Autobiographical Writing

ENG 311: Autobiographical Writing

Meeting days (in-person): TR 10:30-11:45am 

Location: MSB-315

Focus designation: Creative Writing (CW) 

General course description: 

Writing clear, effective prose based on the writer’s own experiences and ideas with a focus on the ethical questions such writing entails. Pre: one ENG DL course or consent. 

WI: Writing Intensive (4000 words total).

Expanded course description: 

Because autobiographical writing is referential, and because it is the story of a real person, it has a sort of force, an impact in the real world. Life writing scholar G. Thomas Couser argues that truth-telling is an important aspect of autobiographical writing and what differentiates it from the novel. Yet, there are writers who integrate elements of fiction in the stories about their lives for a number of reasons. The question then is, what is “truth?” Is there a difference between fictionalization and outright lying? Who determines the definition and boundaries of “truth?” And ultimately, can an autobiography and life writing more generally actually be whole-heartedly “truthful?” 

In this class, we will be exploring primary texts that blur the lines between fact and fiction, thinking critically about how elements of the novel are used in autobiographical writing, how the writer calls attention to these moments if they do, and finally, the possibilities as well as limitations of such blurring. Using Leigh Gilmore’s “limit-cases” as an analytical frame, we’ll be reading a range of primary texts including a testimonio, an autobiography, autofiction, a genre that cannot easily be categorized as either nonfiction or fiction, and a manga. The forms these writers choose to use are rhetorical – they perform or enact agency in different ways that are necessary during a particular moment in time. 

Through our theorizations on how creative articulations and experimentation can both enact and complicate identity, we will engage in our own series of writing experiments, reflecting critically on 1) the stories we want to tell, 2) what force they have on the real world, and 3) how our creative articulations (lyrical prose, nonlinear narrative structure, fragmentation, textual disruptions, fiction, hybrid form, etc) can become a practice of agency. 

As writers, we are always in conversation with our readers. Our stories then, are a practice of gift-giving. What part of ourselves do we wish to give as a gift to our readers? What can they learn from this part? Finally, how can we ethically engage in communicating who we are while taking care of not only ourselves, but our readers as well? Upon constructing our writing experiments, we will engage in a series of class workshops. In these workshops, the class will read an expansion of your writing experiments and offer generative feedback. That said, setting boundaries surrounding self-disclosure and making sure that the content we share does not harm others or ourselves, is part of our ethical responsibility as writers. At the end of the semester, you will compile a writing portfolio that includes a polished version of your workshop piece and a critical reflection. 

REQUIRED TEXTS (TENTATIVE LIST): 

The critical material will be provided for you as PDFs on Lamakū. 

  1. Philippe Lejeune’s “Autobiographical Pact” 
  2. Michel Foucault’s “What is An Author?” 
  3. Roland Barthes’s “The Death of the Author” 
  4. Selected readings from G. Thomas Couser’s Memoir: An Introduction (2011)
  5. Selected readings from Smith and Watson’s Reading Autobiography 
  6. Leigh Gilmore’s ““Jurisdictions and Testimonial Networks: Rigoberta Menchú”
  7. David Stoll’s “Rigoberta Menchú and the Story of All Poor Guatemalans”
  8. Selected readings from Leigh Gilmore’s The Limits of Autobiography: Trauma and Testimony (2023) 
  9. Sau-Ling Cynthia Wong’s “Autobiography As Guided Chinatown Tour?” 
  10. Lisa Lowe’s “Heterogeneity, Hybridity, Multiplicity: Marking Asian American Differences” from Immigrant Acts 
  11. Hillary L. Chute’s “I Saw It and the Work of Atomic Bomb Manga”
  12. Selected readings from Marjorie Worthington’s The Story of “Me” 

Primary texts (can be purchased at the UH Mānoa Bookstore or provided by instructor) 

  1. Rigoberta Menchu, I, Rigoberta Menchu (2010); ISBN 9781844674183
  2. Maxine Hong Kingston, The Woman Warrior (1989); ISBN 9780679721888   
  3. Keiji Nakazawa, Barefoot Gen (text and possibly film will be provided by instructor)
  4. Dave Eggers, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius (2001); ISBN 9780375725784
  5. Ocean Vuong’s On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous (2019); ISBN 9780525562047

ASSIGNMENTS (THIS IS A TENTATIVE LIST) 

  1. Four 500-word writing experiments which will be compiled into your workshop submissions 
  2. A series of reading responses
  3. One “Lead the Discussion” presentation on either primary or secondary material 
  4. Two 500 to 1000-word workshop submissions 
  5. Workshop letters 
  6. Final Portfolio: A 4000-word expanded, refined, and polished version of one of your workshop submissions + 750-word critical reflection