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Reviewed by:
  • Teaching Life Writing Texts
  • Elizabeth Podnieks (bio)
Miriam Fuchs and Craig Howes, editors. Teaching Life Writing Texts. Modern Language Association of America. xii, 402. US $22.00

In the eight years I have been teaching undergraduate and graduate courses on life writing, I have longed for a book like Teaching Life Writing Texts, and I celebrate its publication. While scholarship in the field (which encompasses a wide variety of genres such as biography, autobiography, memoir) has been flourishing since the 1970s, this collection proves that life writing has ‘arrived’ in the classroom as well. Drawing on earlier and more specialized guides such as Carey-Webb and Benz’s Teaching and Testimony: Rigoberta Menchú and the North American Classroom and Smith and Watson’s Reading Autobiography, [End Page 170] contributors to Teaching Life Writing Texts address pedagogical issues that affect the discipline in the broadest terms to date.

In their introduction, the editors establish the importance of life writing within academia by providing a brief survey of key scholars such as James Olney, Philippe Lejeune, Paul John Eakin, Sidonie Smith, and Julia Watson, showing how their work has been complemented by a growing number of academic journals and conferences devoted to the subject. The editors then illuminate the ways in which life writing has been incorporated into curricula, arguing for the value obtained – and that will continue to be realized – by the teaching and studying of such texts.

In sharing their experiences as teachers (of predominantly English, or English translation texts) with their colleagues in a global context, contributors touch on issues affecting the development, management, and instruction of courses at every level of post-secondary education, and delivered to students in diverse institutions and locations. The course material discussed reflects the most significant topics driving life writing studies including ‘identity, subjectivity, memory, agency, history, and representation.’ Historical in breadth, the primary readings in the forty-three essays here (about five to ten pages each) range from the earliest forms of life writing like confession and biography to the most contemporary and innovative manifestations of the genre in electronic, performance, aural, graphic, and plastic art texts. Tracing what is unquestionably a long and rich tradition, some contributors reinforce the importance of the by-now-established course ‘regulars’ – such as St Augustine, Samuel Johnson, Lytton Strachey, and Anne Frank – and thus seem to work within, or point towards, a life writing canon. At the same time, they and/or others resist such an ‘authoritative’ list by pairing these ‘classics’ with lesser known authors or subjects – such as the American slave Olaudah Equiano, or Jason Kingsley and Mitchell Levitz who have Down syndrome – or by designing a whole course around narratives typically outside the academic mainstream, such as those about aids, drugs, depression, sexual abuse, sports, and food, to name but a few.

The collection is divided into two sections or ‘approaches’ – ‘Generic’ and ‘Cultural’ – that complement each other in underscoring the relevance of life writing for any and all humanities disciplines. Along the way, the essays offer an impressive array of sample syllabi, primary and secondary readings, class assignments, and exam questions. Three separate sections offering additional information for teaching include bibliographies, ‘Periodicals and Online Resources,’ and ‘Life Writing Centers, Programs, and Organizations.’ According to the editors, the book’s purpose is ‘to suggest the range and creativity of life writing in various departments and programs throughout the world and to share the experiences of our contributors as sources of encouragement for [End Page 171] new and veteran instructors of life writing.’ The editors are most successful in achieving these goals. The essays make students out of the teachers, who will come to the book to (re)learn and to (re)think the pedagogical challenges, rewards, and implications of their profession. Ultimately, though, I read the collection as an accomplished work of life writing in itself, an example of auto/bio-criticism. The essays inscribe the personal motivations and interests determining the choices made by teachers in constructing and delivering their courses, just as the teachers record the confessional, auto/biographical responses by their students to that material. Demonstrating as much as explicating life writing genres, the essays will appeal...

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