Life Writing as Dialogue:Autobiography,Memoir,Auto Fiction and the Diary(SNF Paideia Program Course)

1 Course Unit

Life Writing as a Dialogue will use several genres of life writing (autobiography, memoir, diary and auto fiction), to support students’ understanding of how dialogic processes are used to construct self and group identity. The beginning of the genre of autobiography is traced to the 18th century, the rise of the novel, the Enlightenment and the rising impact of the idea of individualism and personal autonomy over collective identity, and the influence of Jean Jacques Rousseau’s Confessions. Published autobiographies written mostly by famous men were considered at that time as authentic expressions of the writers’ thoughts and feelings, not influenced by others. Memoirs written for the family and as legal documents and unpublished diaries existed earlier. In the twentieth century, with the development of the academic interest in autobiographical and life writing, an early feminist conceptualization proposed the idea that while men’s selfhood was taken to be autonomous and rational, women’s self was relational and emotional. However, it was later understood that the self of both genders has relational and autonomous dimensions. Furthermore, it was recognized that the self is built in an ongoing dialogue throughout life. The process exists at the internal individual level—the person in an internal dialogue with himself, as well as an external one, through relationship with and reflection on the opinions and experiences of others. The course examines several theoretical models that use the concept of dialogue in the construction of self and apply dialogic processes to relationships within the in-group and with out-group others. Students will read and discuss the function and impact of different generic texts upon the writer through her writing, and on the reader who is exposed to experiences and life stories unfamiliar and different than her own. The issue of the feasibility of dialogue between members of groups in conflict is presented through reading, discussing, and enacting life stories of true case studies, as well as listening to guest speakers. Spring 1 Course Unit