Course Descriptions
Spring 2012
Habiba Ibrahim



302B Critical Practice: Genre Theory and African American Autobiography

Autobiographical writing for African Americans has been a key modality for deliberating on the terms of citizenship and public agency, subjective and collective memory, private experience and political participation. This course will consider why the act of narrating the individual has been such a rich and central approach to remarking and theorizing on matters of public interest. How do the identities crafted in autobiographical accounts reflect or respond to the stakes of these social concerns? In this course, we will examine some of the developments and contributions of “genre theory,” and focus specifically on theories of autobiography in particular. With these contributions in mind, we will consider how, when, and whether the project of self-writing—as demonstrated through slave narratives of the 19th century and African-American narratives of the 20th century—re-conceptualizes the “laws” of autobiography as a genre.

Texts may possibly include: Sidonie Smith and Julia Watson, Reading Autobiography, Paul de Man, “Autobiography as De-Facement,” Jacque Derrida, “The Law of Genre,” Hayden White, “Anomalies of Genre,” Kenneth Mostern, Autobiography and Black Identity Politics, Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, Harriet Jacobs, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Malcolm X, The Autobiography of Malcolm X, Angela Davis, An Autobiography.