Participants will learn about life writing with a focus on religious, gender, and cultural identities in the United States. They will engage with different graphic novel and memoir writing. Presentation groups will each choose one of the the following memoirs to analyze according to Julia Watson and Sidonie Smith's Toolkit for interpreting autobiographical texts: Maus (1980) by Art Spielmann, Funny in Farsi: A Memoir of Growing Up Iranian in America (2003) by Firoozeh DuMas, Growing up Amish (2011) by Ira Wagler, Unorthodox: The Scandalous Rejection of My Hasidic Roots (2012) by Deborah Feldman, and Educated: A Memoir by Tara Westover (2018).
Also, students will acquire a range of skills and techniques to produce their own life writing texts. Therefore, this seminar combines theoretical foundations with practical application. We all have a story to tell. What's yours?
- Teacher: Sabrina Völz