The self as other in minority American life writing / edited by Claudine Raynaud and Nelly Mok.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Raynaud, Claudine, editor.

Mok, Nelly, editor.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Self in literature.

Biography in literature.

American literature--Minority authors--History and criticism.

American literature.

American literature--Minority authors.

Genre:

Criticism, interpretation, etc.

Physical Description:

vi, 211 pages ; 22 cm

Place of Publication:

Newcastle upon Tyne : Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2019.

Summary:

Hinting at Rimbaud's provocative dictum that "I is an other," this anthology discusses a wide-ranging array of twentieth-century and contemporary minority American modes of life writing, prompted by the following questions: Who (else) hides behind this "I" that the author-narrator-character "contractually" claims to be? What generic, aesthetic, political and socio-cultural issues are at stake in a conception of the self as other? The essays analyze autobiographical works from major Native American writers (John Milton Oskison and Louise Erdrich), an African American music-hall artist (Josephine Baker) and writers (John Edgar Wideman and Ta-Nehisi Coates), Caribbean American writers (Jamaica Kincaid and Edwidge Danticat), and Asian American writers (Ruth Ozeki, Cathy Park Hong, Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, and Loung Ung). They shed light on autobiography as a collaborative writing and reading practice, rather than as a self-oriented genre, probing the "relational" dimension of life writing. Building on the feminist theorization of relationality and the political and aesthetic power of relational bonds, they put forward the necessarily intersubjective dynamics of minority American "self-conceptions" which originate in the writers' experiences of otherness. The articles highlight that the relational ethnic self characteristically inhabits the liminal spaces where modes of life writing overlap and can thrive in dialogical intertextual readings. They foreground the subversive, cathartic, and memorializing potential of minority American modes of "other-writing" whose ontological dimension is manifest in the writers' quest for a sense of repossession and agency, beyond communal boundaries. Contributing to the up-to-date critical discussion on relationality, not as a genre, but rather as a reading and "a storytelling practice," they examine the ways it participates in a global, transcultural approach to ethno-racial issues in the United States.

Contents:

Introduction. Writing the Self as Other: Modes of Other-Writing in Minority American Life Writing / Nelly Mok and Claudine Raynaud

Part I. Writing the Territory, Writing the Tribe in Native American Life Writing. 1. Un Indien comme un autre: le travail autobiographique de John Milton Oskison / Lionel Larré ; 2. Écriture de soi, écriture tribale : la famille, synecdoque de la tribu dans les récits autobiographiques de Louise Erdrich / Elisabeth Bouzonviller

Part II. Writing Scenes, Engendering Selves in African American Life Writing. 3. The Writing Scenes of Autobiography: Reading Joséphine Baker's Memoirs with Princess Tam Tam / Claudine Raynaud ; 4. 'Race is the Child of Racism': Self-Engendering and Autofiction beyond the Color Line in Fatheralong and Between the World and Me / Flora Valadié

Part III. Writing the Community, Mapping the (Im)personal Self in Caribbean American Life Writing. 5. Quand la fiction nourrit l'autobiographie : polyphonie dans Brother, I'm Dying d'Edwidge Danticat / Nicole Ollier ; 6. Jamaica Kincaid's Autobiographical Performance, or What Happens to Lines Deviated? / Andrée-Anne Kekeh-Dika

Part IV. Writing/Reading the Self Dialogically, (Re)constructing Memory in Asian American Life Writing. 7. Reaching One's 'Supapawa' in Ruth Ozeki's A Tale for the Time Being / Nicoleta Alexoae-Zagni ; 8. Experimental Life Writing and Relational Selves in the Works of Cathy Park Hong and Theresa Hak Kyung Cha / Héloïse Thomas ; 9. L'auto/biographie, espace de réconciliation avec cet autre soi : écriture de soi et relationnalité dans After They Killed Our Father de Loung Ung / Nelly Mok.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references.

Other Format:

Electronic version: Self as other in minority American life writing.

ISBN:

9781527527973

1527527972

OCLC:

1085167875

Publisher Number:

99983600949