Border Crossings
Essays in Identity and Belonging
1st Edition
Published on 28. April 2020
164 pages
978-1-317-20731-3 (ISBN)
Description
The border between intimate memory and historical revelation is explored in this wide-ranging collection, which features original contributions from leading figures in the life writing field from Australia, Canada, Europe, UK, and the USA.
The transmission and preservation of personal knowledge and stories from generation to generation frequently requires crossing into the private, contested spaces of memory. The most secret accounts or guarded remnants of information can sometimes lead to the most profound insights. In this context, there is a delicate balance between life writing's role in revealing lives and the desire to be respectful towards them. As the essays in this book attest, exposing secrets, even if humiliating, can be a way of honouring lives. Throughout runs the framing theme of memory as the source of all intergenerational transmission of culture and history-whether relating to family, community, nation, ancestry, or political allegiance-and the importance of the intimate and personal in that process of handing on. This book was originally published as a special issue of Life Writing.
The transmission and preservation of personal knowledge and stories from generation to generation frequently requires crossing into the private, contested spaces of memory. The most secret accounts or guarded remnants of information can sometimes lead to the most profound insights. In this context, there is a delicate balance between life writing's role in revealing lives and the desire to be respectful towards them. As the essays in this book attest, exposing secrets, even if humiliating, can be a way of honouring lives. Throughout runs the framing theme of memory as the source of all intergenerational transmission of culture and history-whether relating to family, community, nation, ancestry, or political allegiance-and the importance of the intimate and personal in that process of handing on. This book was originally published as a special issue of Life Writing.
More details
Series
Edition
1. Auflage
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Taylor & Francis Ltd
Target group
College/higher education
ISBN-13
978-1-317-20731-3 (9781317207313)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
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06/2020
1st Edition
Routledge
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09/2018
1st Edition
Routledge
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Persons
Paul Longley Arthur is Professor in Digital Humanities at Western Sydney University, Australia. He was previously Deputy Director of the National Centre of Biography and the Centre for European Studies at the Australian National University, and Deputy General Editor of the Australian Dictionary of Biography. He has published widely in cultural and communication studies, history, literature, and media.
Leena Kurvet-Kaeosaar is Associate Professor of Literary Theory, and Programme Director of Literature and Cultural Research, at the University of Tartu, Estonia, as well as a Senior Researcher at the Estonian Literary Museum. She has published widely in life writing studies, specializing in particular on Post-Soviet life writing, personal narratives of Soviet deportations and the Gulag, and trauma studies.
Leena Kurvet-Kaeosaar is Associate Professor of Literary Theory, and Programme Director of Literature and Cultural Research, at the University of Tartu, Estonia, as well as a Senior Researcher at the Estonian Literary Museum. She has published widely in life writing studies, specializing in particular on Post-Soviet life writing, personal narratives of Soviet deportations and the Gulag, and trauma studies.
Content
Introduction: Thresholds of the Private 1. Family Memoir and Self-Discovery 2. Voices in Movement: Feminist Family Stories in Oral History and Sound Art 3. The Epistolary Dynamics of Sisterhood Across the Iron Curtain 4. The Odyssey Quilts: Narrative Artworks of Childhood, War and Migration 5. Is Autobiographical Writing a Historical Document?: The Impact of Self-Censorship on Life Narratives 6. Material Memory and the Digital 7. Because it's Your Country: Death and its Meanings in West Arnhem Land 8. 'from Organic Arts': Tsamorita, Rosaries, and the Poem of My Grandma's Life
