• Austenfeld Thomas

Americans define themselves: this assumption has been axiomatic since European settlers first arrived on the North American continent. Beginning with spiritual autobiographies, moving on to captivity narratives and slave narratives, and concluding with ethnic autobiographies of self-definition, we will study the varieties of Americans' written self-expression over four centuries. What exactly is the genre of Life Writing? Who is the intended audience, what is the intended purpose of a narrative of the self?  What assumptions about temporal structure, agency, and determinism form the foundations of such texts?  What is the difference between autobiography and memoir? Many outstanding autobiographies offer a narrative as well as a reflection on the genre itself at the same time. We will focus on consciously literary autobiographies in this class and will not consider contemporary ghost-written, scandal-mongering, mass-market autobiographies.

Some of the pre-20^th century texts are widely available; many are in the Norton Anthology, 9^th edition. Other texts will be available at Librophoros. They will include, but will not be limited to the following (please note, in some cases we will read excerpts, in others, the full text):

Mary Rowlandson, Captivity Narrative

Benjamin Franklin, Autobiography

Frederick Douglass, My Bondage and My Freedom

Harriet Jacobs, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl

Henry Adams, The Autobiography of Henry Adams

Richard Wright, Black Boy

Richard Rodriguez, Hunger of Memory

Tobias Wolff, This Boy's Life   

Edwidge Danticat, Brother, I'm Dying