ENG 2091 Contemporary Women's Memoirs
This course examines the significance of the memoir?a first-person account of a portion of one?s life, often written by a person not otherwise famous?in late-twentieth- and early-twenty-first-century literature in English by women. Students will examine the relationship between memoir and the genre of the novel, as well as (in the case of graphic-format memoirs) between text and image. Memoirists will include Alison Bechdel, Alexandra Fuller, Lucy Grealy, Ann Patchett, Marjane Satrapi, and Lauren Slater; theorists will include G. Thomas Couser, Carolyn Heilbrun, and Ben Yagoda. This course is designed to develop students? intermediate-level skills in critically analyzing and writing about literature both comparatively and in context, while also reinforcing students? fundamental skills in analytical reading and writing. Key assignments will include a comparative essay about two memoirs and a contextual essay that applies relevant theory and knowledge of history and tradition to the original analysis of a contemporary memoir.