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Contested Selves
Investigates the field of German life writing, from Rahel Levin
Varnhagen around 1800 to Carmen Sylva a century later, from Doblin, Becher, women's WWII
diaries, German-Jewish memoirs, and East German women's interview literatureto the
autofiction of Lena Gorelik.In recent decades, life writing has exploded in
memoirs that focus on traumatic experiences now constitute the largest growth sector in book
publishing worldwide. But life writing is not only highly marketable; it also does important
emotional, cultural, and political work. It is more available to amateurs and those without
the cultural capital or the self-confidence to embrace more traditional literary forms, and
thus gives voice to marginalized populations. Contested Selves investigates various forms of
German-language life writing, including memoirs, interviews, letters, diaries, and graphic
novels, shedding light on its democratic potential, on its ability to personalize history
and historicize the personal. The contributors ask how the various authors construct and
negotiate notions of the self relative to sociopolitical contexts, cultural traditions,
genre expectations, and narrative norms. They also investigate the nexus of writing, memory,
and experience, including the genre's truth claims vis-a-vis the pliability and
unreliability of human memories. Finally, they explore ethical questions that arise from
intimate life writing and from the representation of "e;vulnerable
subjects"e; as well as from the interrelation of material body, embodied self, and
narrative. All forms of life writing discussed in this volume are invested in a process of
making meaning and in an exchange of experience that allows us to relate our lives to the
lives of others.
Varnhagen around 1800 to Carmen Sylva a century later, from Doblin, Becher, women's WWII
diaries, German-Jewish memoirs, and East German women's interview literatureto the
autofiction of Lena Gorelik.In recent decades, life writing has exploded in
memoirs that focus on traumatic experiences now constitute the largest growth sector in book
publishing worldwide. But life writing is not only highly marketable; it also does important
emotional, cultural, and political work. It is more available to amateurs and those without
the cultural capital or the self-confidence to embrace more traditional literary forms, and
thus gives voice to marginalized populations. Contested Selves investigates various forms of
German-language life writing, including memoirs, interviews, letters, diaries, and graphic
novels, shedding light on its democratic potential, on its ability to personalize history
and historicize the personal. The contributors ask how the various authors construct and
negotiate notions of the self relative to sociopolitical contexts, cultural traditions,
genre expectations, and narrative norms. They also investigate the nexus of writing, memory,
and experience, including the genre's truth claims vis-a-vis the pliability and
unreliability of human memories. Finally, they explore ethical questions that arise from
intimate life writing and from the representation of "e;vulnerable
subjects"e; as well as from the interrelation of material body, embodied self, and
narrative. All forms of life writing discussed in this volume are invested in a process of
making meaning and in an exchange of experience that allows us to relate our lives to the
lives of others.
411 pages, Kindle Edition
Published April 30, 2021
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