from Paul:
"Why are people prompted to write their autobiographies? Is it because they are vain and believe they have an important story that needs to be heard? In some cases I believe that this is the case but I think that in the vast majority of cases it is because the person has woken up one morning realizing that their life is finite. That one day, maybe in the very near future they will die, writing an autobiography is a way to immortalize themselves. I am sure that there are more reasons, and different ways of looking at this question. But at the heart of it I think autobiographers are just trying to preserve a part of themsleves, regardless of the reason they feel the need to do so."
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..to write or not to write an autobiography...
Eye and I
Will the Read Marilyn Monroe Please Step Forward?
"Mirror, Mirror, on the Wall" Picasso, 1932
a place for sharing ideas about the self writing about the self.
..a staggering genius...
..to write or not to write an autobiography...
Whose autobiography?
...running from and into the family...
Alfred Kazin
Inside History Now
Ironing out the wrinkles?
EGO SPEAKS
Eye and I
Looking for ...
Will the Read Marilyn Monroe Please Step Forward?
What We are Reading
- Dave Eggers "Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
- Vladimir Nabokov "Speak Memory"
- Michael Ondaatje "Running in the Family"
- Mary McCarthy "Memories of a Catholic Girlhood"
- Katharine C. Black "Works in Progress"
- Jamaica Kincaid "The Autobiography of My Mother"
- Frederick Douglass, "My Narrative as a Slave"
- Edwidge Danticat "Brother, I'm Dying"
- Eavan Boland "Object Lessons"
- Alfred Kazin "A Walker in the City"
looking in the mirror
"Mirror, Mirror, on the Wall" Picasso, 1932
Welcome!
Welcome to a semester of conversations with each other about autobiography! Be sure to check in the night before the class meets the next day for postings & a chance to add your own two cents.
2 comments:
to write about ourselves is to hope for preservation? i somewhat agree. the problem is, what if no one ever reads it? or what if it was read when it was first published, but by the time you die or afterwards, people stop? is a part of you still preserved, just because its in a hardcopy form?
do you think there might be any other reasons why people write autobiographies?
I don't necessary think that autobiography is a means of preservation alone. I think that writing your own story is a cathartic process. Some stories just need to be told in order to achieve a resolution, or a means of letting go of a negative emotion that comes with it. Some people write their autobiographies every day in journal form. These autobiographies are sometimes never read by another individual. They are lost in the winds of time. That is why I believe that writing your own story is not just a means of preservation alone.
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