Colloquium I on Autobiography is a multi-genre course framed by theories of autobiography. We will read autobiographical texts by Rousseau, Wordsworth, Byron, Frederick Douglass, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, and Elie Wiesel. We will focus on the following topics: structure of autobiographical writings; generic heterogeneity of autobiographical writings; variations in the constructions of identity in the autobiographical text; the truth value of the autobiographical text. As we follow the generic and thematic continuities of literary history we will also engage in a focused reconstruction of material history and culture which we will consider as constituents of literary production. Class discussion and written work will involve close readings of assigned texts and also considerations of the material and ideological contexts of literature.
- Teacher: Gaura Narayan