The Routledge Introduction to Auto/biography in Canada explores the exciting world of nonfiction writing about the self, designed to give teachers and students the tools they need to study both canonical and lesser-known works. The volume introduces important texts and contexts for interpreting life narratives, demonstrates the conceptual tools necessary to understand what life narratives are and how they work, and offers an historical overview of key moments in Canadian auto/biography. Not sure what life writing in Canada is, or how to study it? This critical introduction covers the tools and approaches you require in order to undertake your own interpretation of life writing texts. You will encounter nonfictional writing about individual lives and experiences―including biography, autobiography, letters, diaries, comics, poetry, plays, and memoirs. The volume includes case studies to provide examples of how to study and research life narratives and toolkits to help you apply what you learn. The Routledge Introduction to Auto/biography in Canada provides instructors and students with the contexts and the critical tools to discover the power of life writing, and the skills to study any kind of nonfiction, from Canada and around the world.
Author(s): Sonja Boon, Laurie McNeill, Julie Rak, Candida Rifkind
Series: Routledge Introductions to Canadian Literature
Publisher: Routledge
Year: 2022
Language: English
Pages: 248
City: New York
Cover
Half Title
Series Page
Title Page
Copyright Page
Table of
Contents
List of illustrations
Preface and Acknowledgments
List of Co-Authors and Contributors
How To Read This Book
PART I: What is Auto/biography?
Beginnings: Auto/biography, Biography, and Life Writing
Auto/biography
What is Autobiography?
What is Biography?
Other Life Writing Terms
Studying Auto/biography: Approaches, Conventions, and Autobiographical Truth
Studying Life Narratives
Conventions of Auto/biography
Auto/biographical Truth
Auto/biographical Genres and Forms
Understanding Genre
Common Genres of Life Narrative in Canada
Conventional Memoir and Biography
Experimental Auto/biography and Biography
Letters and Epistolary Auto/biography
Diaries
PART II: Auto/biography in Canada
Reading the Nation
National Mythologies and Settler Colonialism
The Myth of Multiculturalism and Diasporic Lives
Reading Canada: Canons, Markets, and Canada Reads
Exploration, Travel, and Settlement: Settler-Colonial and Indigenous Accounts
Reading with Settler Colonialism in Mind
Documents of Contact
Colonial Frontiers
Modern Canada Between the First and Second World Wars
The Great Depression
Documenting War
Famous Women: Auto/biography and Celebrity
Imposter Memoirs
Indigenous Life Writing Since 1967
Cultural Contexts: Laments for Confederation
Testimonial and Activist Writing
Truth and Reconciliation Commission
Indigenous Life Writing in the Twenty-First Century
Case Study: Maria Campbell, Halfbreed (Deanna Reder’s, Simon
Fraser University)
Introducing Deanna Reder
Background
Excerpt from Autobiography as Indigenous Intellectual Tradition
Further Reading
Race, Nation, and the Limits of Imagined Community
Japanese Canadian Internment Narratives
Life Narratives by Black Canadians
Case Study: Lorena Gale, Je me souviens, 2001
Background
Three Ways to Approach Je me souviens
Further Reading
PART III: Auto/biographical Stories
Telling and Reading Auto/biographical Stories
Experimental and Hybrid Forms
Autobiographical Poetry: Documenting the Everyday
Experimental Prose Life Writing
Experimental Plays
Case Study: Fred Wah, Diamond Grill
Background
Three Ways to Approach Diamond Grill
Further Reading
Auto/biographical Comics in Canada
Studying Auto/biographical Comics
Indigenous Comics
Diasporic Auto/biographical Comics
Comics Travelogues
Graphic Medicine
Graphic Biography
Online Comics Diaries
Testimony and Witnessing
Testimony
Testimonial Auto/biography, Violence, and Survival
Testimonial Auto/biography and Collective Violence
Disability and Illness Life Writing
Life Writing and Disability
Illness Narratives
Case Study: Dorothy Ellen Palmer, Falling For Myself (2019)
Background
Three Ways to Approach Falling for Myself
Further Reading
Diasporic Lives, Diasporic Stories
Extending the Borders of the Nation-State
Transnational Lives
Experimental Diasporic Life Writing
Refugee Narratives
Asian Canadian Life Writing (Eleanor Ty, Wilfrid Laurier University)
Introducing Eleanor Ty
Asian Canadians
Asian Canadians and Life Writing
Case Study: Jenny Heijun Wills, Older Sister. Not Necessarily
Related (Eleanor Ty, Wilfrid Laurier University)
Background
Context and History of Transnational Adoption
Three Ways to Approach Older Sister. Not Necessarily Related
Further Reading
Queer Life Writing in Canada: 2SLGBTQIA+ Lives and Stories
Beyond Alphabet Soup: Queer
Invisible: Queer Lives (and Life Writing) in Canada
Gaps and Silences
Visibility: Queer Lives
Biography and Writers’ Lives
Experimental Biographies
Case Study: Terry Fox and Biography
Background: Who Was Terry Fox?
Three Ways of Thinking about Terry Fox
Further Reading
PART IV: Sites of Auto/biography
Archives
Formal Archives
Online Archives
Informal Archives
The Construction of Archives
Case Study: The Rural Diary Archive
Background
Three Ways to Approach the Diaries in This Collection
Further Reading
Paratexts
Life Narratives as Products
Case Study: Paratexts I – Getting Started with Paratext
Context and Background
Two Ways to Conduct a Paratextual Analysis
Case Study: Paratexts II – Peritextual Analysis
Context and Background
Three Ways to Approach Peritext
Further Reading
Interviews
How to interpret interviews as sites of auto/biography
Listening to Many Voices: A Conversation Between Julie Rak and Karina Vernon
Introducing Karina Vernon
Background
Listening to Many Voices: A Conversation Between Julie Rak and Karina Vernon
Case Study: Listening to Many Voices (A Conversation
Between Julie Rak and Karina Vernon)
About The Black Prairie Archives: An Anthology
Three Ways to Approach the Interview
Further Reading
PART V: Toolkits for Studying Auto/biography
TOOLKIT 1: Studying Auto/Biography
The Basics: Getting a handle on the text
Beyond the Basics
TOOLKIT 2: Studying Auto/Biographical Comics
TOOLKIT 3: Archives and Archival Research
Identifying Archival Materials
Capacity and Access: The Politics of Making and Using Archives
Conducting Archival Research
Studying Archival Documents
TOOLKIT 4: Studying Paratexts
Questions to Guide a “Field Report”
Questions to Guide a Reception Study I: Review Analysis
Questions to Guide a Reception Study II: Prize Nomination or Contest Epitexts
Opening questions for a peritextual analysis
TOOLKIT 5: Studying Interviews
References
Index
