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

AHC interview with Ulrich C. Knoepflmacher

June 11 & 15, 2012Prof. Ulrich Knoepflmacher was born on June 26, 1931 in Munich, Germany. Just five years after moving to Vienna (Margaretenstrasse in the 5th district), the Knoeplmacher family decided to leave the country, because of the social turmoil Jews were facing. They took the train to Belgium and Holland, from where they embarked to South America on the SS Aconcagua. They arrived in Bolivia in early May 1939. Knoepflmacher attended the Anglo-American High School in Oruro. After graduation, he moved to California to pursue studies of architecture at the University of California in Berkeley. He went on to do a Master's degree in English literature and later got his PhD in the same subject from Princeton University. Ulrich Knoepflmacher became Professor of English literature and taught at Berkeley and at Princeton University.Digital recordin