[Bilimsel Haber] CFP: Autobiography and the Body (1/1/07; collection)

[Sule Tarakcioglu]

Autobiography and the Body

We are seeking essay abstracts for a proposed anthology of essays on any
aspect of the role of the body in autobiography.

In recent criticism of autobiography, the body has once again becoming
central to discursive constructions of the self. The pervasive influence
of the Cartesian duality in the classic American autobiographies by men
– such as those of Benjamin Franklin, Henry James, and Henry Adams – is
apparent in their emphasis on the life of the mind, while the
pronouncements of Paul de Man in the early 1980’s defined the self as
inevitably an artificial linguistic construct that once again seemed to
make the body disappear. Feminist scholars such as Sidonie Smith,
however, have shown how for women biology has long been perceived as
destiny, and thus their autobiographies often focus much more on the
life of the body and its relation to their emotional lives. In recent
years women writers  have become the leading practitioners of memoir and
autobiography, and the autobiography of disease and disability has
become one of its most popular and innovative subgenres.

Simultaneously, the significance of the body in life writing has gained
increasing attention even among scholars who do not focus specifically
on women’s life writing as scholarship of autobiography has begun to
explore the science of the brain. In his most recent book  Paul John
Eakin, long a groundbreaking scholar in the theory of autobiography, has
once again taken the lead, reading texts such as Lucy Grealy’s
Autobiography of a Face and Robert Murphy’s The Body Silent in light of
the most recent debates by neurologists such as Oliver Sacks,
neurobiologists like Gerald M. Edelman, and philosophers of mind such as
Daniel C. Dennett.

The time is ripe for an essay collection on the significance, or
insignificance, of the body in autobiography. Possible subjects include,
but certainly are not limited to, classic autobiographies, slave
narratives, women’s autobiography, the autobiography of disability and
disease, autobiography and neurobiology, or autobiography and the body
as racial signifier.

Please submit electronically abstracts of no more than 750 words along
with a brief CV to Dr. Christopher Stuart of the University of TN at
Chattanooga at <chris-stuart at utc.edu> by January 1st, 2007.  Requests
for more information may be sent to the same address.

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