Self-Archives in Contemporary Life Writing

From Lists to Databases

AvWojciech Drag

Inbunden, Engelska, 2027

Del i serien New Directions in Life Narrative

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Beskrivning

An exploration of contemporary life writing’s dependence on different variants of the archive, this book examines the notion of the self-archive and how the modern emerging auto/biographical subject resists traditional narrative coherence and takes the form of a repository of self-contained elements. An answer to the trend of biographers and auto-biographers to increasingly eschew narrative to accentuate the fragmentary character and nature of experience – the tendency to ‘store’ rather than ‘story’ the self – Self-Archives in Contemporary Life Writing defines the self-archive as an arrangement of auto-biographical material. From recollections and personal documentation to objects owned, these archives all posess components that have been selected, sorted, and placed alongside one another according to a specific system.With each building block of the self-archive fragmentary and disconnected, author Wojciech Drag makes the case that so is the auto/biographical subject fragmented, unstable and elusive, defined by the data and objects they consume. With 20 experimental works of life writing considered, from Roland Barthes’s auto-encyclopaedia to a digital biography of Ludwig Wittgenstein, the book draws from case studies from over the last 50 years, by authors from the US, the UK, Canada, France and Poland. Divided into sections devoted to texts that rely on the alphabet for their structure (the encyclopaedia, the bibliography and the index) and formats that favour arbitrary order (the list, the inventory, the portfolio and the database), this book puts forward new vehicles for the auto-biographical mode.

Produktinformation

Utgivningsdatum:2027-04-01
Mått:156 x 234 x 14 mm
Vikt:366 g
Format:Inbunden
Språk:Engelska
Serie:New Directions in Life Narrative
Antal sidor:256
Förlag:Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
ISBN:9781350645424

Utforska kategorier

Biografier inom Biografier
Självbiografier och Memoarer inom Biografier
Litteraturvetenskap inom Skönlitteratur

Mer om författaren

Wojciech Drag is Associate Professor at the University of Wroclaw, Poland. He is the author of Collage in Twenty-First-Century Literature in English: Art of Crisis (2020) and Revisiting Loss: Memory, Trauma and Nostalgia in the Novels of Kazuo Ishiguro (2014) and co-editor of four edited volumes, including Experimental Life Writing Today (Bloomsbury, 2025) with Vanessa Guignery and Critical Perspectives on Max Porter (2024) with David Rudrum and Pawel Wojtas.

Innehållsförteckning

Introduction: Archiving the Self: Theory and Literary PracticeThe rise of the archiveConceptualizing the archiveLiterary uses of the archiveThe archive, the self and life writingThe structure of this book1. The EncyclopaediaThe history and poetics of the encyclopaediaLiterary uses of the encyclopaediaRoland Barthes’s Roland Barthes by Roland Barthes Amy Krouse Rosenthal’s Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life2. The Bibliography Literature and self-definitionThe bibliomemoirRick Moody’s “Primary Sources” Brandon R. Schrand’s Works Cited Angela Genusa’s Spam Bibliography3. The Index The history, poetics and politics of the indexThe index in/as fictionAlejandro Cesarco’s Index projectAnder Monson’s “Index for X and the Origin of Fires” Joan Wickersham’s The Suicide Index: Putting My Father’s Death in Order4. The List Definitions, types and characteristicsLists in literatureLists in life writingJoe Brainard’s I RememberLater uses of the “I remember” format: Georges Perec, Harry Mathews, Rona Cran and Piotr Stankiewicz5. The Inventory Definitions and characteristicsLiterary uses of the inventoryInventories in/as life writingMaterial objects and identityGeorges Perec’s “Attempt at an Inventory of the Liquid and Solid Foodstuffs Ingurgitated by Me in the Course of the Year Nineteen Hundred and Seventy-Four” Nicholas Felton’s Annual Reports Steven Zultanski’s Pad6. The Portfolio Definition and characteristicsConceptual writingDocumental poetryDana Teen Lomax’s Disclosure Mathew Timmons’s Credit7. The DatabaseThe poetics and politics of the databaseDatabases in life writingShelley Jackson’s my body: a WunderkammerDavid Clark’s 88 Constellations for WittgensteinConclusion: We Make Archives Because We Don’t Want to Die BibliographyIndex