Last modified: 22 May 2019 17:07
What is at stake in writing autobiographical texts? What are the forms writers have used to write themselves? Is autobiography simply, as Oscar Wilde states, the lowest form of criticism? Looking at a range of texts from the Medieval period to the present, with a special focus on women’s writing, this course examines the formal, ethical, political, and aesthetic choices writers make when writing themselves.
| Study Type | Postgraduate | Level | 5 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Term | Second Term | Credit Points | 30 credits (15 ECTS credits) |
| Campus | Old Aberdeen | Sustained Study | No |
| Co-ordinators |
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Life writing lies between literature and history; it often challenges the distinction between fact and fiction. It can be a form of political subversion, or a form of private reflection. This course explores a wide range of life writing, from the Medieval period to the present, in order to look at the formal, ethical, political, and aesthetic choices writers make when writing themselves. The course particularly focuses on women’s life writing; incorporating a variety of material from diaries and poems to essays and experimental fiction, it showcases both the challenges and rewards of this most private, most public form of expression. Selected authors may include Margery Kempe, Frederick Douglass, Virginia Woolf, and Alison Bechdel.
Information on contact teaching time is available from the course guide.
1 mid-term essay 2,500 words (30%)
1 end-of-course essay 3,500 words (60%)
Presentation (10%)
There are no assessments for this course.
Written and oral feedback provided on the mid-term essay and end-of-course essay; oral feedback provided on the presentation.
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