AustLit
Texts
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Strangeland!$!Tracey Emin!$! !$!Hodder Headline!$!2005
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Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood and The Story of a Return!$!Satrapi, Marjane!$! !$!Vintage!$!2008
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Lucky!$!Alice Sebold!$! !$!Picador!$!2002
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If This Is a Man[forwardslash]The Truce!$!Levi, Primo!$! !$!Abacus!$!1987
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I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings!$!Maya Angelou!$! !$!Virago!$!1988
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American Splendor!$!Pekar, Harvey!$! !$!Ballantine Books!$!2003
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Jarhead: A Marines Chronicle of the Gulf War and Other Battles!$!Swofforth, Anthony!$! !$!Pocket Books!$!2005
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y
Don't Take Your Love to Town
Ringwood
:
Penguin
,
1988
Z496435
1988
single work
autobiography
(taught in 10 units)
'Don’t Take Your Love to Town is a story of courage in the face of poverty and tragedy. Ruby recounts losing her mother when she was six, growing up in a mission in northern New South Wales and leaving home when she was fifteen. She lived in tin huts and tents in the bush and picked up work on the land while raising nine children virtually single-handedly. Later she struggled to make ends meet in the Koori areas of Sydney. Ruby is an amazing woman whose sense of humour has endured through all the hardships she has experienced.' (Source UQP website: www.uqp.uq.edu.au)
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y
Ducks on the Pond
Ringwood
:
Viking
,
1999
Z1335054
1999
single work
autobiography
(taught in 2 units)
-
y
Hoi Polloi
Melbourne
:
Black Inc.
,
2005
Z1214808
2005
single work
autobiography
(taught in 4 units)
'The hilariously compelling memoir that was hailed as an instant classic.
'Hoi Polloi recounts a childhood spent on racetracks and in bars, as the author’s parents struggle to climb the social ladder. It begins in 1968 in the small town of Heritage, New Zealand. Living above the bar of his family’s hotel, the young Craig is exposed to violence, drinking and murky racial politics. His parents, whom Sherborne thinks of as “Winks” and “Heels” in his eccentric personal language, decide to sell the hotel and move to Sydney, Australia – which they imagine as New Zealand’s “England”, a place of boundless wealth, prestige and social opportunities.
'Once in Sydney, the family begins a love affair with the racing scene. Written with extraordinary sympathy and verve, Hoi Polloi is the portrait of an extraordinary childhood – brutal, poignant and unforgettable.' (Publication summary)
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y
Shaping Lives : Reflections on Biography
Ian Donaldson
(editor),
Peter Read
(editor),
James Walter
(editor),
Canberra
:
Australian National University, Humanities Research Centre
,
1992
Z1352068
1992
anthology
poetry
(taught in 2 units)
-
y
Artful Histories : Modern Australian Autobiography
Melbourne
:
Cambridge University Press
,
1996
Z477662
1996
single work
criticism
(taught in 1 units)
s
-
y
The Latham Diaries
Carlton
:
Melbourne University Press
,
2005
Z1206025
2005
single work
diary
(taught in 1 units)
-
y
Australian Autobiography : The Personal Quest
South Melbourne
:
Oxford University Press
,
1989
Z17766
1989
selected work
criticism
autobiography
(taught in 1 units)
Identifies six different types of Australian autobiography.
Description
How is the subject embodied in the text? How are gender, sexuality, race & class inscribed in the autobiographical mode? This course explores practices of contemporary first-person narration through diaries, memoirs, confessional, testimonio & case histories.
Assessment
Attendance
pass/fail
Essay
20%
In Class Quiz
30%
Research Essay
50%
Supplementary Texts
Barros, Carolyn A. Autobiography: Narrative of Transformation. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, c.1998
Benstock, Shari, ed. The Private Self: Theory and Practice of Womens Autobiographical Writings. London: Routledge, 1988
Bregman, Lucy and Sara Thiermann. First Person Mortal: Personal Narratives of Illness, Dying and Grief. New York, NY: Paragon House, 1995
Colmer, John. Australian Autobiography: The Personal Quest. Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1989
Dalziell, Rosamund. Shameful Autobiographies: Shame in Contemporary Australian Autobiographies and Culture. Carlton, Vic: Melbourne University Press, 1999
Donaldson, Ian, et al., eds. Shaping Lives: Reflections on Biography. Canberra : Humanities Research Centre, Australian National University, 1992
Eakin, Paul John. Fictions in Autobiography: Studies in the Art of Self Invention. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, c.1985
Eakin, Paul John. How Our Lives Become Stories: Making Selves. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1999
Eakin, Paul John. Touching the World: Reference in Autobiography. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1992
Egan, Susanna. Mirror Talk: Genres of Crisis in Contemporary Autobiography. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1999
Evans, Mary. Missing Persons: The Impossibility of Auto/Biography. London: Routledge, 1999
Henke, Suzette A. Shattered Subjects: Trauma and Testimony in Womens Life-Writing. New York, NY: St Martins, 1998
Jay, Paul. Being in the Text: Self-Representation from Wordsworth to Roland Barthes. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1984
Marcus, Laura. Auto/biographical Discourses: Theory, Criticism, Practice. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1994
McCooey, David. Artful Histories: Modern Australian Autobiography. Melbourne, Vic: Cambridge University Press, 1996
Miller, Nancy K. Getting Personal: Feminist Occasions and Other Autobiographical Acts. New York: Routledge, 1991
Perreault, Jeanne Martha. Writing Selves: Contemporary Feminist Autobiography. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, c.1995
Smith, Sidonie, ed. Women, Autobiography, Theory: A Reader. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1998
Smith, Sidonie and Julia Watson, eds. Getting a Life : Everyday Uses of Autobiography. Minneapolis, Minn.: University of Minnesota Press, 1996
Other Details
Offered in:
2006
Current Campus:
Ipswich
Levels:
Undergraduate
Coordinator:
Categories:
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