L.008.32045 Life Writing as Resistance and Utopian Vision: Black Autobiographies from Frederick Douglass to Barack Obama

Lehrende: Prof. Dr. Miriam Strube

Veranstaltungsart: Oberseminar

Orga-Einheit: Anglistik/Amerikanistik

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Unterrichtssprache: Englisch

Min. | Max. Teilnehmerzahl: - | 30

Voraussetzungen und Empfehlungen:
George Gusdorf famously (or infamously) declared that there are certain conditions and limits for autobiographical writing. A closer look at his exploration of these conditions and limits reveals a concern peculiar to Western man, "a concern that has been of good use in his systematic conquest of the universe." Consequently, Gusdorf defines the autobiography as the success story of a bourgeois man of public life who uses a rhetoric of assertion to present his writing as a document of his life, a mimetic self-representation, using a linear and progressive form of narration.
However, Gusdorf’s normative model has been strongly challenged by many scholars (for example, Donna C. Stanton, Estelle Jelinek, Mary Mason, Sidonie Smith, Joanne Braxton, and Anne E. Goldman), who stress the importance of autobiographies as a form of resistance, as reclamation of a utopian vision, as a means for the continuing search for identity or as therapeutic.
In this class, we will look at African-American autobiographical writing and investigate how writers from Frederick Douglass and lesbian activists Audre Lorde to President Obama have used this form for their resistant voices and utopian world view.

The requirements are active participation (this includes: being the expert on various texts, annotated reading and coming to class with observations and questions) and the punctual fulfillment of the written assignments. Furthermore, there will be a number of unannounced in-class essays.

Text to be bought and read before the class starts:
Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave
Audre Lorde, Zami: A New Spelling of My Name
Barack Obama, Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance

All other texts will be made available on PAUL.

Wichtige Hinweise:
April through May, three-hour sessions.