Autobiographical Inscriptions: Form, Personhood, and the American Woman Writer of ColorAs life-writing began to attract critical attention in the 1950s and 60s, theorists, critics, and practitioners of autobiography concerned themselves with inscribing--that is, establishing or asserting--a set of conventions that would define constructions of identity and acts of self-representation. More recently, however, scholars have identified the ways in which autobiographical works recognize and resist those conventions. Moving beyond the narrow, prescriptive definition of autobiography as the factual, chronological, first-person narrative of the life story, critics have theorized the genre from postmodern and feminist perspectives. Autobiographical Inscriptions contributes a theory of autobiography by women writers of color to this lively repositioning of identity studies. Barbara Rodríguez breaks new ground in the field with a discussion of the ways in which innovations of form and structure bolster the arguments for personhood articulated by Harriet Jacobs, Zora Neale Hurston, Hisaye Yamamoto, Maxine Hong Kingston, Leslie Marmon Silko, Adrienne Kennedy, and Cecile Pineda. Rodríguez maps the intersections of form and structure with issues of race and gender in these women's works. Central to the autobiographical act and to the representation of the self in language, these intersections mark the ways in which the American woman writer of color comments on the process of subject construction as she produces original forms for the life story. In each chapter, Rodríguez pairs canonized texts with less well-known works, reading autobiographical works across cultural contexts and historical periods, and even across artistic media. By raising crucial questions about structure, Autobiographical Inscriptions analyzes the ways in which these texts also destabilize notions of race and gender. The result is a remarkable analysis of the seemingly endless range of formal strategies available to, adopted, and adapted by the American woman writer of color. |
Contents
| 3 | |
Visions Setting and Voice in Dust Tracks on a Road | 21 |
Form and Transformation in Mary Rowlandsons Captivity Narrative and Harriet Jacobss Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl | 50 |
Autobiographical Acts in Maxine Hong Kingstons The Woman Warrior and Hisaye Yarnamotos The Legend of Miss Sasagawara | 96 |
Identity and Identification in Leslie Marmon Silkos Storyteller and Adrienne Kennedys People Who Led to My Plays | 137 |
Making Face Making Race Prosopopoeia Autobiography and Identity Construction in Cecile Pinedas Face | 177 |
Notes | 205 |
| 211 | |
| 221 | |
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Common terms and phrases
Adrienne Kennedy African-American American women writers appears argue asserts autobiographical act autobiography becomes Brave Orchid captivity narrative Cara Cara's chapter Cheung Chinese construction critics culture defining describes discussion Driscoll Dust Tracks Eatonville Ellen Driscoll's ethnic evokes experience explains face fiction gender genre ghost Harriet Jacobs Hisaye Hisaye Yamamoto identifies identity illustrates implies Indian interpretation Jacobs's Japanese Americans Johnson Kennedy's Kiku Kiku's language legend Leslie Marmon Silko Mary Mary Rowlandson mask Maxine Hong Kingston metaphor Miss Sasagawara mother narrator Native American Negro notes novel object Orlan person personhood photographs Pineda's poem prosopopoeia protagonist Puritan race rative reader reading recognizes relates relationship Rowlandson scene scholars seems silence Silko Slave Girl slave narrative slavery speak statue story Storyteller strategies structure tells things tion tradition visions voice Woman Warrior words writers of color writes Yamamoto Yellow Woman Zora Neale Hurston