The Autobiographer's Handbook

The Autobiographer's Handbook PDF Author: Jennifer Traig
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 9780805087130
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 260

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Book Description
"... You're invited to a roundtable discussion with today's most successful memoirists"--P. [4] of cover.

The Autobiographer's Handbook

The Autobiographer's Handbook PDF Author: Jennifer Traig
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 9780805087130
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 260

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Book Description
"... You're invited to a roundtable discussion with today's most successful memoirists"--P. [4] of cover.

Pleased to Meet Me

Pleased to Meet Me PDF Author: Bill Sullivan
Publisher: National Geographic Books
ISBN: 1426220561
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 340

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Book Description
Why are you attracted to a certain "type?" Why are you a morning person? Why do you vote the way you do? From a witty new voice in popular science comes a clever, life-changing look at what makes you you. "I can't believe I just said that." "What possessed me to do that?" "What's wrong with me?" We're constantly seeking answers to these fundamental human questions, and now, science has the answers. The foods we enjoy, the people we love, the emotions we feel, and the beliefs we hold can all be traced back to our DNA, germs, and environment. This witty, colloquial book is popular science at its best, describing in everyday language how genetics, epigenetics, microbiology, and psychology work together to influence our personality and actions. Mixing cutting-edge research and relatable humor, Pleased to Meet Me is filled with fascinating insights that shine a light on who we really are--and how we might become our best selves.

Handbook of Autobiography / Autofiction

Handbook of Autobiography / Autofiction PDF Author: Martina Wagner-Egelhaaf
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 3110279819
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 2198

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Book Description
Autobiographical writings have been a major cultural genre from antiquity to the present time. General questions of the literary as, e.g., the relation between literature and reality, truth and fiction, the dependency of author, narrator, and figure, or issues of individual and cultural styles etc., can be studied preeminently in the autobiographical genre. Yet, the tradition of life-writing has, in the course of literary history, developed manifold types and forms. Especially in the globalized age, where the media and other technological / cultural factors contribute to a rapid transformation of lifestyles, autobiographical writing has maintained, even enhanced, its popularity and importance. By conceiving autobiography in a wide sense that includes memoirs, diaries, self-portraits and autofiction as well as media transformations of the genre, this three-volume handbook offers a comprehensive survey of theoretical approaches, systematic aspects, and historical developments in an international and interdisciplinary perspective. While autobiography is usually considered to be a European tradition, special emphasis is placed on the modes of self-representation in non-Western cultures and on inter- and transcultural perspectives of the genre. The individual contributions are closely interconnected by a system of cross-references. The handbook addresses scholars of cultural and literary studies, students as well as non-academic readers.

The Philosophy of Autobiography

The Philosophy of Autobiography PDF Author: Christopher Cowley
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022626808X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 249

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Book Description
We are living through a boom in autobiographical writing. Every half-famous celebrity, every politician, every sports hero—even the non-famous, nowadays, pour out pages and pages, Facebook post after Facebook post, about themselves. Literary theorists have noticed, as the genres of “creative nonfiction” and “life writing” have found their purchase in the academy. And of course psychologists have long been interested in self-disclosure. But where have the philosophers been? With this volume, Christopher Cowley brings them into the conversation. Cowley and his contributors show that while philosophers have seemed uninterested in autobiography, they have actually long been preoccupied with many of its conceptual elements, issues such as the nature of the self, the problems of interpretation and understanding, the paradoxes of self-deception, and the meaning and narrative structure of human life. But rarely have philosophers brought these together into an overarching question about what it means to tell one’s life story or understand another’s. Tackling these questions, the contributors explore the relationship between autobiography and literature; between story-telling, knowledge, and agency; and between the past and the present, along the way engaging such issues as autobiographical ethics and the duty of writing. The result bridges long-standing debates and illuminates fascinating new philosophical and literary issues.

The Culture of Autobiography

The Culture of Autobiography PDF Author: Robert Folkenflik
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 9780804720489
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 292

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Book Description
Focusing primarily on the period from the eighteenth-century to the present, this interdisciplinary volume takes a fresh look at the institutions and practices of autobiography and self-portraiture in Europe, the United States and other cultures.

American Autobiography

American Autobiography PDF Author: Rachael McLennan
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
ISBN: 0748644628
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 160

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Book Description
The first student guide to American autobiographys introduction to the major forms of autobiographical writing in America and important current developments in autobiography studies discusses both 'canonised' texts and those from contemporary writers. Taking a broadly chronological approach, the history of American autobiography is explored including the social and cultural factors that might account for the importance of autobiography in American culture. Then post-1970 autobiographies are examined, taking into account the development in poststructuralism from this time that affected notions of the subject who could write, and conceptions of truth, identity and reference.

British Autobiography in the Seventeenth Century

British Autobiography in the Seventeenth Century PDF Author: Paul Delany
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317376218
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 211

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Book Description
Originally published in 1969. In the seventeenth century neither the literary genre nor the term ‘autobiography’ existed but we see in seventeenth-century literature many kinds of autobiographical writings, to which their authors gave such titles as ‘Journal of the Life of Me, Confessions, etc. This work is a study of nearly two hundred of these, published and unpublished, which together represent a very varied group of writings. The book begins with an examination of the rise of autobiography as a genre during the Renaissance. It discusses seventeenth-century autobiographical writings under two main headings – ‘religious’, where the autobiographies are grouped according to the denomination of their writer, and ‘secular’, where a wide variety of writings is examined, including accounts of travel and of military and political life, as well as more personal accounts. Autobiographies by women are treated separately, and the author shows that they in general have a deeper revelation of sentiments and more subtle self-analyses than is found in comparable works by men. Sources and influences are recorded and also the essential historical details of each work. This book gives a critical analysis of the autobiographies as literary works and suggests relationships between them and the culture and society of their time. Review of the original publication: "...a contribution to cultural history which is of quite exceptional merit. Its subject is of great intrinsic interest and manifest importance and Professor Delany has treated it with exemplary thoroughness, lucidity, and intelligence." Lionel Trilling

Translation of Autobiography

Translation of Autobiography PDF Author: Susan XU Yun
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company
ISBN: 9027265100
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 249

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Book Description
This book presents an interdisciplinary study that straddles four academic fields, namely, autobiography, stylistics, narratology and translation studies. It shows that foregrounding is manifested in the language of autobiography, alerting readers to an authorial tone with certain ideological affiliations. In refuting the presumed conflation between the author, narrator and character in autobiography, the study emphasizes readers’ role in constructing an implied author. The issues of implied translator, assumed translation and rewriting are explored through a comparative analysis of the English and Chinese autobiographies by Singapore’s founding father Lee Kuan Yew. The analysis identifies different foregrounding practices and attributes these differences to an implied translator. Further evidence derived from narrative-communicative situations in the two autobiographies underscores divergent personae of the implied authors. The study aims to establish a deeper understanding of how translation and rewriting have a far-reaching impact on the self- and world-making functions of autobiography. This book will be of special interest to scholars and students of linguistics, literature, translation and political science.

The Self and the Sacred

The Self and the Sacred PDF Author: Rodger Milton Payne
Publisher: Univ. of Tennessee Press
ISBN: 9781572330153
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 142

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Book Description
From about 1740 to 1850, evangelical Protestantism became a major cultural force in virtually all areas of America. Emerging from this religious movement was a rich vernacular literature of conversion narratives and spiritual autobiographies--writings in which believers described their own salvation in hopes of converting others. In The Self and the Sacred, Rodger M. Payne examines these neglected texts in depth, focusing particularly on what they reveal about notions of selfhood and how those notions were incorporated into Christian orthodoxy. As Payne explains, conversion narratives point to a fascinating paradox that became evident among evangelicals as they were confronted by the disruptions and discontinuities marking their culture's passage into modernity. On the one hand, these narratives asserted the traditional Christian values of humility and self-effacement--an annihilation of the self in the divine. On the other hand, they created a discourse that allowed one to embrace the modern idea of an autonomous self: only by speaking from personal experience could a convert testify to the power of God. "Despite protests to the contrary," Payne writes, "the central character of any conversion account, spiritual diary, or spiritual autobiography was the convert, not God." Using the theology of Jonathan Edwards as a key example, Payne shows how Puritan piety encouraged the development of autobiographical spiritual narratives. He goes on to explain the ways in which the discourse of conversion functioned apart from the control of the church and marked the growth of evangelicalism into "a discursive community." Finally, he considers how the language of conversion functioned as a "rhetorical space" in which believers situated themselves individually within sacred space and time before turning back to society with a renewed regard for others. Drawing throughout on the insights of such theorists as Michel Foucault and Victor Turner, Payne's penetrating analysis reveals the early conversion accounts as mythic texts through which the modern self emerged. The Author: Rodger M. Payne is associate professor of religious studies at Louisiana State University. He is editor-in-chief of The Journal of Southern Religion, an electronic publication available on the World Wide Web.

Women, Autobiography, Theory

Women, Autobiography, Theory PDF Author: Sidonie Smith
Publisher: Univ of Wisconsin Press
ISBN: 9780299158446
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 546

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Book Description
The first comprehensive guide to the burgeoning field of women's autobiography. Essays from 39 prominent critics and writers explore narratives across the centuries and from around the globe. A list of more than 200 women's autobiographies and a comprehensive bibliography provide invaluable information for scholars, teachers, and readers.