Women and AutobiographyMartine Watson Brownley, Allison B. Kimmich Rowman & Littlefield, 1999 - 215 pages Autobiography, as evidenced by best-seller lists, is one of the most popular literary genres. However, because critics have long dismissed it as subpar literature, little attention has been paid to autobiography, particularly accounts by women. Women and Autobiography, edited by Martine Watson Brownley and Allison B. Kimmich, offers an insightful perspective on this often overlooked field. This text gives a compact, comprehensive overview of women's autobiography, providing historical back-ground and contemporary criticism along with selections from a range of autobiographies by women. Developed primarily for undergraduates, Women and Autobiography combines theory and practice by pairing autobiographical selections and criticism. This book is a useful tool for courses in autobiography, literature by women, and women's studies. |
Contents
Womens Lifewriting and the Male Autobiographical Tradition | 1 |
The Female Self Engendered Autobiographical Writing and Theories of Selfhood | 3 |
Womans Autobiographical Writings New Forms | 15 |
Construing Truth in Lying Mouths Truthtelling in Womens Autobiography | 33 |
Feminine Authorship and Spiritual Authority in Victorian Women Writers Autobiographies | 53 |
GenderRelated Difference in the Slave Narratives of Harriet Jacobs and Frederick Douglass | 69 |
Theorizing the Female Subject Who Writes How and Why? | 93 |
Reading for the Doubled Discourse of American Womens Autobiography | 95 |
Rethinking Genre Autobiography in Other Forms | 147 |
Expanding the Boundaries of Criticism The Diary as Female Autobiography | 149 |
Autopathography Women Illness and Lifewriting | 161 |
Womens Autobiography from the Early Modern Period to the Present Sample Texts | 173 |
Seventeenth Century From A True Relation of My Birth Breeding and Life | 175 |
Eighteenth Century From A Narrative of the Life of Mrs Charlotte Charke | 183 |
Nineteenth Century From Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl | 193 |
Twentieth Century From All of a Piece A Life with Multiple Sclerosis | 199 |
Woman as Other Other as Author Author as Man? The Authobiographical Dimension of The Second Sex | 111 |
Beneath the Mask Autobiographies of JapaneseAmerican Women | 129 |
Suggested Readings | 209 |
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
Adrienne Rich American Anaïs Nin argues authority authorship autobi autobiographical texts autobiographical writing become Benstock biography body camp Charlotte Charke Christian contemporary critics culture daughter diary discourse disease Douglass essay ethnic example experience Farewell to Manzanar father female feminine Feminism feminist fiction gender genre Gillespie grandmother Harriet Harriet Jacobs human identity illness individual Jacobs Jacobs's Japanese Japanese-American Japanese-American women Kikumura Kingston language lifewriting literary literature lives Mairs male Manzanar Margaret Lucas Cavendish Mary Maxine Hong Kingston mother multiple sclerosis narrators nineteenth-century Nisei novel postmodern question readers reflect regimes of truth relationships religious role Second Sex self-representation selfhood sense sexual Simone de Beauvoir slave narratives slavery Smith social society speak spiritual story Studies suggests theory tion traditional truthtelling University Press values voice Webster woman women writers Women's Autobiography Woolf York Yoshiko Uchida