Annual Bibliography of Works about Life Writing, 2005-2006

A persuasive case can be made for a causative link between exile and autobiography. This is, of course, partially comprised of the need to make sense of memories and experiences, to create—through the rationalizing force of narrative—coherence in the midst of the emotional turmoil and confusion of dislocation.

—Sheila Boniface Davies and Georgina Horrell

Situated between reality and imagination, human beings have the ability to identify, misidentify, create, and destroy the very notion of identity. If identity is this fluid, there needs to be a container.

—Gerald Alan Powell, Jr.

Books

Abarca, Meredith. Voices in the Kitchen: Views of Food and the World from Working-Class Mexican and Mexican-American Women. College Station: Texas A&M UP, 2006.

Uses oral histories with her mother and other family members to address agency, subjectivity, and social change.

Anderson, Monica. Women and the Politics of Travel, 1870-1914. Madison, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson UP, 2006.

Through works by Isabella Bird, Florence Dixie, and Kate Marsden, considers how travel literature reflected changing attitudes toward gender.

Bagnall, Roger S., and Raffaella Cribiore. Women's Letters from Ancient Egypt, 300 BC-AD 800. Ann Arbor: U of Michigan P, 2006.

Places women's letters written in Greek and Egyptian from the Alexandrian conquest to the early Islamic period in their paleographic, linguistic, social, and economic contexts.

Barnes, Djuna. Collected Poems: With Notes toward the Memoirs. Ed. Phillip Herring and Osias Stutman. Madison: U of Wisconsin P, 2005.

Contains materials found in Barnes's apartment, including unpublished drafts of poems and "notes toward her memoirs."

Becker-Cantarino, Barbara, ed., trans., and introd. The Life of Lady Johanna Eleonora Petersen, Written by Herself: Pietism and Women's Autobiography in Seventeenth-Century Germany. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 2005.

Translation of Petersen's (1644-1724) autobiography—one of the first by a woman in Germany—and of two of her Pietistic devotional tracts, with a contextualizing introduction.

Belluscio, Steven J. To Be Suddenly White: Literary Realism and Racial Passing. Columbia: U of Missouri P, 2006.

Compares late nineteenth and early twentieth century African American, Jewish American, and Italian American narratives of passing.

Berg, Temma. The Lives and Letters of an Eighteenth-Century Circle of Acquaintance. Burlington: Ashgate, 2006.

Transcriptions of thirty-one letters, with interpretive essays, reveal structures of epiy discourse and female friendship.

Bidinger, Elizabeth. The Ethics of Working Class Autobiography: Representation of Family by Four American Authors. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2006.

Examines the representations of gender, race, region, class, and family in works by Russell Baker, John Edgar Wideman, Agate Nesaule, and Bobbie Ann Mason.

Bilinkoff, Jodi. Related Lives: Confessors and Their Female Penitents, 1450-1750. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 2005.

Analyzes priests' roles as confessors and as biographers of spiritually gifted women.

Booth, W. James. Communities of Memory: On Witness, Identity, and Justice. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 2006.

Explores the places of memory in the ethics and practices of justice.

Borella, Sara Steinert. The Travel Narratives of Ella Maillart: (En)gendering the Quest. New York: Peter Lang, 2006.

Postcolonial reading of the twentieth century Swiss travel writer.

Brynner, Rock. Empire and Odyssey: The Brynners in Far East Russia and Beyond. Hanover, NH: Steerforth, 2006.

Brynner, a history professor and son of actor Yul, constructs a single panoramic story of four family generations while providing a chronicle of their times and of modern Russian history.

Burack-Weiss, Ann. The Caregiver's Tale: Loss and Renewal in Memoirs of Family Life. New York: Columbia UP, 2006.

Identifies common themes and structures in memoirs by authors who cared for ill or disabled family members.

Burke, Peter. Eyewitnessing: The Uses of Images as Historical Evidence. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 2006.

Reviews the use of graphics, photographs, films, and other media as historical and documentary evidence.

Caine, Barbara. Bombay to Bloomsbury: A Biography of the Strachey Family. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2005.

Combines "collective biography" with "a history of attitudes, beliefs, and ideas."

Campbell, James T. Middle Passages: African-American Journeys to Africa, 1787-2005. New York: Penguin, 2006.

Surveys black Americans' narratives of their encounters with Africa.

Casillo, Robert. The Empire of Stereotypes: Germaine...