Thursday, January 28, 2010

Readings for Next week

Monday:

Parts One and Two of The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin. You can find it here.

Start to think about the relationship between print metaphors and the language of printing and self-formation.


Wednesday:

Smith and Watson, pp. 1-109
Emily will present on Wednesday

Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Readings for next week

Jan. 25 early rumblings on this side of the atlantic
1. Mary Rowlandson, “Narrative of Captivity and Restoration…”
Available at: http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/8/5/851/851.txt
2. Anne Bradstreet, “In Reference to Her Children, 23 June 1659,”
and “Here Follows Some Verses upon the Burning of Our House,
Juy 10th, 1666”
3. Daniel Shea, “The Prehistory of American Autobiography,” from Paul John Eakins, American Autobiography: Retrospect and Prospect, pp. 25-42.

Jan. 27 early variations in form
1. Elizabeth Ashbridge, “Some Account of the Fore Part of the Life of Elizabeth Ashbridge,” pp. 147-176.
2. Sidonie Smith and Julie Watson, Reading Autobiography: A Guide for Interpreting Life Narratives, pp. 165-179

Blogging Assignment

Writing: While we may maintain some critical detachment as we read and analyze others’ life-writing this semester, it’s much harder to do so when we record our own lives. Writing your own experience may feel familiar to some and utterly foreign to others, but everyone will give it a try. You must create a new blog (please see me if you already maintain a regular one) and update it at least twice a week for the rest of the semester. You may use your blog as a space to respond to the assigned reading–or discussions–in this class; you may use it as a place to chronicle your lived experiences; you may create a genre-specific site (i.e. a blog about a chosen theme or practice). Occasionally I will prescribe writing exercises to be posted on your blog, but this will largely be your own space to create a self for public display. Please email me your blog’s URL by January 24, 2010. Your blogs will be linked to this communal blog.

Reading: As you begin to write yourself into a blog–or blog yourself into a life–you need to become a regular reader of three other blogs (these are in addition to those of your classmates). Link to them from your own blog. There are thousands of possibilities for locating three blogs that you would like to follow. I advise beginning with your own interests and then googling around and following links until you hit on a few that look really good. Make sure that you select blogs that are updated regularly (at least once a week) and contain ample material for analysis. Throughout the term, I will ask you to do a few close readings of the blogs that you are following.