History Through Autobiographies
Taught in the Department of History, University of Victoria, 2017
Course by Dr. Kat Sark
“If we do not know our own history, we are doomed to live it as though it were our private fate.”
(Hannah Arendt)
Course by Dr. Kat Sark
“If we do not know our own history, we are doomed to live it as though it were our private fate.”
(Hannah Arendt)
Course Outline:
(Subject to changes / in progress)
|
Week 1
|
Introduction: history, cultural analysis and autobiography
CASE STUDIES: Human Rights and Narrated Lives (Kay Schaffer and Sidonie Smith) Autobiography vs. memoir (Sidonie Smith and Julia Watson) Quest narratives (Carolyn G. Heilbrun) Defining Autobiography Website READINGS:
|
FILM: Selma (dir. Ava DuVernay, 2014)
|
|
Week 2
|
Narrating Indigenous Lives
CASE STUDIES: TRC and residential schools “Going Home Star” Royal Winnipeg Ballet Red Dress Project READINGS:
|
FILM: Highway of Tears (dir. Matthew Smiley, 2015)
|
|
Week 3
|
Narrating Civil Rights
CASE STUDIES: Martin Luther King Jr. March on Washington Martin Luther King Jr. "I have a dream" speech READINGS:
|
FILM: I Am Not Your Negro (dir. Raoul Peck, 2016)
FILM: Maya Angelou: And Still I Rise (dir. Rita Coburn Whack, Bob Hercules, 2016) VIDEO: Walking as a Revolutionary Act (TED Talk) PODCAST: Still Processing, MLK Day |
|
Week 4
|
Narrating Trans Lives
CASE STUDIES: Laverne Cox Talks about Intersectionality at Harvard READINGS:
|
VIDEO: bell hooks and Laverne Cox in a Public Dialogue at The New School
|
|
Week 5
|
Narrating Queer Lives
CASE STUDIES: NY Times, Larry Kramer and AIDS activism READINGS:
|
FILM: 8 (play by Dustin Lance Black, 2011) on YouTube
|
|
Week 6
|
Narrating Feminist Lives
CASE STUDIES: Diana Pearce - Feminization of Poverty Revisited, 2013 Jasbir K. Puar Dorothy Smith, Institutional Ethnography The Feminist eZine READINGS:
|
VIDEO: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichi (TED Talk)
|
|
Week 7
|
Narrating the Holocaust
CASE STUDIES: Anne Frank Yolocaust photo project by Israeli-born artist Shahak Shapira READINGS:
|
FILM: Labyrinth of Lies (dir. Giulio Ricciarelli, 2014)
FILM: The Denial (dir. Mick Jackson, 2016) VIDEO: Deborah Lipstadt, TED Talk |
|
Week 8
|
Narrating Global Lives
CASE STUDIES: Malala Yousafzai South African TRC Nelson Mandela Trevor Noah READINGS:
|
FILM: He Called Me Malala (dir. Davis Guggenheim, 2015)
FILM: Trevor Noah: You Laugh But It’s True (dir. David Paul Meyer, 2011) VIDEO: Refugee Narratives (TED talk) |
|
Week 9
|
Narrating New Masculinities
CASE STUDIES: Feminist men READINGS:
|
|
|
Week 10
|
Conclusion
Project Presentations |
|
Bibliography:
Patricia Hill Collins, Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge Consciousness and the Politics of Empowerment. New York: Routledge, 2000 (1990).
Tess Coslett, Celia Lury, Penny Summerfield (eds.), Feminism & Autobiography: Texts, Theories, Methods, London: Routledge, 2000.
Tracy Curtis, New Media in Black Women's Autobiography: Intrepid Embodiment and Narrative Innovation. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015.
John Dececco and Kevin Kumashiro, Restoried Selves: Autobiographies of Queer Asian / Pacific American Activists, London: Routledge, 2003.
Bernice L. Hausman, “Body, Technology, and Gender in Transsexual Autobiographies,” The Transgender Studies Reader, eds. Susan Stryker and Stephen Whittle. New York: Routledge. 2006.
Carolyn G. Heilbrun, Writing a Woman’s Life. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2008 (1988).
Philip Holden, Autobiography and Decolonization: Modernity, Masculinity, and the Nation-State, University of Wisconsin Press, 2008.
Georgia Johnston, The Formation of 20th-Century Queer Autobiography, Palgrave Macmillan, 2007.
Susan Kuklin, Beyond Magenta: Transgender Teens Speak Out. Candlewick Press, 2014.
Nancy K. Miller, Getting Personal: Feminist Occasions and Other Autobiographical Acts, London: Routledge, 1991.
Chandra Talpade Mohanty, Feminism without Borders: Decolonizing Theory, Practicing Solidarity, Duke University Press Books, 2003.
Chandra Talpade Mohanty, Third World Feminism: A Critical Reader. Blackwell, 1994.
Diana Pearce, “The Feminization of Poverty: Women, Work, and Welfare,” The Urban & Social Change Review Special Issue on Women and World. Volume 11, Numbers 1 and 2, 1978.
Margo V. Perkins, Autobiography as Activism: Three Black Women of the Sixties. University Press of Mississippi, 2000.
Jane Ribbens and Rosalind Edwards (eds.), Feminist Dilemmas in Qualitative Research: Private Lives and Public Texts. London: Sage, 1998.
Dorothy E. Smith, Institutional Ethnography: A Sociology for People, Altamira Press, 2005.
Sidonie Smith and Julia Watson (eds.), Women, Autobiography, Theory: A Reader. The University of Wisconsin Press, 1998.
Sidonie Smith and Julia Watson, Reading Autobiography: A Guide for Interpreting Life Narratives. Second Edition, University of Minnesota Press, 2010.
Johnnie M. Stover, Rhetoric and Resistance in Black Women's Autobiography. University Press of Florida, 2009.
Martine Watson Brownley, Allison B. Kimmich (eds), Women and Autobiography. Wilmington: Scholarly Resources, 1999.
Tess Coslett, Celia Lury, Penny Summerfield (eds.), Feminism & Autobiography: Texts, Theories, Methods, London: Routledge, 2000.
Tracy Curtis, New Media in Black Women's Autobiography: Intrepid Embodiment and Narrative Innovation. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015.
John Dececco and Kevin Kumashiro, Restoried Selves: Autobiographies of Queer Asian / Pacific American Activists, London: Routledge, 2003.
Bernice L. Hausman, “Body, Technology, and Gender in Transsexual Autobiographies,” The Transgender Studies Reader, eds. Susan Stryker and Stephen Whittle. New York: Routledge. 2006.
Carolyn G. Heilbrun, Writing a Woman’s Life. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2008 (1988).
Philip Holden, Autobiography and Decolonization: Modernity, Masculinity, and the Nation-State, University of Wisconsin Press, 2008.
Georgia Johnston, The Formation of 20th-Century Queer Autobiography, Palgrave Macmillan, 2007.
Susan Kuklin, Beyond Magenta: Transgender Teens Speak Out. Candlewick Press, 2014.
Nancy K. Miller, Getting Personal: Feminist Occasions and Other Autobiographical Acts, London: Routledge, 1991.
Chandra Talpade Mohanty, Feminism without Borders: Decolonizing Theory, Practicing Solidarity, Duke University Press Books, 2003.
Chandra Talpade Mohanty, Third World Feminism: A Critical Reader. Blackwell, 1994.
Diana Pearce, “The Feminization of Poverty: Women, Work, and Welfare,” The Urban & Social Change Review Special Issue on Women and World. Volume 11, Numbers 1 and 2, 1978.
Margo V. Perkins, Autobiography as Activism: Three Black Women of the Sixties. University Press of Mississippi, 2000.
Jane Ribbens and Rosalind Edwards (eds.), Feminist Dilemmas in Qualitative Research: Private Lives and Public Texts. London: Sage, 1998.
Dorothy E. Smith, Institutional Ethnography: A Sociology for People, Altamira Press, 2005.
Sidonie Smith and Julia Watson (eds.), Women, Autobiography, Theory: A Reader. The University of Wisconsin Press, 1998.
Sidonie Smith and Julia Watson, Reading Autobiography: A Guide for Interpreting Life Narratives. Second Edition, University of Minnesota Press, 2010.
Johnnie M. Stover, Rhetoric and Resistance in Black Women's Autobiography. University Press of Florida, 2009.
Martine Watson Brownley, Allison B. Kimmich (eds), Women and Autobiography. Wilmington: Scholarly Resources, 1999.
Disclaimer: The contents of this site are copy-right protected and cannot be reproduced without the author's permission. © Katrina Sark, 2017
