Autobiographical Inscriptions: Form, Personhood, and the American Woman Writer of ColorOxford University Press, 1999 M11 11 - 240 páginas As life-writing began to attract critical attention in the 1950s and 60s, theorists, critics, and practitioners of autobiography concerned themselves with inscribing--that is, establishing or asserting--a set of conventions that would define constructions of identity and acts of self-representation. More recently, however, scholars have identified the ways in which autobiographical works recognize and resist those conventions. Moving beyond the narrow, prescriptive definition of autobiography as the factual, chronological, first-person narrative of the life story, critics have theorized the genre from postmodern and feminist perspectives. Autobiographical Inscriptions contributes a theory of autobiography by women writers of color to this lively repositioning of identity studies. Barbara Rodríguez breaks new ground in the field with a discussion of the ways in which innovations of form and structure bolster the arguments for personhood articulated by Harriet Jacobs, Zora Neale Hurston, Hisaye Yamamoto, Maxine Hong Kingston, Leslie Marmon Silko, Adrienne Kennedy, and Cecile Pineda. Rodríguez maps the intersections of form and structure with issues of race and gender in these women's works. Central to the autobiographical act and to the representation of the self in language, these intersections mark the ways in which the American woman writer of color comments on the process of subject construction as she produces original forms for the life story. In each chapter, Rodríguez pairs canonized texts with less well-known works, reading autobiographical works across cultural contexts and historical periods, and even across artistic media. By raising crucial questions about structure, Autobiographical Inscriptions analyzes the ways in which these texts also destabilize notions of race and gender. The result is a remarkable analysis of the seemingly endless range of formal strategies available to, adopted, and adapted by the American woman writer of color. |
Contenido
| 3 | |
Visions Setting and Voice in Dust Tracks on a Road | 21 |
Form and Transformation in Mary Rowlandsons Captivity Narrative and Harriet Jacobss Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl | 50 |
Autobiographical Acts in Maxine Hong Kingstons The Woman Warrior and Hisaye Yarnamotos The Legend of Miss Sasagawara | 96 |
Identity and Identification in Leslie Marmon Silkos Storyteller and Adrienne Kennedys People Who Led to My Plays | 137 |
Making Face Making Race Prosopopoeia Autobiography and Identity Construction in Cecile Pinedas Face | 177 |
Notes | 205 |
Selected Bibliography | 211 |
Index | 221 |
Otras ediciones - Ver todas
Autobiographical Inscriptions: Form, Personhood, and the American Woman ... Barbara Ruth Rodriguez Vista previa limitada - 1999 |
Términos y frases comunes
Adrienne Kennedy African-American American women writers appears argue asserts autobiographical act autobiography becomes Brave Orchid captivity narrative Cara Cara's chapter Cheung Chinese construction critics culture defining describes discussion Driscoll Dust Tracks Eatonville Ellen Driscoll's ethnic evokes experience explains face fiction gender genre ghost Harriet Jacobs Hisaye Hisaye Yamamoto identifies identity illustrates implies Indian interpretation Jacobs's Japanese Americans Johnson Kennedy's Kiku Kiku's language legend Leslie Marmon Silko Mary Mary Rowlandson mask Maxine Hong Kingston metaphor Miss Sasagawara mother narrator Native American Negro notes novel object Orlan person personhood photographs Pineda's poem prosopopoeia protagonist Puritan race rative reader reading recognizes relates relationship Rowlandson scene scholars seems silence Silko Slave Girl slave narrative slavery speak statue story Storyteller strategies structure tells things tion tradition visions voice Woman Warrior words writers of color writes Yamamoto Yellow Woman Zora Neale Hurston
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Página 138 - Yet the men who framed this declaration were great men — high in literary acquirements — high in their sense of honor, and incapable of asserting principles inconsistent with those on which they were acting. They perfectly understood the meaning of the language they used, and how it would be understood by others ; and they knew that it would not in any part of the civilized world be supposed to embrace the negro race, which, by common consent, had been excluded from civilized Governments and...
Página 87 - I hope she is reaping the fruit of her good labors, being faithful to the service of God in her place. In her younger years she lay under much trouble upon spiritual accounts, till it pleased God to make that precious scripture take hold of her heart, 2 Cor., 12: 9: And He said unto me, my Grace is sufficient for thee.
Página 76 - General Court. They bid me speak what I thought he would give. Now knowing that all we had was destroyed by the Indians, I was in a great strait.
Página 24 - Ships at a distance have every man's wish on board. For some they come in with the tide. For others they sail forever on the horizon, never out of sight, never landing until the Watcher turns his eyes away in resignation, his dreams mocked to death by Time.
Página 72 - My mistress had taught me the precepts of God's Word: "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." "Whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, do ye even so unto them.
Página 138 - It speaks in general terms of the people of the United States, and of citizens of the several States, when it is providing for the exercise of the powers granted or the privileges secured to the citizen. It does not define what description of persons are intended to be included under these terms, or who shall be regarded as a citizen and one of the people. It uses them as terms so well understood, that no further description or definition was necessary.
Página 35 - Mama exhorted her children at every opportunity to "jump at de sun." We might not land on the sun, but at least we would get off the ground.
Página 41 - Her mouth was slightly open, but her breathing took up so much of her strength that she could not talk. But she looked at me, or so I felt, to speak for her. She depended on me for a voice.
Página 106 - I do not think she always means me well. I am telling on her, and she was a spite suicide, drowning herself in the drinking water. The Chinese are always very frightened of the drowned one, whose weeping ghost, wet hair hanging and skin bloated, waits silently by the water to pull down a substitute.