The Routledge Introduction to American Life Writing

Description

The stories of lived experience offer powerful representations of a nation’s complex and often fractured identity. Personal narratives have taken many forms in American literature. From the letters and journals of the famous and the lesser known to the memoirs of former slaves to hit true crime podcasts to lyric essays to the curated archives we keep on social media, life writing has been a tool of both the influential and the disenfranchised to spark cultural and political evolution, to help define the larger identity of the nation, and to claim a sense of belonging within it. Taken together, individual stories of real American lives weave a tapestry of history, humanity, and art while raising questions about the veracity of memory and the slippery nature of truth. This volume surveys the forms of life writing that have contributed to the richness of American literature and shaped American discourse. It examines life writing as a rhetorical tool for social change and explores how technological advancement has allowed ordinary Americans to chronicle and share their lives with others. Cover Half Title Series Information Title Page Copyright Page Table of Contents Introduction Defining American Life Writing Terminology Works Cited 1 Personal Essays The Oldest Essay Binary: Baconian and Montaignian The Evolution of the American Essay Synthesizing Bacon and Montaigne Essay as Democracy Persona in Essays Essays Are Defiantly Omnivorous Works Cited 2 Memoir and Autobiography Benjamin Franklin’s “Self-Made” Man American Slave Narratives Autobiography as an Act of Democracy Transcendentalism and Selfhood in Autobiography The Co-Creation of “I” and “We” Early Twentieth-Century Black American Autobiography Presidential Memoirs and Autobiographies Self-Creation in Contemporary Autobiography Subgenres of Contemporary Memoir Grief Memoirs Motherhood Memoirs Addiction Memoirs Family Memoirs Divorce Memoirs Conclusion Works Cited 3 Literary Journalism Honest Subjectivity Nomenclature and Distinguishing Characteristics Facts and Fictions There Is a Dishonest Subjectivity “New” Journalism Self and Otherness Questions of Fact; Questions of Interpretation True Crime Empathy and Advocacy Works Cited 4 Lyric Essays Segmented Essays Braided Essays Hermit Crab Essays Other Lyric Essay Forms Book-Length Lyric Essay and Memoir Conclusion Works Cited 5 Diaries, Epistles, and Speeches Diaries Public Vs. Private Diaries Diaries as Historical Narrative Diarist as an Embodiment of Time and Culture Diary as Literary Construction Diary to Supplement Celebrity The Diary’s Daily “Ongoingness” Epistles Repurposed Correspondence The Political Public Force of Private Letters Open Letters The Personal-Political in Literary Open Letters Speeches Embodied and Disembodied Symbols Speeches of Social Reform Indigenous American Oratory Oral Histories and Crowdsourcing TED Talks Conclusion Works Cited 6 Aural Narratives: Podcasts and Story Slams This American Life and the Beginning of American Podcasts The Role of the Host S-Town and the Ethics of Telling Others’ Stories Representation in Public Radio Further Listening Live Storytelling Conclusion Works Cited 7 Life Writing Online Webgenres and Blogging Blogging Communities and Controversies The Social Network A Brief History of Social Network Sites The Rhetoric of SNS Interfaces Conclusion Works Cited Index