Auto/biography: Narratives of the Self (ENG4/5ABN)
2009

Texts

y separately published work icon Flaws in the Glass : A Self-Portrait Patrick White , London : Jonathan Cape , 1981 Z443896 1981 single work autobiography (taught in 2 units)

'A self-portrait that is as brilliant original as White's fiction and drama.

'In this remarkable self-portrait Patrick White explains how on the very rare occasions when he re-reads a passage from one of his books, he recognises very little of the self he knows. This 'unknown' is the man interviewers and visiting students expect to find, but 'unable to produce him', he prefers to remain private, or as private as anyone who has been awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature can ever be. In this book is the self Patrick White does recognise, the one he sees reflected in the glass.'

Source: Publisher's blurb (Vintage ed.).

Father and son!$!Gosse, E.!$! !$!Penguin!$!
The confessions!$!Rousseau, J.J.!$! !$!Penguin!$!
Speak, memory!$!Nabakov, V.!$! !$!Penguin!$!
Incidents in the life of a slave girl!$!Jacobs, H.!$! !$!Dover!$!
An autobiography!$!Frame, J.!$!!$!George Braziller!$!
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Deprofundis and other writings!$! Wilde, O.!$!!$!Penguin!$!
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Dora: an analysis of a case of hysteria!$!Freud, S.D.!$!!$!Simon Schuster!$!
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Autobiographies!$!Darwin, C.!$!!$!Penguin!$!
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Description

People have written biographies and autobiographies for centuries, but only in recent years has the study of these forms become a major field of academic discussion and inquiry. The field opens up many important and interesting questions: What's the relationship between self-knowledge and the knowledge we have of others? How much can we in fact know about self or other? To what extent, and in what ways, does the sense of self we have derive from cultural norms and narratives? What sorts of plots do authors of biographies and autobiographies inherit or fashion in order to write narratives of the self? What role does ideology - gender, class, racial, colonial, ethnic - play in the narratives of self that we can, or might want to, write? In this unit we will discuss these and other issues in relation to a range of biographical and autobiographical texts.

Assessment

one 3500-word essay70%

one 1500-word essay30%

Other Details

Levels: Undergraduate - Honours
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