The Limits of Autobiography

Memoirs in which trauma takes a major -- or the major -- role challenge the limits of autobiography. Leigh Gilmore presents a series of "limit-cases" -- texts that combine elements of autobiography, fiction, biography, history, and theory while representing trauma and the self -- and demonstrates how and why their authors swerve from the formal constraints of autobiography when the representation of trauma coincides with self-representation. Gilmore maintains that conflicting demands on both the self and narrative may prompt formal experimentation by such writers and lead to texts that are not, strictly speaking, autobiography, but are nonetheless deeply engaged with its central concerns.

In astute and compelling readings of texts by Michel Foucault, Louis Althusser, Dorothy Allison, Mikal Gilmore, Jamaica Kincaid, and Jeanette Winterson, Gilmore explores how each of them poses the questions, "How have I lived? How will I live?" in relation to the social and psychic forms within which trauma emerges. Challenging the very boundaries of autobiography as well as

Acknowledgments

ix

Introduction The Limits of Autobiography

1

(15)

Represent Yourself

16

(29)

Bastard Testimony: Illegitimacy and Incest in Dorothy Allison's Bastard Out of Carolina

45

(26)

There Will Always Be a Father: Transference and the Auto/biographical Demand in Mikal Gilmore's Shot in the Heart

71

(25)

There Will Always Be a Mother: Jamaica Kincaid's Serial Autobiography

96

(24)

Without Names: An Anatomy of Absence in Jeanette Winterson's Written on the Body

120

(23)

Conclusion The Knowing Subject and an Alternative Jurisprudence of Trauma

143

(6)

Bibliography

149

(8)

Index

157

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The Limits of Autobiography

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The Limits of Autobiography

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