Life Writing in the Long Run: A Smith & Watson Autobiography Studies Reader

Life Writing ◽

10.1080/14484528.2019.1594019 ◽

2019 ◽

pp. 1-3

Author(s):

Helga Schwalm

Keyword(s):

Life Writing ◽

Long Run ◽

Autobiography Studies

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Life Writing Research Past and Present: Interview with Sidonie Smith and Julia Watson

European Journal of Life Writing ◽

10.21827/ejlw.8.35040 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 8 ◽

pp. R8-R20

Author(s):

Sarah Herbe ◽

Julia Novak

Keyword(s):

Performing Arts ◽

Life Writing ◽

Writing Studies ◽

Long Run ◽

Writing Research ◽

The University ◽

Archival Work ◽

The Impact ◽

Autobiography Studies ◽

Austrian Science Fund

On 16 November, 2017, the Austrian “Netzwerk Biographieforschung”,1 a network of life writing scholars and practitioners from various disciplines (history, literary studies, pedagogics, archival work, art, musicology) hosted its twelfth workshop at the University of Music and Performing Arts, Vienna. The organisers (Sarah Herbe, Julia Lajta-Novak and Melanie Unseld) were delighted to welcome two very special guests: Prof. Sidonie Smith and Prof. Julia Watson, whose vital contribution to autobiography theory need hardly be explained in the context of this journal. They had been invited on the occasion of the recent publication of Life Writing in the Long Run: A Smith and Watson Autobiography Studies Reader (Maize Books, 2016, available free online), which features a cross-section of their scholarship in the field over three decades. The following is an excerpt from the interview Sarah Herbe and Julia Lajta-Novak conducted with Sidonie Smith and Julia Watson, which addressed the differences between autobiographical and biographical modes, recent theoretical interventions in the field of life-writing studies, and topical issues such as the impact of “post-truth” on auto/biography scholars and the implications of the #MeToo movement as a massive autobiographical project. This work was supported by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) under Grant V543-G23.

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“It Both Is and Isn’t My Life”

The Comics of Alison Bechdel ◽

10.14325/mississippi/9781496825773.003.0008 ◽

2019 ◽

pp. 105-118

Author(s):

Leah Anderst

Keyword(s):

Life Story ◽

Affective Response ◽

Life Writing ◽

Close Attention ◽

Emotional Connection ◽

Theatrical Performance ◽

Autobiography Studies

From the perspective of autobiography studies and theory, the musical adaptation of Alison Bechdel’s important graphic memoir Fun Home is a fascinating case study. What of one’s life and experiences can one represent in words and in images? How much “fiction” might creep in given the imprecise nature of memory? How can one sign one’s name as the sole author of one’s life story when the often myriad people surrounding one contributed important pieces within one’s life—when all life writing is in fact relational? How, then, do these questions shift, in what new light can we see them, when an autobiographical text is adapted into another medium, by new writers, and performed nightly by actors? In particular, how does the musical and theatrical performance, experienced collectively, communicate experiences and feelings to an audience differently than does a book that one consumes alone? By comparing particular scenes and songs from the musical with their “source” scenes in Bechdel’s graphic memoir, this chapter will explore these questions paying close attention especially to scenes and strategies in each text that seem to call out for affective response and emotional connection from the audience and the reader.

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