Browsing by Subject "Autobiography"
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Item Asymptotic autobiography : fairy tales as narrative map in the writing of Zelda Fitzgerald(2009-08) McKetta, Elisabeth Sharp; MacKay, Carol Hanbery; Kevorkian, Martin, 1968-; Miller, Lynn C.; Ali, Samer; Lesser, WayneWhen a writer, usually a woman, uses fairy tales as a veil through which to narrate a story of her life, I call this practice asymptotic autobiography. In mathematics, the asymptote is a straight line that a curve approaches increasingly closely, but never actually touches. I define “asymptotic autobiography” as a term for discussing any personal narrative that deliberately employs fiction in order to tell truth. In this inquiry, I examine the use of fairy tale language in giving voice to women writers’ autobiographical representations, using Zelda Fitzgerald’s novel and letters as the focus for my analysis. My research and critical analysis will examine how Save Me the Waltz, which Zelda Fitzgerald wrote while she was a psychiatric patient in the Phipps Clinic, uses fairy tales to provide a mapping of the many performances that autobiographical selfhood entails. By experimenting with open-ended fairy tale conventions instead of being limited by clinical truths, and by contextualizing her personal history in the realm of the imaginary, Fitzgerald removes her story from the psychiatric ward and places it safely in legend. The first three chapters of this dissertation show how, in sequence, the autobiographical self becomes free through the use of fairy tales in three stages: once the autobiographer has worked to separate herself from being bound by illness or clinical reality (Chapter One), she is free to make the decision of which self or selves she wishes to narrate and perform (Chapter Two); only once she has established her sense of self can the autobiographer then locate her plot, her map, and her narrative (Chapter Three). In Chapter Four, I offer an example of asymptotic autobiography in the form of a one-person play script that I wrote and performed about Zelda Fitzgerald’s life and hospitalization, using as a frame the fairy tale “The Swan Maiden.” This hybrid essay-performance combines the play script itself with personal writing of my own in which I describe the difficulties I had approaching and performing the rich material of Zelda’s life.Item Endless cups of tea : Tibetans on the Buddhist path in Santa Fe, New Mexico(1994) Bell, Martha Smith, 1958-; Brow, JamesThe following life histories are personal accounts of Tibetan history as told by Tibetan refugees living in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Telling life histories is a literary genre in Tibet, but for a Tibetan, life is not chronological. Tibetans tend to tell life experiences as they relate to a person's journey along the path to enlightenment. The aural/oral exchange between the listener/writer and the Tibetan life storyteller is an attempt to bring together the self with the other, nominal terms separated out in conventional reality. The texts are symbolically situated in the sacred so that self can be deconstructed. The methodology of this thesis seeks to question self implicitly so that others may have insight into emptiness and the interrelatedness of all beings. This moves the autobiography out of the realm of mere narcissism. The primary aim of this inquiry is to give voice to an individual, who also represents the mother, father, child, lover and enemy in one's own lifetime. To do this is to walk in a Buddhist's shoesItem Majestic presence : narrating the transgender self in 21st-century Tamiḻakam(2016-08) Rajic, Nikola; Selby, Martha Ann; Hyder, Syed Akbar; Stewart, Kathleen; Rudrappa, Sharmila; Freiberger, OliverThe purpose of this dissertation is to document the emergence of a new identity of Tamil transgender women as articulated by transgender women themselves through works of autobiographies (Revathi’s Veḷḷai mōḻi and Living Smile Vidya’s Nān Vityā), fiction (Priya Babu’s novel Mūṉṟām pāliṉ mukam), or scholarship (Priya Babu’s ethnography of her community Aravāṇikaḷ, camūka varaiviyal). I pay special attention to how these women articulate their selfhood and the identity of their community in reaction to the specificities of the South Indian context (association with religious festivals such as the Aravaṉ festival in Koovagam, and other transgender phenomena in the Indian subcontinent). Self-narration, especially for stigmatized people and communities is inextricably linked to overcoming traumatic experiences, and for asserting new identities. Speaking and writing about one’s trauma can be a powerful force for transforming pain and loss into political action, and studying it can help us understand how trauma creates new possibilities of community and public culture that is as attentive to shame and alienation as it is to pride and solidarity. Therefore, I focus on trauma and stigma, as expressed in the aforementioned works, as vehicles for creating unique public cultures and artistic subjectivity.Item Mes Tissages : self-fashioning and performance in the autobiographical work of Sand, Bernhardt and Colette(2020-02-03) Zembski, Laetitia Cindy; Wettlaufer, AlexandraThis dissertation examines the self-fashioning of three female writers/artists, George Sand (1804-1876), Sarah Bernhardt (1844-1923) and Gabrielle-Sidonie Colette (1873-1954). Considering their shared affinity with writing and the theater, I argue that each author refashions her self-portrait and public image by means of a unique textual performance, which is conveyed through clothing on stage as actresses (Bernhardt and Colette), backstage as playwrights, and on the page as authors. My goal in this work is to connect the autobiographical corpus of these three writers to the art of needlework and textile in the context of genre, gender, identity and performance. I am particularly interested in the ways fabric serves as a literal and metaphoric second skin to Sand, Bernhardt and Colette, who present the private self (the feminine body) to the public. First, I will analyze how Sand uses a patchwork of various genres in Histoire de ma vie (1854). Next, I will focus on Sarah Bernhardt’s ability to use the autobiographical genre as a draping cloth to perform various identities in a fiction of her reality in order to conceal the self in Ma double vie (1907) and in the visual arts. I ultimately show how Colette embroiders an imaginary canvas as a form of metaphor in Claudine series (1900-1904), and La Vagabonde (1911) as well as three later works: La maison de Claudine’s “La couseuse” (1922), Mes apprentissages (1936) and Broderie ancienne (1944). Textual analysis of autobiographies, memoirs, auto-fictions, and manuscripts, as well as close studies of agendas, newspapers and correspondence comprise the various sources I examine. I most importantly focus on the role of textiles in and within the autobiographical narratives in order to analyze the authors’ strategies to subvert the dominant phallocentric discourses and power structures from the fall of the July Monarchy with the Revolution of 1848 to the end of La Belle Époque in 1914.Item "Something more than fantasy": fathering postcolonial identities through Shakespeare(2005) Waddington, George Roland; Friedman, Alan Warren; Mallin, Eric ScottThis thesis examines the referential and structural presence of “Shakespeare” in the autobiographies of Joseph Conrad (A Personal Record), Michael Ondaatje (Running in the Family) and Edward Said (Out of Place). These authors evoke “Shakespeare”—the product of centuries of political, national, and personal appropriation—as a means of understanding their own complex heritages, even as they displace his canonical authority. Exploring the relationships among Shakespeare’s plays, modern or contemporary autobiography, and postcolonial theories of cultural hybridity, I argue that writers and countries try constantly to secure Shakespearean paternity even for transgressive, postcolonial ends.Item Take me in, I am no one(2020-07-24) Calloway, Carolyn Gage; Hubbard, Teresa, 1965-My practice is centered around poetry, installation, sculpture, printmaking, computer programming, and time-based media. My multimedia installations allow for moments of self-reflection, mirroring the feeling of physical disassociation and social detachment we experience online. Having both a dark sensibility and a subtly humorous sincerity, my kinetic sculptures, print, and time-based installations remove common objects, language, sounds, and symbols (i.e. traffic signs, building material, furniture, commercial prints, and technology) from their traditional contexts. This allows viewers to reconsider the ways these elements affect their emotional landscape, speaking directly to the disconnect between the mind and the body.Item Transitioning bodies, transformative stories : live performance of transgender autobiographical narratives in the United States(2020-08-17) O'Rear, Jesse Daniel; Gutierrez, Laura G., 1968-; Alrutz, Megan; Rossen, Rebecca; Hunt, Grayson; Chavez, Karma RThe relationship between transgender communities and the autobiographical is historically and contemporarily contentious and complicated. Our autobiographies are demanded of us by the medical industry in order to gain access to healthcare; by the justice system in order to determine whether or not we are honest and worthy of safety and freedom; and by the media who perpetuate this system of what scholar Viviane Namaste calls the “autobiographical imperative,” the expectation that trans people will offer the intimate details of our personal lives at any time to a curious cisgender audience. However, many trans people have also relied on each other’s autobiographical narratives to learn how to navigate these same harmful systems, as well as find camaraderie, solidarity, and solace among one another. To this end, I execute performance analyses of three works by transgender-identified artists to examine the ways in which each production engages with the complexities of the autobiographical for trans subjects: Shakina Nayfack’s One Woman Show (2013), D’Lo’s To T or Not to T (2019), and Sean Dorsey Dance’s Uncovered: The Diary Project (2009). I argue that each work in its respective form, narrative structure, and execution either circumvents, directly challenges, or illuminates the oppressive parameters imposed by the autobiographical imperative. Additionally, I analyze on my own participation in a fictional piece of devised drama, TRANSom (2020), which I argue was subjected to what I have termed the “autobiographical assumption,” a consequence of the autobiographical imperative where imaginative work by trans people is perceived to be autobiographical. Finally, I reflect on the existence of and possibilities for sharing trans narratives in the realm of social media where interaction and affirmation can be immediate quantified. While this project recognizes that visibility and representation are not answers to discrimination, violence, and poverty (and, in fact, as Black trans women scholars and activists like Tourmaline remind us, often open doors to increased harassment), I hope to encourage space for present and future works of performance which allow for trans artists to bring their stories to the stage in ways that are beneficial to the artists and their communities.Item Writing in blood : compassion, character, and popular rhetoric in Rousseau and Nietzsche(2011-12) Field, Laura; Pangle, Thomas L.; Pangle, Lorraine; Stauffer, Devin; Jacobsohn, Gary J.; Marks, JonathanThis study explores the normative role of emotional rhetoric and the social passions (with an emphasis on compassion) in politics through a consideration of the divergent perspectives of Rousseau and Nietzsche. These two invite comparison not only because of the wide range of ideas they represent, but also because each employed rare rhetorical skill to effect extensive cultural change. To analyze this dynamic relationship between theory and practice, I focus on how each philosopher sought to transform the sentimental basis of social and political life. I argue that Rousseau, through his intentional use of sentimental rhetoric, inspired cultural romanticism and the equity of the political left, and that Nietzsche, through his extreme attack on ordinary compassion, and his invocation of tragic pity and the “pathos of distance,” hoped to prevent nihilism from taking root in the modern spirit by bringing about an age of renewed cultural depth and robust individualism. My study is unique in its investigation of the autobiographical rhetoric of the two philosophers. I argue that both Rousseau and Nietzsche wrote autobiographies that exemplify their respective philosophical teachings on the sentiments, which is to say that in the autobiographical works they employ personal rhetoric aimed at illuminating and reinforcing these teachings. Rousseau’s pathos-filled self-presentation serves his vision for a withdrawn cultural elite that, while tolerated and quietly influential, does not enjoy public honors; Nietzsche, I suggest, worries that the cost of privatizing great individual virtue will be too high; his bombastic self-portrait not only satirizes faux Rousseauian vulnerability, but also serves personally to exemplify the possibility of a new cultural super-authority. In both cases, I suggest, a fundamental consistency exists between their theoretical teachings and their self-presentations, such that their autobiographical works should be understood as integrated parts of their greater philosophic projects.