scholarly journals Joe Brainard’s "I Remember", Fragmentary Life Writing and the Resistance to Narrative and Identity

Text Matters ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 223-236
Author(s):  
Wojciech Drąg
Keyword(s):  
Coming Out ◽  
Narrative Identity ◽  
Life Story ◽  
Coming Of Age ◽  
Life Writing ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
Roland Barthes ◽  
Life Narrative ◽  
Inherent Property ◽  
Single Person

Paul Ricoeur declares that “being-entangled in stories” is an inherent property of the human condition. He introduces the notion of narrative identity—a form of identity constructed on the basis of a self-constructed life-narrative, which becomes a source of meaning and self-understanding. This article wishes to present chosen instances of life writing whose subjects resist yielding a life-story and reject the notions of narrative and identity. In line with Adam Phillips’s remarks regarding Roland Barthes by Roland Barthes (1975), such works—which I refer to as fragmentary life writing—emerge out of a profound scepticism about any form of “fixing” oneself and confining the variety and randomness of experience to one of the available autobiographical plots. The primary example of the genre is Joe Brainard’s I Remember (1975)—an inventory of approximately 1,500 memories conveyed in the form of radically short passages beginning with the words “I remember.” Despite the qualified degree of unity provided by the fact that all the recollections come from the consciousness of a single person, the book does not arrange its content in any discernible order—chronological or thematic; instead, the reader is confronted with a life-in-fragments. Although individual passages could be part of a coming-of-age, a coming-out or a portrait-of-the-artist-as-a-young-man narrative, Brainard is careful not to let any of them consolidate. An attempt at defining the characteristics of the proposed genre will be followed by an indication of more recent examples of fragmentary life writing and a reflection on its prospects for development

“Sweet Home”: Audre Lorde's Zami and the legacies of American Writing

2009 ◽  
Vol 43 (2) ◽  
pp. 297-317 ◽  
Author(s):  
MONICA B. PEARL
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
American Literature ◽  
Coming Out ◽  
Life Story ◽  
Life Writing ◽  
Slave Narrative ◽  
Audre Lorde ◽  
Literary Traditions ◽  
American Life ◽  
Forms Of Life

Although Audre Lorde calls the narrative of her life Zami: A New Spelling of My Name a “biomythography,” suggesting that the life of an African American lesbian cannot be told in any previously available generic forms of life-writing or self-expression, Zami actually derives from two extant American literary traditions – the African American slave narrative and the lesbian coming out story – rendering it, after all, not a marginal text, but rather a text that falls obviously and firmly in a tradition of American literature. Both traditions turn siginificantly on the trope of “home,” of finding a home where one belongs. In finding the “home” that she is seeking not, ultimately, geographically, but, rather, generically – in the very text she is writing – Lorde's life story also ends up signifying the similarity of these two ostensibly disparate forms: the slave narrative and the coming out story, suggesting a common narrative trajectory of marginal American identities in the tradition of American life-writing.

The Transformative Self

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jack Bauer
Keyword(s):  
Personal Growth ◽  
Good Life ◽  
Narrative Identity ◽  
Life Stories ◽  
Life Story ◽  
Cultural Beliefs ◽  
Dark Side ◽  
The Good Life ◽  
Human Flourishing ◽  
Literature History

Everyone wants a good life. Some try to create a good life by cultivating personal growth. They have a transformative self. This book explains how people form a transformative self, primarily in their evolving life stories, to help cultivate growth toward a life of happiness, love, and wisdom for the self and others. It introduces an innovative framework of values and personhood to strengthen and integrate three main areas of study: narrative identity, the good life, and personal growth. The result is a unique model of humane growth and human flourishing. Each chapter builds on that framework to explore topics central to the transformative self, such as how cultural beliefs of a good life shape our narrative identity; how narrative thinking shapes cultural and personal beliefs of a good life; how cultural master narratives shape our ideals for personal growth; how growth differs from gain, recovery, and other positive changes in the life story; how happiness, love, wisdom, and growth serve as superordinate goods in life; how the hard and soft margins of society thwart and facilitate personal growth; the dark side of growth; and the lengthy development of authenticity and self-actualizing. This book synthesizes scholarship from scientific research across several subfields of psychology to philosophy, literature, history, and cultural studies. It offers a creative and scientifically grounded framework for exploring three of life’s perennial questions: How do we make sense of our lives? What is a good life? and How do we create one?

“It Both Is and Isn’t My Life”

2019 ◽  
pp. 105-118
Author(s):  
Leah Anderst
Keyword(s):  
Life Story ◽  
Affective Response ◽  
Life Writing ◽  
Close Attention ◽  
Emotional Connection ◽  
Theatrical Performance ◽  
Autobiography Studies

From the perspective of autobiography studies and theory, the musical adaptation of Alison Bechdel’s important graphic memoir Fun Home is a fascinating case study. What of one’s life and experiences can one represent in words and in images? How much “fiction” might creep in given the imprecise nature of memory? How can one sign one’s name as the sole author of one’s life story when the often myriad people surrounding one contributed important pieces within one’s life—when all life writing is in fact relational? How, then, do these questions shift, in what new light can we see them, when an autobiographical text is adapted into another medium, by new writers, and performed nightly by actors? In particular, how does the musical and theatrical performance, experienced collectively, communicate experiences and feelings to an audience differently than does a book that one consumes alone? By comparing particular scenes and songs from the musical with their “source” scenes in Bechdel’s graphic memoir, this chapter will explore these questions paying close attention especially to scenes and strategies in each text that seem to call out for affective response and emotional connection from the audience and the reader.

Story and Identity

2020 ◽  
pp. 151-181
Author(s):  
Karen E. Shackleford ◽  
Cynthia Vinney
Keyword(s):  
Identity Construction ◽  
Personal Identity ◽  
Narrative Identity ◽  
Life Stories ◽  
Life Story ◽  
Values And Beliefs ◽  
Insight Into ◽  
The Way

This chapter explores the way fictional stories impact personal identity. It discusses how identity develops with a particular focus on adolescence. Then, it sheds light on how fiction contributes to identity construction as teens gain insight into things like careers, relationships, values, and beliefs through stories and how these insights can impact their choices for their futures. The chapter also looks at the way people’s emotional investments in their favorite stories can cause them to become extensions of themselves and how this may lead them to use these stories as symbols of who they are. Finally, it explores the topic of narrative identity—the internalized, constantly evolving life story each person tells of himself or herself—and how fiction influences and becomes incorporated into people’s life stories.

Not Just a Phase

2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 98-113 ◽  
Author(s):  
Whitney Monaghan
Keyword(s):  
Adolescent Development ◽  
Coming Out ◽  
Linear Models ◽  
Coming Of Age ◽  
New Wave ◽  
Contemporary Cinema

In this article, I seek to interrogate the visibility of queer girls in contemporary cinema. I demonstrate how queerness has long been associated with a passing phase of adolescent development in the teen media sphere. I reflect on the nuanced relationships between queerness and girlhood in four contemporary US independent queer films, arguing that Pariah (2011), Mosquita y Mari (2012), First Girl I Loved (2016), and Princess Cyd (2017) are representative of a new wave of queer girlhood on screen. Rejecting the pervasive tropes of coming out as coming of age and just a phase, these films use queer girlhood to challenge linear models of girlhood.

Development of the Life Story in Early Adolescence

2016 ◽  
Vol 38 (2) ◽  
pp. 125-138 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kristina L. Steiner ◽  
David B. Pillemer
Keyword(s):  
Life Span ◽  
Early Adolescence ◽  
Life Stories ◽  
Developmental Psychology ◽  
Life Story ◽  
Age Groups ◽  
Single Event ◽  
Life Narrative ◽  
Novel Method ◽  
Causal Coherence

Life span developmental psychology proposes that the ability to create a coherent life narrative does not develop until early adolescence. Using a novel methodology, 10-, 12-, and 14-year-old participants were asked to tell their life stories aloud to a researcher. Later, participants separated their transcribed narratives into self-identified chapters. When life stories were assessed with measures of temporal and causal coherence, most participants in all age groups were able to tell a linear and coherent narrative. The 10-year-olds were more likely to start their narratives after birth and to use single event chapters in their stories, but they did not differ significantly from older participants in terms of the coherence or chronology of their chapters. This novel method for analyzing life narratives both supports and extends prior research on the development of life stories in adolescence.

The Seduction of Eve and the Exegetical Politics of Gender

1996 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-39 ◽  
Author(s):  
Reuven Kimelman
Keyword(s):  
Coming Of Age ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
Divine Command ◽  
The Creation ◽  
The Human Condition

AbstractThis reading of the Eve and Adam story focuses on the consequential role of the woman and her linkage to the serpent. Her rapid switch from defender to transgressor of the divine command shows that the idea of disobeying God was not instigated exclusively by the serpent. Since the serpent does not get her to act out of character, he does not function outside of her, but provides a rationale for her to extend previous inklings. This function of the serpent is based on the differences between the original divine command and her rendering. It is supported by the reader's awareness that her Hebrew name Havva sounds like its cognates hivyah and hivvah which mean serpent and speech, respectively. The talking serpent becomes the inner Eve. Thus, the story is not one of humanity coming of age but a parable of the human condition. Our heroine is nothing less than Every(wo)man. Her representative status explains why the story features both woman and serpent, why the serpent talks specifically to woman, why of all the ancient epics of origins Genesis alone gives the creation of woman separate billing, and why Genesis underscores the commonality between man and woman. By highlighting the significance of the woman, this reading makes for the remarkable combination of authoritarian theology and egalitarian anthropology.

Fate, Memory, and the Postcolonial Construction of the Self: The Life-Narrative of a Vietnamese Spirit Medium

2008 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 34-65 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kirsten W. Endres
Keyword(s):  
Life History ◽  
Lived Experiences ◽  
Life Story ◽  
Narrative Research ◽  
The Self ◽  
Life Narrative ◽  
Cultural Concepts ◽  
Dialogic Process ◽  
Multiple Discourses

Life-history and narrative research have a long tradition as insightful methods in anthropology. This article presents the life-story of an elderly Hanoian spirit medium who does not conform to dominant ideals of Vietnamese femininity, exploring how cultural concepts and religious imageries shape female notions of fate and agency. By applying Bakhtin's concept of dialogism, the analysis illustrates how the creative act of self-narrative interweaves with multiple discourses in a dialogic process that tries to make sense of historical contingencies, culturally prescribed ideals, and the lived experiences of the self.

Why isn't faith a work? An examination of Protestant answers

2015 ◽  
Vol 68 (2) ◽  
pp. 201-217
Author(s):  
Mats Wahlberg
Keyword(s):  
Present Article ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
Union With Christ ◽  
Inherent Property ◽  
The Reformation ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Law

AbstractProtestant critique of the Catholic idea of inherent righteousness has, since the time of the Reformation, given rise to counter-questions about the status of faith in Protestant theology. Is faith a human condition for justification (that is, a human act or inherent property which is necessary for justification), and why should not faith in that case be counted as a kind of work? Many Protestant theologians, however, view it as very important to dissociate faith from works. This article examines a number of Protestant attempts to explain why faith is not a work. The examined explanations rely on a number of ideas, for example, that faith is not a work because faith is a gift of God, or because faith is non-voluntary, or because faith is not a condition of justification, or because faith does not merit justification, or because faith is union with Christ. The problem with many of these Protestant answers to the question of why faith is not a work is that they can equally well be used to explain why the supernatural virtue of love is not a work. The Reformers, however, strongly associated love with ‘works of the law’, and wanted to keep love out of the doctrine of justification. For Protestants who share this view of love, the present article poses a challenge. Is it possible to dissociate faith from works without at the same time dissociating love from works, thereby legitimising the Tridentine understanding of justification? The author concludes that this is indeed possible, but only if an important identity marker for much Protestant theology is given up, namely the purely forensic understanding of the doctrine of justification.

scholarly journals Self-Defining Memories, Scripts, and the Life Story: Narrative Identity in Personality and Psychotherapy

2013 ◽  
Vol 81 (6) ◽  
pp. 569-582 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jefferson A. Singer ◽  
Pavel Blagov ◽  
Meredith Berry ◽  
Kathryn M. Oost
Keyword(s):  
Narrative Identity ◽  
Life Story
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