Contested Selves
Regular price
€107.99
A32=Beth Ann Muellner
A32=Dr Laura Deiulio
A32=Erika Quinn
A32=Jennifer Hansen-Glücklich
A32=Julie Shoults
A32=Kathryn Sederberg
A32=Kristin Eichhorn
A32=Matthias Müller
Age Group_Uncategorized
Age Group_Uncategorized
automatic-update
B01=Elisabeth Krimmer
B01=Katja Herges
Category1=Non-Fiction
Category=DSK
Category=HBTB
Category=JFSJ1
COP=United States
cultural
cultural traditions
Delivery_Delivery within 10-20 working days
democratic potential
diaries
emotional
eq_bestseller
eq_biography-true-stories
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
experience
German life writing
graphic novels
history
interviews
Language_English
letters
marginalized populations
memoirs
memory
narrative
narrative norms
PA=Available
personal
political
Price_€50 to €100
PS=Active
softlaunch
Product details
- ISBN 9781640141056
- Weight: 596g
- Dimensions: 152 x 229mm
- Publication Date: 30 Apr 2021
- Publisher: Boydell & Brewer Ltd
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Hardback
- Language: English
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Investigates the field of German life writing, from Rahel Levin Varnhagen around 1800 to Carmen Sylva a century later, from Döblin, Becher, women's WWII diaries, German-Jewish memoirs, and East German women's interview literatureto the autofiction of Lena Gorelik.
In recent decades, life writing has exploded in popularity: memoirs that focus on traumatic experiences now constitute the largest growth sector in book publishing worldwide. But life writing is not only highly marketable; it also does important emotional, cultural, and political work. It is more available to amateurs and those without the cultural capital or the self-confidence to embrace more traditional literary forms, and thus gives voice to marginalized populations. Contested Selves investigates various forms of German-language life writing, including memoirs, interviews, letters, diaries, and graphic novels, shedding light on its democratic potential, on its ability to personalize history and historicize the personal. The contributors ask how the various authors construct and negotiate notions of the self relative to sociopolitical contexts, cultural traditions, genre expectations, and narrative norms. They also investigate the nexus of writing, memory, and experience, including the genre's truth claims vis-à-vis the pliability and unreliability of human memories. Finally, they explore ethical questions that arise from intimate life writing and from the representation of "vulnerable subjects" as well as from the interrelation of material body, embodied self, and narrative. All forms of life writing discussed in this volume are invested in a process of making meaning and in an exchange of experience that allows us to relate our lives to the lives of others.
KATJA HERGES is a physician and holds a PhD in German from the University of California, Davis. ELISABETH KRIMMER is Professor of German at the University of California, Davis. LAURA DEIULIO is Associate Professor of German at Christopher Newport University, VA. KATRA A. BYRAM is Associate Professor of German at Ohio State University. MAUREEN BURDOCK is a graphic storyteller, writer, and illustrator with dual master's degrees from the California School of the Arts and a PhD in Cultural Studies from the University of California, Davis. Aylin Bademsoy is a PhD candidate in the German Department at UC Davis.
