Annual Bibliography of Works about Life Writing, 2000-2001

William Todd Schultz
Psychobiography Bibliographer
With The Assistance of Stefanie Page

Information privacy is so abstract. It doesn't have neat physical boundaries and it isn't buried like ideas in our head. Information about you doesn't even have to come from you. Most of the computerized information is just bits and pieces, which individually don't seem very important. Unless the loss of privacy does you some immediate harm or irritation, you're likely to ignore it.

--Nelson King, "Pursuit of Privacy"

Self-portraiture in some ways deals with the nuances of the inner notion of self-identity represented by the mirror.

--Julie Clarke, "The Sacrificial Body of Orlan"

A picture does not have to be opened and read, like a text or a tomb; it cannot seek out its audience, or declare a particular relation to it. Instead, a picture says simply "Behold!" and a picture of a person says in particular "Behold me (and my story, and yourself, and whatever it is that my image can activate in your consciousness)."

--Elizabeth Hollander, "Telling Portraits: The Gothic Frame"

This year's annotated list of books, collections, edited volumes, annuals, special issues, articles, essays, and dissertations about life writing covers the period 2000 to Fall 2001.

Books

Allen, Richard L. The Concept of Self: A Study of Black Identity and Self-Esteem. Detroit: Wayne State UP, 2001.

Examines the historical formation of African American individual and collective senses of self, and uses results from the National Survey of Black Americans to develop a model of the African self.

Anderson, Linda. Autobiography. New York: Routledge, 2001.

Examines the theory and practice of autobiographical writing from St. Augustine to the present, featuring different forms of the genre ranging from confessions and narratives to diaries and memoirs.

Appleby, Joyce. Inheriting the Revolution. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 2001.

Draws on hundreds of memoirs and autobiographies for an account of how the first post-U.S. Revolution generation crafted a national identity.

Arch, Stephen Carl. After Franklin: The Emergence of Autobiography in Post-Revolutionary America, 1780-1830. Hanover, NH: UP of New England, 2001.

Traces the development of modern conceptions of selfhood and identity in seldom-read late 18th and early 19th century autobiographical texts by Americans.

Beard, Mary. The Invention of Jane Harrison. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 2000.

This nontraditional biography examines the "processes through which we construct a narrative out of a life," and features a "biographer's investment" in her subject without the tone of certainty which accompanies most biographies.

Berry, Ruth. Jung: A Beginner's Guide. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2000.

Explores Jung's background, the times he lived in, and the development of Jungian analysis.

Bibb, Henry. The Life and Adventures of Henry Bibb: An American Slave. Ed. Charles Heglar. Madison: U of Wisconsin P, 2000.

A new edition of the 1849 text, with selected letters and editorials by Bibb.

Booth, Marilyn. May Her Likes Be Multiplied: Biography and Gender Politics in Egypt. Berkeley: U of California P, 2001.

Casts new light on Arabic life writing and the role of cultural traditions in shaping women's lives by demonstrating how biographies of women published in Egypt in the early 20th century prescribed complex role models for middle-class girls.

Burt, Daniel S. The Biography Book. Westport: Oryx/Greenwood, 2001.

A reader's/viewer's guide to nonfictional, fictional, and film biographies of over 500 individuals.

Byatt, A. S. The Biographer's Tale. New York: Knopf, 2001.

Novel that explores how a quest for facts is often a quest for identity.

------. On Histories and Stories: Selected Essays. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 2001.

Selected essays on narrative and life writing theory, historical fiction, and European literary traditions.

Cary, Phillip. Augustine's Invention of the Inner Self: The Legacy of a Christian Platonist. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2000.

Argues that Augustine invented the concept of the self as a private space, resolving tensions between Neoplatonist...