist” (Entertainment Weekly) Before his brief marriage imploded, Neill Bassett took a job feeding data into what could be the world’s first sentient computer. Only his attempt to give it language—through the journals his father left behind after committing suicide—has unexpected consequences. Amidst this turmoil, Neill meets Rachel, a naïve young woman escaping a troubled past, and finds himself unexpectedly drawn to her and the possibilities she holds. But as everything he thought about the past becomes uncertain, every move forward feels impossible.
Autotheory--the commingling of theory and philosophy with autobiography--as a mode of critical artistic practice indebted to feminist writing and activism. In the 2010s, the term "autotheory" began to trend in literary spheres, where it was used to describe books in which memoir and autobiography fused with theory and philosophy. In this book, Lauren Fournier extends the meaning of the term, applying it to other disciplines and practices. Fournier provides a long-awaited account of autotheory, situating it as a mode of contemporary, post-1960s artistic practice that is indebted to feminist writing, art, and activism. Investigating a series of works by writers and artists including Chris Kraus and Adrian Piper, she considers the politics, aesthetics, and ethics of autotheory.
On the surface, the use of photography in autobiography appears to have a straightforward purpose: to illustrate and corroborate the text. But in the wake of poststructuralism, the role of photography in autobiography is far from simple or one-dimensional
Marlene Kadar has brought together an interdisciplinary and comparative collection of critical and theoretical essays by diverse Canadian scholars.
This creative and original book develops a framework for situated writing as theory and method, and presents a trilogy of untimely academic novellas as exemplars of the uses of situated writing. It is an inter- and trans-disciplinary book in which a diversity of forms are used to create a set of interwoven novellas, inspired by poststructuralist and postcolonial feminist theory and literary fiction, along with narrative life writing genres such as diaries and letters, memory work, poetic writing, and photography. The book makes use of a politics of location, situated knowledges, diffraction, and intersectionality theories to promote situated writing as a theory and method for exploring the complexity of social life through gender, whiteness, class, and spatial location. It addresses writing as an inter- and trans-disciplinary form of scholarship in its own right, with emancipatory potential, emphasising the role of writing in shaping creative, critical, and reflexive approaches to research, education, and professional practice. It is useful for researchers, teachers, postgraduate and PhD students in feminist and intersectionality studies, narrative studies, and pursuing interdisciplinary approaches across the humanities, social sciences, design, and the arts to inspire a theory and method for situated writing. Read the December 2019 issue of Reading Writing Quarterly, where Mona Livholts reads Hélène Frichot and Hélène Frichot reads Mona Livholts: https://site-readingwritingquarterly.co.uk/december-2019
Autobiography is naturally regarded as an art of retrospect, but making autobiography is equally part of the fabric of our ongoing experience. We tell the stories of our lives piecemeal, and these stories are not merely about our selves but also an integral part of them. In this way we "live autobiographically"; we have narrative identities. In this book, noted life-writing scholar Paul John Eakin explores the intimate, dynamic connection between our selves and our stories, between narrative and identity in everyday life. He draws on a wide range of autobiographical writings from work by Jonathan Franzen, Mary Karr, and André Aciman to the New York Times series "Portraits of Grief" memorializing the victims of 9/11, as well as the latest insights into identity formation from the fields of developmental psychology, cultural anthropology, and neurobiology. In his account, the self-fashioning in which we routinely, even automatically, engage is largely conditioned by social norms and biological necessities. We are taught by others how to say who we are, while at the same time our sense of self is shaped decisively by our lives in and as bodies. For Eakin, autobiography is always an act of self-determination, no matter what the circumstances, and he stresses its adaptive value as an art that helps to anchor our shifting selves in time.
Teaching Life Writing: Theory, Methodology, and Practice combines research in life writing and pedagogy to examine the role of life stories in diverse learning contexts, disciplines, and global settings. While life stories are increasingly integrated into curricula, their incorporation raises the risk of reducing them to mere historical evidence. Recognizing the importance of teaching life stories in a manner that goes beyond a surface understanding, life-writing scholars have been consistently exploring innovative pedagogical practices to engage with these stories in ways that encourage dynamic and nuanced conversations about identity, agency, authenticity, memory, and truth, as well as the potential of these narratives to instigate social change. This book assembles contributions from a diverse group of international educators, weaving together life writing research, critical reflection, and concrete pedagogical strategies. The chapters are organized around three overarching conversations: the materials, practices, and mediations involved in teaching life writing within the context of contemporary social change. The unique perspectives presented in this collection provide educators with valuable insights into effectively incorporating life stories into their teaching practices. Featuring works by over a dozen educators, the volume interlaces life writing research, critical reflection, and tangible pedagogical practices. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of a/b: Auto/Biography Studies.