EGL 275 - Autobiography

Course Units: 1

(Winter; Kuhn) (Offered twice every four years) “Who am I and how did I get this way?” This course is a study in the development of autobiography as literary genre from St. Augustine’s Confessions to Frank McCourt’s Angela’s Ashes. We will focus on autobiography as a space for exploring, expressing, and constructing the self as well as an inquiry into the developing relationship between mind and world. We will also examine the various motives behind writing one’s life-story from the existential and religious to the political and historical. Related issues to be discussed include the role of imagination, memory, and language in narrating the self, and the particular impact of minority, marginalized, and forbidden voices. We will also talk about the recent scandals involving fabricated autobiographies. Does an autobiography have to be true? Readings may include Montaigne’s Essays, Rousseau’s Confessions, Woolf ‘s A Sketch of the Past, Styron’s Darkness Visible, Wurtzel’s Prozac Nation, Spiegelman’s Maus, and Satrapi’s Persepolis. Prerequisite(s): EGL 100 or EGL 101 or EGL 102 or a grade of 5 on the AP English Literature or Language test. CC: HUL, HUM