Autobiographical Writing Across the Disciplines

A Reader

Autor: Freedman, Diane P.; Frey, Olivia; Behar, Ruth; Bleich, David
Editor: Duke University Press
ISBN: 9780822332008
eISBN Pdf: 9780822384960
Lloc de publicació: Durham , United States
Any de publicació digital: 2004
Mes: Gener
Pàgines: 512
DDC: 920
Idioma: Anglés

Descripció

Autobiographical Writing Across the Disciplines reveals the extraordinary breadth of the intellectual movement toward self-inclusive scholarship. Presenting exemplary works of criticism incorporating personal narratives, this volume brings together twenty-seven essays from scholars in literary studies and history, mathematics and medicine, philosophy, music, film, ethnic studies, law, education, anthropology, religion, and biology. Pioneers in the development of the hybrid genre of personal scholarship, the writers whose work is presented here challenge traditional modes of inquiry and ways of knowing. In assembling their work, editors Diane P. Freedman and Olivia Frey have provided a rich source of reasons for and models of autobiographical criticism.

The editors’ introduction presents a condensed history of academic writing, chronicles the origins of autobiographical criticism, and emphasizes the role of feminism in championing the value of personal narrative to disciplinary discourse. The essays are all explicitly informed by the identities of their authors, among whom are a feminist scientist, a Jewish filmmaker living in Germany, a potential carrier of Huntington’s disease, and a doctor pregnant while in medical school. Whether describing how being a professor of ethnic literature necessarily entails being an activist, how music and cooking are related, or how a theology is shaped by cultural identity, the contributors illuminate the relationship between their scholarly pursuits and personal lives and, in the process, expand the boundaries of their disciplines.

Contributors:

Kwame Anthony Appiah
Ruth Behar
Merrill Black
David Bleich
James Cone
Brenda Daly
Laura B. DeLind
Carlos L. Dews
Michael Dorris
Diane P. Freedman
Olivia Frey
Peter Hamlin
Laura Duhan Kaplan
Perri Klass
Muriel Lederman
Deborah Lefkowitz
Eunice Lipton
Robert D. Marcus
Donald Murray
Seymour Papert
Carla T. Peterson
David Richman
Sara Ruddick
Julie Tharp
Bonnie TuSmith
Alex Wexler
Naomi Weisstein
Patricia Williams

CONTENTS
Acknowledgments
Foreword
Self/Discipline: An Introduction
LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE
- Finding the Right Word: Self-Inclusion and Self-Inscription
- Gender Tragedies: East Texas Cockfighting and Hamlet
- Three Readings of the Wife of Bath
- Listening to the Images: My Sightless Insights into Yeats’s Plays
- Activist Academic: Memoir of an Ethnic Lit Professor
- Following the Voice of the Draft
- Notes of a Native Daughter: Reflections on Identity and Writing
HISTORY
- Tribute to Robert D. Marcus
- Journey/man: Hi/s/tory
RELIGION
- From God of the Oppressed
PHILOSOPHY
- Beyond Holocaust Theology: Extending a Hand across the Abyss
- Maternal Thinking
AFRICANA STUDIES
- Altered States
ART HISTORY
- History of an Encounter
MUSIC
- Devouring Music: Ruminations of a Composer Who Cooks
FILM
- When the Body Is Your Own: Feminist Film Criticism and the Horror Genre
- Filming Point of View
ANTHROPOLOGY
- From The Broken Cord
- Juban Ameríca
- Close Encounters with a CSA: The Reflections of a Bruised and Somewhat Wiser Anthropologist
LAW
- The Death of the Profane (a commentary on the genre of legal writing)
ENGLISH EDUCATION
- My Father/My Censor: English Education, Politics, and Status
RESEARCH PSYCHOLOGY
- Adventures of a Woman in Science
BIOLOGY
- Through the Looking Glass: A Feminist’s Life in Biology
MEDICINE
- That Disorder: An Introduction
- A Textbook Pregnancy
MATH, PSYCHOLOGY, AND SCIENCE EDUCATION
- Personal Thinking
Selected Bibliography
Contributors