The Limits of Autobiography : Trauma and Testimony / Leigh Gilmore.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Gilmore, Leigh, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Gilmore, Mikal. Shot in the heart.

Allison, Dorothy, 1949- Bastard out of Carolina.

Kincaid, Jamaica--Criticism and interpretation.

Winterson, Jeanette, 1959- Written on the body.

Self in literature.

First person narrative.

Autobiographical fiction--History and criticism.

Autobiographical fiction.

English prose literature--20th century--History and criticism.

English prose literature.

Autobiography.

American prose literature--20th century--History and criticism.

American prose literature.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (x, 163 p. )

Place of Publication:

Ithaca, NY : Cornell University Press, [2018]

Language Note:

In English.

Summary:

Memoirs in which trauma takes a major-or the major-role challenge the limits of autobiography. Leigh Gilmore presents a series of "limit-cases"-texts that combine elements of autobiography, fiction, biography, history, and theory while representing trauma and the self-and demonstrates how and why their authors swerve from the formal constraints of autobiography when the representation of trauma coincides with self-representation. Gilmore maintains that conflicting demands on both the self and narrative may prompt formal experimentation by such writers and lead to texts that are not, strictly speaking, autobiography, but are nonetheless deeply engaged with its central concerns.In astute and compelling readings of texts by Michel Foucault, Louis Althusser, Dorothy Allison, Mikal Gilmore, Jamaica Kincaid, and Jeanette Winterson, Gilmore explores how each of them poses the questions, "How have I lived? How will I live?" in relation to the social and psychic forms within which trauma emerges. Challenging the very boundaries of autobiography as well as trauma, these stories are not told in conventional ways: the writers testify to how self-representation and the representation of trauma grow beyond simple causes and effects, exceed their duration in time, and connect to other forms of historical, familial, and personal pain. In their movement from an overtly testimonial form to one that draws on legal as well as literary knowledge, such texts produce an alternative means of confronting kinship, violence, and self-representation.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Acknowledgments

INTRODUCTION. The Limits of Autobiography

1. Represent Yourself

2. Bastard Testimony Illegitimacy and Incest in Dorothy Allison's: Bastard Out of Carolina

3. There Will Always Be a Father: Transference and the Auto/biographical Demand in Mikal Gilmore's Shot in the Heart

4. There Will Always Be a Mother: Jamaica Kincaid's Serial Autobiography

5. Without Names: An Anatomy of Absence in Jeanette Winterson's Written on the Body

CONCLUSION. The Knowing Subject and an Alternative Jurisprudence of Trauma

Bibliography

Index

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (p. 149-156) and index.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 26. Mrz 2019)

ISBN:

1-5017-2434-7

OCLC:

1080552157