Ante-Autobiography and the Archive of Childhood

This essay examines the concept of children’s autobiography via several autobiographical extracts written by the author as a child. Although only a small proportion of people will compose and publish a full-length autobiography, almost everyone will, inadvertently, produce an archive of the self, made from public records and private documents. Here, such works are seen as providing access to writing both about and by children. The essay explores the ethics and poetics of children’s writing via the key debates in life writing; in particular, the dynamic relationship between adults and children, both as distinct stages of life and dual parts of one autobiographical identity. The term “ante-autobiography” is coined to refer to these texts which come before or instead of a full-length narrative. They are not read as less than or inadequate versions of autobiography, but rather as transgressive and challenging to chronological notions of the genre

Using \u27The Autobiography of Malcolm X\u27 to Teach Introductory Sociology

In this chapter, we make the case for using The Autobiography of Malcolm X to teach introductory sociology classes. While The Autobiography of Malcolm X is an autobiography and not a novel, we summarize the literature on using novels in sociology and compare this literature to our own experiences using autobiographies in the classroom. We then describe how autobiographies are particularly helpful for introducing students to the concept of the ‘‘sociological imagination’’ before highlighting this with an in-class exercise. Finally, we discuss student feedback and some of the drawbacks to using autobiographies and the extent to which these drawbacks can be mitigated. [excerpt

Autobiography

My grandparents immigrated to the U.S. around the turn of the last century. My mother’s parents and six older siblings came from Poland. My father’s parents met in New York, she having come from Russia and he from Romania. My parents, both born in 1908, grew up in New York and never lived outside the metropolitan area. Both finished high school and went to work, my father studying at Brooklyn Law School at night while selling shoes during the day. When they married in 1929, my mother was earning $15 a week as a bookkeeper and my father,$5 a week as a novice lawyer.Search frictions;

New essays on life writing and the body (Review)

Copyright @ 2010 The Autobiography Societ

"Unlike actors, politicians or eminent military men”: The meaning of hard work in working class autobiography

Copyright @ 2010 The Autobiography Societ

[Review of] H. David Brumble III. American Indian Autobiography

American Indian Autobiography provides significant insight into the nature and production of Indian autobiographies, past and present. Aware of the heterogeneity of native cultures, H. David Brumble perceptively demonstrates the continuity of these works with both their cultural and literary roots -- oral narrative. He elucidates six genera of oral narrative, convincingly establishing their continuity from the earliest to contemporary works. Stressing the bicultural nature of Indian autobiography, Brumble carefully analyzes both the effect of white editors working within the cultural assumptions of their eras in eliciting and shaping Indian autobiographies and the ramifications of culture contact and adaptation on the part of the Indians in shaping their narratives. Brumble fruitfully contrasts the Indian self as tribal and kin enmeshed with the modern Western self, independent and individualistic. He sees the essence of preliterate autobiography as the reciting of one\u27s adult deeds rather than the contemporary (since Rousseau) project of explaining how the author came to be who he/she is

Nearer my God: an autobiography of faith

Reviewed Book: Buckley, William F. (William Frank). Nearer my God: an autobiography of faith. New York: Doubleday, 1997

The Poet\u27s Hymn

Reviews the book The Doctor\u27s House: An Autobiography, by James Liddy

Pennington to Stephen Miller, May 24, 1965

Pennington writing to his cousin Stephen Miller about writing his autobiography, Rambling Recollections, and sorting through and burning his correspondence.https://digitalcommons.georgefox.edu/levi_pennington/1296/thumbnail.jp