Writing the Self, Writing the Other:
Memoir | Autoethnography | Biography
Eileen Boris
Hull Professor of Feminist Studies
FALL 2024
Thurs. 2:00 pm–4:50 pm
Location: ILP 4107
This course explores the related genres of memoir, autoethnography, and biography through an intersectional feminist lens. It raises methodological questions about how to approach a life, our own or another's, useful for historical analysis no less than cultural studies or creative writing. We will consider theories as well as practices and be able to produce a memoir or autoethnography projects that need not take traditional written form but could be performative, digital, or artistic in any media. We will read together examples of these forms of writing, consider films and other forms of expression, and talk with at least one memorialist or biographer about their process. We will compare a section of an autobiography with a biography of the same individual and look at collective biographies as well as passages of biographies on the same subject written from distinct and contrasting standpoints.
