What do you think?
Rate this book
Autobiography
This addition to the acclaimed New Critical Idiom series offers a wide-ranging introduction to the study of autobiography and a historical overview of autobiographical writing from St Augustine to the present day.
Autobiography follows the important developments in autobiographical criticism in the last thirty years, paying particular attention to psychoanalytic, poststructualist and feminist approaches. Autobiography:
outlines the main theoretical issues and concepts of this area looks at the different forms from confessions to narratives to memoirs to diaries considers the major writers of this tradition looks at the ideological assumptions about the nature of the self.
Autobiography follows the important developments in autobiographical criticism in the last thirty years, paying particular attention to psychoanalytic, poststructualist and feminist approaches. Autobiography:
outlines the main theoretical issues and concepts of this area looks at the different forms from confessions to narratives to memoirs to diaries considers the major writers of this tradition looks at the ideological assumptions about the nature of the self.
168 pages, Paperback
First published March 22, 2001
3 people are currently reading
47 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
December 21, 2017
I really liked reading this book! I usually don't enjoy texts that are both long and heavily theory-based, but this was surprisingly read-able and very eye opening. I read it for the purpose of my BA thesis, but I think it would have been good to read for leisure as well. Anderson does an incredible job of talking about the history of Autobiography and the critiques of Autobiography, paying particular and nuanced attention to marginalized voices. I felt like the end was leading towards a larger conclusion that it never really came to, which is why I gave it four instead of five stars. However, it's probably good that it didn't get to that conclusion - that's why I'm writing my thesis, haha. A good book that I'd recommend to anyone, especially people interested in the concept of life narrative!
May 28, 2024
Solid, short entry into the world of theory and criticism as they pertain to autobiography. The first half appears dated but the more recent additions on postcolonial and internet modes of writing the self were great albeit short. I’d say a must-read for anyone dipping their toes into the pursuit of an intellectual engagement with auto/biography.
November 27, 2022
Actually liked it.
Read
September 4, 2016Another one of these? Well, okay. They're good for me, I suppose. Theory and criticism is an interesting way to meet some of these people--Hester Thrale (loved her kids, liked being a mom, didn't challenge any norms, just liked to write stuff down), Rousseau ("I will venture to say that I am like no one in the whole world"--bleh, sounds like me in high school), Freud (always so classically repressed by his own standards). And then poststructuralism happens and things get weird (mommy issues, circumcision, the problem of women's relation to autobiography...what? the hell? is the problem?). I feel like I read the whole book just to get to Virginia Woolf. Maybe that was Anderson's feeling as well. Must read Virginia Woolf!
Honestly, the theory and critical investigation into autobiography seems a little misguided in its single-minded pursuit of the author/subject. The equally fundamental and interesting thing about autobiography is not the subject but the audience. Who is the autobiography for? And why? And how come we're not talking about that?
Honestly, the theory and critical investigation into autobiography seems a little misguided in its single-minded pursuit of the author/subject. The equally fundamental and interesting thing about autobiography is not the subject but the audience. Who is the autobiography for? And why? And how come we're not talking about that?
July 31, 2014
What is autobiographical writing and what does it do for and to the writer? This short and quick read has some excellent answers to those questions, referring to the greatest autobiographical books of history as examples. One issue in particular is the nature of time in a life- does the present re-write the past, or does the past write the present? Or some mix of these things? Does autobiography make the writer the subject, or does it further establish her as an object? How can the writer influence how that last question plays out?
My only criticism of the book is that it ends very abruptly, leaving this reader to wonder where the end of that chapter is as well as the end of the book.
(Note: I save my five stars for great works. Three stars is not knocking the book; it means totally adequate.)
My only criticism of the book is that it ends very abruptly, leaving this reader to wonder where the end of that chapter is as well as the end of the book.
(Note: I save my five stars for great works. Three stars is not knocking the book; it means totally adequate.)
June 30, 2015
Anderson's contribution to 'The New Critical idiom' series provides a clearly structured, wide ranging introduction to autobiographical studies. It focuses heavily on the central importance of gender in both the historical practice and critical study of autobiography.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews