Constructing the Literary Self

Constructing the Literary Self
Author: Patsy J. Daniels
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
Total Pages: 250
Release: 2014-06-02
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1443861111

In the twentieth century, as previously excluded groups, including ethnic minorities, women, the disabled, and the differently gendered, gained a voice in society, group identity also changed and new definitions became necessary. Whether through their group affiliations or in spite of these affiliations, many individuals sought a new definition of themselves. As can be expected, much literature explores these changes and depicts the quest for new definitions and the search for individuality in the light of new definitions. Construction or definition of the self was once available only to the elite, and the freedom of some to define their identity was sacrificed so that others could make their own self-definitions; this practice can be found throughout much of history. This volume is about that kind of oppression and various strategies of escaping from oppression as depicted in serious literature. Its thirteen essays, all by recognized scholars, are divided into five categories: Race, Gender, and the Self; Assimilation and the Self; Black Males and the Self; Female Sexuality and the Self; and The Family and the Self.

Writing and Identity

Writing and Identity
Author: Roz Ivani?
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
Total Pages: 389
Release: 1998
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9027217971

Writing is not just about conveying 'content' but also about the representation of self. (One of the reasons people find writing difficult is that they do not feel comfortable with the 'me' they are portraying in their writing. Academic writing in particular often poses a conflict of identity for students in higher education, because the 'self' which is inscribed in academic discourse feels alien to them.)The main claim of this book is that writing is an act of identity in which people align themselves with socio-culturally shaped subject positions, and thereby play their part in reproducing or challenging dominant practices and discourses, and the values, beliefs and interests which they embody. The first part of the book reviews recent understandings of social identity, of the discoursal construction of identity, of literacy and identity, and of issues of identity in research on academic writing. The main part of the book is based on a collaborative research project about writing and identity with mature-age students, providing: - a case study of one writer's dilemmas over the presentation of self;- a discussion of the way in which writers' life histories shape their presentation of self in writing;- an interview-based study of issues of ownership, and of accommodation and resistance to conventions for the presentation of self;- linguistic analysis of the ways in which multiple, often contradictory, interests, values, beliefs and practices are inscribed in discourse conventions, which set up a range of possibilities for self-hood for writers.The book ends with implications of the study for research on writing and identity, and for the learning and teaching of academic writing.The book will be of interest to students and researchers in the fields of social identity, literacy, discourse analysis, rhetoric and composition studies, and to all those concerned to understand what is involved in academic writing in order to provide wider access to higher education.

Gender, Discourse and the Self in Literature

Gender, Discourse and the Self in Literature
Author: Kwok-kan Tam
Publisher: Chinese University Press
Total Pages: 293
Release: 2010
Genre: Education
ISBN: 962996399X

Critiquing the fictive nature of socially accepted values about gender, the authors unravel the strategies adopted by writers and filmmakers in (de)constructing the gendered self in mainland China, Taiwan and Hong Kong.

Autotheory as Feminist Practice in Art, Writing, and Criticism

Autotheory as Feminist Practice in Art, Writing, and Criticism
Author: Lauren Fournier
Publisher: MIT Press
Total Pages: 317
Release: 2021-02-23
Genre: Art
ISBN: 0262362589

Autotheory--the commingling of theory and philosophy with autobiography--as a mode of critical artistic practice indebted to feminist writing and activism. In the 2010s, the term "autotheory" began to trend in literary spheres, where it was used to describe books in which memoir and autobiography fused with theory and philosophy. In this book, Lauren Fournier extends the meaning of the term, applying it to other disciplines and practices. Fournier provides a long-awaited account of autotheory, situating it as a mode of contemporary, post-1960s artistic practice that is indebted to feminist writing, art, and activism. Investigating a series of works by writers and artists including Chris Kraus and Adrian Piper, she considers the politics, aesthetics, and ethics of autotheory.

Writing the Self in Bereavement

Writing the Self in Bereavement
Author: Reinekke Lengelle
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 260
Release: 2021-01-07
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 1000337049

Winner, ICQI 2022 Outstanding Qualitative Book Award In Writing the Self in Bereavement: A Story of Love, Spousal Loss, and Resilience, Reinekke Lengelle uses her abilities as a researcher, poet, and professor of therapeutic writing to tell a heartfelt and fearless story about her grief after the death of her spouse and the year and a half following his diagnosis, illness, and passing. This book powerfully demonstrates that writing can be a companion in bereavement. It uses and explains the latest research on coming to terms with spousal loss without being prescriptive. Integrated with this contemporary research are stories, poetry, and reflections on writing as a therapeutic process. The author unflinchingly explores a number of themes that are underrepresented in existing resources: how one deals with anger associated with loss, what a healthy response might be to unfinished business with the deceased, continuing conversations with the beloved (even for agnostics and atheists), ongoing sexual desire, and secondary losses. As a rare book where an author successfully combines a personal story, heart-rending poetry, up-to-date research on grief, and an evocative exploration of taboo topics in the context of widowhood, Writing the Self in Bereavement is uniquely valuable for those grieving a spouse or other loved one, those supporting others in bereavement, and those interested in the healing power of poetry and life writing. Researchers on death and dying, grief counsellors, and autoethnographers will also benefit from reading this resonant resource on love and loss.

The New Midlife Self-Writing

The New Midlife Self-Writing
Author: Emily O. Wittman
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 65
Release: 2021-11-04
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1000534863

In The New Midlife Self-Writing, Wittman treats recent self-writing by Rachel Cusk, Roxane Gay, Sarah Manguso, and Maggie Nelson, carefully situating these vital midlife works within the history of self-writing. She argues that they renew and redirect the autobiographical trajectories characteristic of earlier self-writing by switching their orientation to face the future and by celebrating midlife as a growing season, a time of Bildung. In each chapter, writer-by-writer, she demonstrates how the midlife self-writers in question trace confident and future-oriented paths through the past, rejecting triumphalism and complicating both identity and individualism, just as they refine and redefine genres. Exploring these midlife self-writers as chroniclers of Generation X’s midlife in particular, Wittman coins the term "digital absence" to map their unique relationship to new forms of knowledge and knowledge gathering in an Information Age that they are both of and set apart from. She theorizes that their works share a "pedagogical style," a style characterized by clarity, exposition, and classical rhetoric, as well as a concern with the classroom, offering a warrant for reading them in pedagogical terms in concert with traditional scholarly approaches. Furthermore, Wittman presents readers with a look ahead at the future of midlife self-writing as well as self-writing overall, concluding that we might be looking at the scholarship of the future.

The Consolations of Writing

The Consolations of Writing
Author: Rivkah Zim
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 335
Release: 2017-06-06
Genre: History
ISBN: 0691176132

Why writing in captivity is a vitally important form of literary resistance Boethius wrote The Consolation of Philosophy as a prisoner condemned to death for treason, circumstances that are reflected in the themes and concerns of its evocative poetry and dialogue between the prisoner and his mentor, Lady Philosophy. This classic philosophical statement of late antiquity has had an enduring influence on Western thought. It is also the earliest example of what Rivkah Zim identifies as a distinctive and vitally important medium of literary resistance: writing in captivity by prisoners of conscience and persecuted minorities. The Consolations of Writing reveals why the great contributors to this tradition of prison writing are among the most crucial figures in Western literature. Zim pairs writers from different periods and cultural settings, carefully examining the rhetorical strategies they used in captivity, often under the threat of death. She looks at Boethius and Dietrich Bonhoeffer as philosophers and theologians writing in defense of their ideas, and Thomas More and Antonio Gramsci as politicians in dialogue with established concepts of church and state. Different ideas of grace and disgrace occupied John Bunyan and Oscar Wilde in prison; Madame Roland and Anne Frank wrote themselves into history in various forms of memoir; and Jean Cassou and Irina Ratushinskaya voiced their resistance to totalitarianism through lyric poetry that saved their lives and inspired others. Finally, Primo Levi's writing after his release from Auschwitz recalls and decodes the obscenity of systematic genocide and its aftermath. A moving and powerful testament, The Consolations of Writing speaks to some of the most profound questions about life, enriching our understanding of what it is to be human.

Constructing the Self

Constructing the Self
Author: Carmen Rueda-Ramos
Publisher: Universitat de València
Total Pages: 498
Release: 2018-06-15
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 8491342486

This volume aims to show how southerners have faced their post and constructed a self. The essays in this volume explore the different personal narratives and strategies southern authors have employed to channel the autobiographical impulse and give artistic expression to their anxieties, traumas and revelations, as well as their relationship with the region. With the discussion of different types of memoirs, this volume reflects not only the transformation that this sub-genre has undergone since the 1990s boom but also its flexibility as a popular form of life-writing.

Student and Teacher Writing Motivational Beliefs

Student and Teacher Writing Motivational Beliefs
Author: Steve Graham
Publisher: Frontiers Media SA
Total Pages: 267
Release: 2024-06-21
Genre: Science
ISBN: 283254441X

The study of students’ motivational beliefs about writing and how such beliefs influence writing has increased since the publication of John Hays’ 1996 model of writing. This model emphasized that writers’ motivational beliefs influence how and what they write. Likewise, increased attention has been devoted in recent years to how teachers’ motivational beliefs about writing, especially their efficacy to teach writing, impact how writing is taught and how students’ progress as writers. As a result, there is a need to bring together, in a Research Topic, studies that examine the role and influence of writing beliefs. Historically, the psychological study of writing has focused on what students’ write or the processes they apply when writing. Equally important, but investigated less often, are studies examining how writing is taught and how teachers’ efforts contribute to students’ writing. What has been less prominent in the psychological study of writing are the underlying motivational beliefs that drive (or inhibit) students’ writing or serve as catalysts for teachers’ actions in the classroom when teaching writing. This Research Topic will bring together studies that examine both students’ and teachers’ motivational beliefs about teaching writing. This will include studies examining the operation of such beliefs, how they develop, cognitive and affective correlates, how writing motivational beliefs can be fostered, and how they are related to students’ writing achievement. By focusing on both students’ and teachers’ beliefs, the Research Topic will provide a more nuanced and broader picture of the role of motivation beliefs in writing and writing instruction. This Research Topic includes papers that address students’ motivational beliefs about writing, teachers’ motivational beliefs about writing or teaching writing. Students’ motivational beliefs about writing include: • beliefs about the value and utility of writing, • writing competence, • attitudes toward writing, • goal orientation, • motives for writing, • identity, • epistemological underpinnings writing, • and attributions for success/failure (as examples). Teacher motivational include these same judgements as well as beliefs about their preparation and their students’ competence and progress as writers (to provide additional examples). This Research Topic is interested in papers that examine how such beliefs operate, develop, are related to other cognitive and affective variables, how they are impacted by instruction, and how they are related to students’ writing performance. Submitted studies can include original research (both quantitative, qualitative, or mixed-methods), meta-analysis, and reviews of the literature.

Writing as a Method for the Self-Study of Practice

Writing as a Method for the Self-Study of Practice
Author: Julian Kitchen
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 256
Release: 2022-01-01
Genre: Education
ISBN: 9811624984

This book focuses on the writing process in the self-study of teaching and teacher education practices. It addresses writing as an area in which teacher educators can develop their skills and represents how to write in ways that are compatible with self-study's orientations towards the inquiry, both personal and on practice. The book examines effective self-study writing with chapters written by experienced self-study practitioners. In addition to considering elements of writing as a method for the self-study of practice, it delves into the cognitive processes of real writers making explicit their writing practices. Practical suggestions are connected to the lived experiences of self-study practitioners making sense of their field through the process of writing. This book will be of interest to doctoral and novice self-study writers, and experienced authors seeking to develop their practice. It demonstrates that writing as a method of inquiry in self-study and beyond can be learned, modeled and taught.