2012-2013 Academic Catalog

Apr 28, 2024

2012-2013 Academic Catalog [ARCHIVED CATALOG]

HS 330 - Race, Genre and Autobiography

Type of Course: Lecture

Explores how radicalized subjects in the U.S. give meaning to their lives through the genre of autobiography. Combines critical methods from literary studies and sociological research to examine the relationship between authority and authorship, identity and race, subjective and objective reality, and autobiography and fiction. The course is guided by three principal questions: How do authors create themselves as subjects and develop authority and agency by telling the stories of their lives? And what is the relationship between autobiography and fiction? Through such investigations, particularly via historical and cultural contextualization, we hope to better understand why the autobiography has long been the favored genre of literary self-expression and political self-representation for writers of color.

Interdisciplinary Higgins School Course: Sociology and English